![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don't know if you could call it a breakthrough - I don't think I've been in therapy long enough to have those. Maybe it was just a realization. I have no sense of self-worth, no intrinsic value, unless I am doing something to validate my existence. To me, just working isn't nearly enough to prove that worthiness.
I think part of my self-worth issues come from the fact that everyone I had as a care-giver, my parents, my sisters, my cousin, & my aunt & uncle, made it perfectly clear that I was a burden and the only reason they provided me with a place to live & food to eat, was because of some sense of family obligation.
No one actually wanted me when I was a child or a teen-ager. I was just this person for whom they had to provide a minimum level of care.
When I was very little, I was always under the impression that school was my value. I had to provide top grades in order to validate my existence to my parents. I learned to read & write before I entered kindergarten because, even at 3 or 4, I knew I was an unwanted burden. Of course, trying to please my parents with my book-smarts & intelligence at an early age was fruitless. No matter how smart I was, I still had no value. With my cousin, she didn't really care how smart I was - I had to be good at sports. I failed at that, so I had to clean the house. No matter how clean that fucking apartment was, it didn't matter. With Jody and Terry it was the same shit. I became babysitter, housekeeper, cook & confidante... to no avail. Going back to my dad, by the time I went back to my dad, even trying to get involved in extracurricular activities wasn't enough to make me worth anything. In fact, my trying to excel in school became more of a burden and a pain in the ass to keep up.
With friends, there were different types of obligations instead of burdens. I always provided the transportation or entertainment or spending money. I was the gift-giver, the one who always came to the rescue, the secret-keeper. When I stopped being able to do things, or got tired of being used, the 'friends' drifted away.
I realized last night that one of the reasons I'm with Rob is because he has never given me a sense that I am a burden to him, nor does he make me feel like I'm obligated to do anything at all. I don't have to clean the house, provide child care (being child-free helps enormously) - he cleans the snake tanks & gives them fresh water, he spends the majority of the time w/Chelsie, if I didn't want to cook we could eat out every day, I don't even have to fuck him... just me being around & being a decent person to him is enough. His love for me isn't necessarily unconditional - if it was, I could be mean to him, but I don't feel like he's just taking care of me because he has to. I asked him last night, mainly because learned behavioral patterns tend to perpetuate, if I've made him feel like he's a burden or an obligation & so far I haven't. Rob also lets me know all the time that he appreciates what I do for him.
I think it all ties into why I'm a slightly recovering workaholic, too. Since I have no intrinsic value or worth, and I'm too tired to keep up political activism and rampant volunteerism, I get my sense of self-worth from work. I've always got to go above & beyond my job expectations in order to feel valuable to a company. It's never mattered if I received acknowledgement or even thanks for it. It's nice when it happens (and I have to admit, the peeps at the Excalibur have never failed to let me know they appreciate my sense of responsibility or going above & beyond - it's nice to work with people who take notice, even if you don't like your job), but I'd do it because I have to do it for my peace of mind. Part of what was so hard about the DA's office was because I felt useless. Absolutely, positively useless. It wasn't entirely my fault - the job expectations weren't made clear to me when they hired me, bad things happened when the case management project failed, and my boss had her own issues to work out.
Thinking these things yesterday explained to me why, more than anything else, I feel miserable when I have nothing to do. If I go to an event, I want to be part of the clean-up or set-up crew, I'd rather work in the kitchen than sit & eat, I arrive early & leave late to make sure things go smoothly. I can't stand it when the work break room is messy, & I pick up trash from the casino floor, even though I'm actually transgressing against Union policies by performing someone else's job. I log into the guest services phones & help answer calls. I'll go work on the desk & do the audit at the same time if they're short-staffed.
It also explains why I've stopped doing things, even things I enjoy. They give me no worth, they don't up my value as a human doing... they didn't make me feel better when I was doing them and even though I feel worse now that I've stopped doing so much I'm resistant to starting anything up again. Making new friends means dealing with obligations. Trying to do things with my family means being reminded of how cumbersome and how much of a burden I am just to be around.
