When the desire to please runs up against the inability to do so

So, our internet was down most of the week, and since I do most of the work on this on my laptop, I haven’t done much on this at all.

Anyway, the time away from posting really gave me an opportunity to think about where I went so very, very, VERY wrong in many areas of my life. Because, if I’m honest, there is no rational reason why this is so. I didn’t grow up in an abusive household, my parents (and grandparents) were all about “you can do anything”, I have the ability to learn easily and retain information pretty well, and I grew up in a white middle-class family.

HOWEVER, I somewhere got it into my head that it was my job to keep everyone happy. I even managed to somewhat do that for about 18 years, until it was time to apply to college/university. Now, as the oldest, I was kind of the “experimental” child… which means that my folks were a bit on the protective side with me more so than (it appeared) with the younger kids. Which meant that they did NOT think it was a good idea for me to run off to Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) to live on my own. And I was SO READY to be on my own.

Looking back, I now realize that it had very little to do with me. But, at the time, this is the story I came up with: “What’s the point of being top of my class if I can’t do what I want to?” Which led to: “I’m DONE trying to make you people happy! Whatever I do isn’t good enough, so why bother?” Short version – if I’m not good enough, I’m not going to try.

So, I became a chronic underachiever… ’cause that really showed everyone, didn’t it? (In spite of all that “good girl” training, I’ve always had a bit of a contrarian streak.) I became almost an anti-people-pleaser… seeing how much crap I could “get away with”. It was like I was daring people to say something about my random lapses in adult behavior. And then I’d get hurt and mad when they did bring it up.

Now, there is a lot more to the story (things about what I thought girls should do and how what I really wanted to do with my life wasn’t an acceptable use of my gifts)… but I’m not putting that stuff online. At least not today. I’d love to discuss it with you in person, though. If you’d like to hear more of the rest of the story and tell me yours, let’s set up a time to chat. Email me (dangereuse@femmefataleover50.com) and we’ll schedule something.