By: Revanche

An ongoing conversation: opening old wounds and self examination

August 17, 2021

Nicole and Maggie got me thinking about why it is that I keep running down my academic history. They referred to them as achievements, actually, but when I started writing, I caught myself saying they weren’t achievements. It’s a long-running habit, I now realize. But why?

As an Asian and an immigrant’s kid, I was expected to work my butt off and be academically competitive. We had to do better than our parents so we could support ourselves, and then support them in their old age. That was the script, no questions asked. I did well enough until middle school. Going into high school, school got tougher. When I compared myself to most of my high school friends and peers, I didn’t even come close to their level of smarts and I always felt that difference even though no one treated each other differently over academics. While there were certainly small groups that were academically cutthroat, they were the exception, not the rule. That wasn’t my friends or our wider circles. They no more commented on my academics than I did to my friends who weren’t in the Honors track. It was simply not an issue. We didn’t have any nerd v jock dichotomy in our circles, either. Everyone was a bit of some combination of interests. We were honors students and athletes. We overlapped in band, orchestra, choir, sports (competitive and not), student government, yearbook and volunteerism. One of my best friends was in a completely different academic track and I view her accomplishments with respect. But not mine.

The same goes for college: we went to anywhere from community colleges to state colleges to Ivies. No one had any opinion on anyone else’s alma mater, aside from the (mostly joking) USC / UCLA rivalry. But the fact that I didn’t apply to a selective college, that I was not willing to put myself out there for the expected rejections, and that I mostly approached the process like a hermit crab trying to just keep in my shell to protect myself? I think I’m still ashamed of that. I’m still ashamed that I wasn’t willing to even try applying to a “better” school. So I put myself down. I diminish the very hard work that I put into college once I got there. I diminish the fact that I was able to graduate in four years from a good school where graduating in five years wasn’t uncommon. I diminish the fact that I managed that even while working double time at one job and holding two additional jobs.

This is very much an internal problem.

There are a few patterns in my life that we’ve identified in therapy and one of them is a deeply ingrained habit of devaluing myself. I think it follows this path: If I put myself down first, then no one else can hurt me by thinking less of me. If I don’t take pride in my achievements because they aren’t as good as anyone else’s, then if I’m judged for my “poor” performance, it won’t hurt as much.

I remember the times my parents pushed me to try harder. At the time I resented the fact that they didn’t appreciate what I HAD gotten right. That they didn’t recognize any of what I had done well first before criticizing. Over time, instead of feeling motivated to do better, I internalized the message that nothing I did was good enough, that nothing I had already achieved was worth anything. If I “only” scored 1450 on my SATs, then all we should see is that gap between 1450 to 1600, we shouldn’t see the 1450 as being worthy of pride. We should not see the 1450 at all, we only see the gap. We only see what’s missing. We only see the “minus”, not the A that precedes it. I don’t think the pushing was necessarily a bad thing, but I think the fact that they were ONLY there to push and never there to celebrate any successes taught me that my successes weren’t worth celebrating. I never questioned why other people celebrated their wins, I always questioned why PiC wanted to celebrate mine. Why? I’m SUPPOSED to do this. I’m SUPPOSED to get the raise, the promotion, the new good job, the … whatever. I’m only meeting expectations, if that.

It’s hard to write this because it means I have to remember that hurt from when I still thought I was worth something. I don’t like to remember the hurt. There’s a reason I put it away deep down! My coping mechanism was to shut it away and pretend that it didn’t hurt. Not just shut it away, I even pretended that I too was on board the All Improvement All The Time No Pride Until You’re Perfect Train. The irony of this blog’s name does not escape me in this moment of vulnerability. But it keeps resurfacing in all kinds of ways, so it’s time to realize that I did feel hurt and I did wish that I could just have been good enough.  

This leads me to remembering how my parents always told me they loved me, and I believed them, but that created an unbearable cognitive dissonance between believing that my dad loved me and his actions which were selfish and abused my trust. He never showed up for me and if he did, like my middle school graduation, he wouldn’t even stay until the end. He only used me for his own gain, no matter how much hurt for how little gain. That dissonance was too much. Around 2006, I said that I stopped trusting adults because of him and my brother. The truth may be that I actually lost faith long before. Worse, I lost faith in my own worth because he continually showed me that I had no value unless and until I was doing something productive for him. Heck, he continued to “prove” this because the moment the money stopped, I stopped existing for him. The only time he’s tried to contact me since we went no-contact was, *drumroll please* to get me to do something to get him money. It has been complete radio silence before and after that. While I don’t have any desire to speak to him, because I don’t think he’s sorry for what he did or would change his ways, the silence also reinforces the belief that if I’m not the Bank, I’m nothing.

I stopped believing that I had value, I stopped believing that I was worthy. I could only trust that I had value to someone else if the relationships were transactional and it was clear that the other person needed me for something.

PiC recently commented that he thought my relationship with our late friend was closer than his and theirs. I replied that our friend, wanted a willing ear and an IT person and I love hearing stories and need a job to do to feel valued so it was a good match. I cared about him as a person, regardless of his stories and his jobs, but the notion that I could have had any value to him outside of what I did for him? Nah. When our neighbors ask us for small favors, it makes me happy to have the transactional scale tilted “in our favor” as if they’re keeping track. I don’t know if they are. Do people do that? I deeply felt Jody Hauser’s tweet: “Social anxiety feels a lot like all of your relationships with other people are conditional/contractual, but you aren’t allowed to read or even know anything about the Terms of Service.” This. So much.

I feel like much like Terry Pratchett’s Nutt. I have to earn, and prove, my worth because I don’t know why else people would have me around. It’s exhausting.

Obviously there are exceptions. My relationship with PiC is pretty balanced and trusting now but it was tough in the beginning, particularly with certain relatives having the audacity to presume that I was a golddigger. Even now I struggle with the core drive to prove myself. He occasionally catches me pushing myself beyond my strength, which sometimes I do to punish myself when I feel like I’ve fallen short, and reminds me “you don’t have to do anything to have worth.” It’s striking that I can say and believe that about animals, tiny humans, big humans, etc but I can’t for myself yet.

It’s a process. This is part of the process. I have to learn to see when I’m reinforcing the pattern, and then practice being more generous with myself.  It’s wildly uncomfortable but it’s necessary.

:: Have you identified life or behavioral patterns that you’d like to change?