I’m not good enough. That pervasive, not-specific-to-any-event feeling of inadequacy appears, for me, at the most inopportune times. Does this happen to anyone else? Sometimes for me, it hides behind a case of imposter syndrome. But I’m more plainspoken and this was more than imposter syndrome. This time it was a force that spun me to the past and said, authoritatively, “Look! You aren’t GOOD enough!! You aren’t ENOUGH! Not good enough THEN (provides proof via flashbacks, spins me to the present) and NOT enough NOW! Fool,” it scoffed.

The voice is right in a visceral, tangible way. The voice is also wrong, but the problem is the wrongness is not as apparent as the rightness. I have proof of the rightness. I don’t have proof of the wrongness. I feel like I ‘have to’ say that the voice is wrong because that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to say when someone (or some voice) talks smack. But sometimes…I don’t really feel that way. I agree with that voice because I am a realist. And what I see is the tangible proof of rightness, and lack of proof of wrongness. And I don’t know how to let that go.

The tangible proof of the voice’s right-ness hurts; an actual physical pain right near where my heart is anatomically located.

This is a really hard thing to write about. I’ve never talked about it with anyone. I can’t. I’m afraid it will sound too much like I am fishing for compliments or assurance or something. I’m not. At least I don’t think I am. I want organic admiration; not because someone thinks I want to hear it, or need it, or to make me feel better.

I just want a damn hug. No words. Maybe someone who understands how this feels and can tell me that. There really is some assurance in simple physical contact.

Sometimes I wonder if I would feel better if I found out whether I was, in fact, “good enough” or “enough” or maybe, just maybe, “too much.” How do you even ask such a question, or begin that conversation? There is no way that I can come up with that feels comfortable for me. It’s an exquisite agony, this ‘need-to-know-wait-don’t-tell-me’ feeling.

I will never have an answer. Never know for sure. Therefore this ugly feeling will return. And I will once again drown in this whirlpool of not-good-enough-ness….