When you feel like you are never enough, dealing with criticisms can be difficult. Any suggestion of a fault can be hard to handle. Corrective suggestions about my grammar recently sent me into a tornado of emotions.
Throughout my childhood and early adult life my mother told me, over and over, that I was never enough and not worthy of her love. This has left me with a hole in my soul which I am trying to repair. I have sticky notes around my house telling me; I am enough, I am worthy, I deserve love, and more. Four years of therapy have helped me to realise my mother was wrong.
However, one person’s opinion can still throw me back to the 1990s and my world as a worthless child. No one intends to trigger me, I know that. It is not their fault it makes me feel this way. But I do.
I need to learn my triggers and try not to let it not happen. But this is harder than it sounds. Especially when someone close to me, someone I care about, is the one giving me feedback. I want them to think the best of me, so I have to not show weakness or imperfection. Or they might not love me, like my mum.
It might not seem logical, it isn’t, but to me not being perfect is a slippery slope to people leaving me as I am not enough. People leave. People decide they do not like me or love me anymore. They find out that thing my mum saw from the beginning. The thing that stopped her being able to love me as she should.
In this case I felt I was trying to help. Swooping in on my white horse in rescuer mode, helping when someone asked. Instead of feeling appreciated I felt deflated as my work was criticised. They had every right to make suggestions for corrections, it wasn’t really a criticism. Yet it felt so personal to me.
Of course, in therapy I have addressed this. My mind knows my premise is not true, I am not defective, I do not need to be perfect. However, in the moment my brain goes haywire first. How do you control those impulses? When will my mind learn? How do you stop being a perfectionist? Just because we have gone through it int herapy does not mean I truely believe it, yet.
This I think is one of the biggest problems with childhood abuse, it programs your brain differently from such a young age. Scientists tell us that the brain is malleable and it can create new pathways. So, there is hope for my brain and yours, but trust me this is hard to do. I will keep working on it, to keep myself sane in this mental world.
My life in a mental world 
I love reading your posts—they remind me of what I need to do to get better since my mental health is on shaky ground ever since I was triggered over the holidays.
Although I suffer from different traumatic childhood experiences than you did, I relate to so much of what you discuss in this blog. You’re brilliant. That’s the only “critique” I have for you. 😉 Xo
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Being triggered is the worst, the logical brain seems to shut down and emotions take over and rule everything. I have been there often far more than I would like and when I am on the edge it takes very little to push me over. I know this post is about me and what happened last night. I had no intention of triggering you and logically I think you know that. I tried my best to stay calm trying to be in my healthy adult. I knew you were having a tough time, I thought that supporting you in person was a priority and I just wanted the best for you and didn’t want people interpreting a review thinking the person was dead. The bitch of this situation was that I was triggered right back and so was unable to hold it together. Our triggers are so similar it is difficult not to set each other off.
I love you regardless.
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