I think part of my self-worth issues come from the fact that everyone I had as a care-giver, my parents, my sisters, my cousin, & my aunt & uncle, made it perfectly clear that I was a burden and the only reason they provided me with a place to live & food to eat, was because of some sense of family obligation.
No one actually wanted me when I was a child or a teen-ager. I was just this person for whom they had to provide a minimum level of care.
When I was very little, I was always under the impression that school was my value. I had to provide top grades in order to validate my existence to my parents. I learned to read & write before I entered kindergarten because, even at 3 or 4, I knew I was an unwanted burden. Of course, trying to please my parents with my book-smarts & intelligence at an early age was fruitless. No matter how smart I was, I still had no value. With my cousin, she didn't really care how smart I was - I had to be good at sports. I failed at that, so I had to clean the house. No matter how clean that fucking apartment was, it didn't matter. With Jody and Terry it was the same shit. I became babysitter, housekeeper, cook & confidante... to no avail. Going back to my dad, by the time I went back to my dad, even trying to get involved in extracurricular activities wasn't enough to make me worth anything. In fact, my trying to excel in school became more of a burden and a pain in the ass to keep up.
With friends, there were different types of obligations instead of burdens. I always provided the transportation or entertainment or spending money. I was the gift-giver, the one who always came to the rescue, the secret-keeper. When I stopped being able to do things, or got tired of being used, the 'friends' drifted away.
I realized last night that one of the reasons I'm with Rob is because he has never given me a sense that I am a burden to him, nor does he make me feel like I'm obligated to do anything at all. I don't have to clean the house, provide child care (being child-free helps enormously) - he cleans the snake tanks & gives them fresh water, he spends the majority of the time w/Chelsie, if I didn't want to cook we could eat out every day, I don't even have to fuck him... just me being around & being a decent person to him is enough. His love for me isn't necessarily unconditional - if it was, I could be mean to him, but I don't feel like he's just taking care of me because he has to. I asked him last night, mainly because learned behavioral patterns tend to perpetuate, if I've made him feel like he's a burden or an obligation & so far I haven't. Rob also lets me know all the time that he appreciates what I do for him.
I think it all ties into why I'm a slightly recovering workaholic, too. Since I have no intrinsic value or worth, and I'm too tired to keep up political activism and rampant volunteerism, I get my sense of self-worth from work. I've always got to go above & beyond my job expectations in order to feel valuable to a company. It's never mattered if I received acknowledgement or even thanks for it. It's nice when it happens (and I have to admit, the peeps at the Excalibur have never failed to let me know they appreciate my sense of responsibility or going above & beyond - it's nice to work with people who take notice, even if you don't like your job), but I'd do it because I have to do it for my peace of mind. Part of what was so hard about the DA's office was because I felt useless. Absolutely, positively useless. It wasn't entirely my fault - the job expectations weren't made clear to me when they hired me, bad things happened when the case management project failed, and my boss had her own issues to work out.
Thinking these things yesterday explained to me why, more than anything else, I feel miserable when I have nothing to do. If I go to an event, I want to be part of the clean-up or set-up crew, I'd rather work in the kitchen than sit & eat, I arrive early & leave late to make sure things go smoothly. I can't stand it when the work break room is messy, & I pick up trash from the casino floor, even though I'm actually transgressing against Union policies by performing someone else's job. I log into the guest services phones & help answer calls. I'll go work on the desk & do the audit at the same time if they're short-staffed.
It also explains why I've stopped doing things, even things I enjoy. They give me no worth, they don't up my value as a human doing... they didn't make me feel better when I was doing them and even though I feel worse now that I've stopped doing so much I'm resistant to starting anything up again. Making new friends means dealing with obligations. Trying to do things with my family means being reminded of how cumbersome and how much of a burden I am just to be around.
