I think my whole life I've been chasing the high of feeling special.

 The earliest evidence of this was when I was a child in elementary school.  Every year near the beginning of the school year, the teacher did something to show/display when everyone had their birthday.  And every year I waited with baited breath, to see if I would be the one whose birthday was first in the year, or if someone else had a birthday before me.
I remember in second grade there was a girl whose birthday was the day right after mine, and even that felt too close.  She felt like the enemy.  How dare she try to upstage my birthday, by having hers the day after mine!

Every time someone pointed out I was unique, every time someone praised me for standing out, for excelling above others, even for the skills and talents I acquired (most of those are credited to my mom, who pushed for us to have opportunities to learn things), I, for just a moment, felt elated.  I glowed within.  I got an A+ in being different, in being special.  I was noticed in a positive way.

I'm pretty sure chasing that feeling, wanting to feel special, like I mattered in some way, was driven by growing up as the youngest child in a large family, who was often either overlooked or ignored unless I was misbehaving, in which case, I definitely got attention.  But the negative kind.  The kind that felt like I was being punished for existing (even though I was rightly being punished, because I was doing wrong).

When will I ever feel enough?

I remember back in May of last year when I travelled to Idaho to shoot the wedding of one of my best friends.  I got there a few days early to explore and hike around the area.  At one point I met up with my friend, because it had been years since we had been together in person, and we both wanted to catch up.  After we parted ways, I sent her a text thanking her for spending time with me, and admitting that my existence felt like an inconvenience to everyone.  She responded saying "your existence is not an inconvenience.  It's a gift."  I remember reading those words (I was hiking when she texted them to me), and feeling...well...nothing.  I wanted to believe her.  With my whole heart I wanted to believe her.  Instead, I read those words - I was grateful she sent them - and while they did hit me for a split second, I went right back to thinking the same thoughts.

My existence is an inconvenience.

Several months ago I went hiking with a new friend.  On our way back from the hike, she and I were talking about something I had been assigned as homework by my therapist.  I told my friend that I didn't think I was enough, and my therapist had challenged me to look for ways that proved otherwise.  A couple weeks later, my friend and I were working together, and she told me she had something for me.  At the end of our shift, she gave me a sticker.  It said "you are enough."  I felt so seen by her in that moment.  She had heard what I said, she saw that sticker, she bought it and gifted it to me.  She wanted me to see that I was enough.

I don't feel like I'm enough.

In the past couple of months, in one of my sessions with my therapist she told me "I think the way you love is very rare."  When she said that, at first I felt pleased.  I felt special.  Something rare about me!  Something others don't have in common.  But on the drive back to my apartment, I went from feeling pleased, to adding that fact to the list of things I hate about myself.  

Rarely in my life have I ever felt like being me is a good thing.

Growing up, being me got me in trouble.  So I smothered, I drowned, I suffocated as much of myself as I could, not feeling, hardly existing, so I could get through life.  I survived, but growth of emotions, of mental health, of maturity was stunted in a lot of ways.
Then I met the man I eventually married.  In the beginning, he told me I was unlike any woman he had ever known; that I was the measuring point of what all women should strive to be.  He told me he cared about me, and he didn't know why, because he didn't care about most people.  That made me feel special.  Even more, I felt cared for and cared about, things I hadn't ever really experienced previously, at least not in large quantities.  So I was myself with him.  And that earned me criticism.  It also earned me eventually being abandoned by him.

Being me has, overall, not proven to be an advantage.

I know a large part of not liking myself, not feeling like I'm enough, or feeling like my existence is an inconvenience is due to the way I grew up.  And due to the way people who I allowed to have major influence in my life treated me.  So the majority of all these things were outside of my control.

But I'm an adult now.  I cannot go back and change the past, nor can I change the way people treat(ed) me.  At this point, it's my responsibility to change and grow and be different.
But how?  How do you change that?  How do you go from spending your whole life not liking yourself (to eventually hating yourself), and shift to liking who you are instead?  How do you learn to feel like you are enough?  Like you deserve to take up space?  That you aren't an inconvenience?

It feels impossible.  It feels like a mountain too big to climb.  A task too large to take on, much less accomplish.

But...will I ever be free?  Will I ever feel like I'm enough?  Like I'm wanted?  I don't know.  I don't have enough hope to say "someday."  I suppose only time will tell.