I Blame The Parents!

We are all products of our upbringing.  The experiences we have, shape who we become.  I learned many good things when I was growing up; I also learned some bad things.


I believe my mother taught me Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, for example.  Admittedly, I think I was already touched with the crazy stick, but looking back I can see how she reinforced repetition of behaviour.  When I was growing up, my mother used to smoke (as in cigarettes, not just smoke coming out of her like Fenella Fielding in Carry on Screaming).  Before we could go to bed on a night, she would have us checking the sofa to make sure there was not a burning ember lurking that would cause us all to be burned to death while we slept.  It may sound like a small safety precaution, but I mean we actually had to take the sofa seat cushions out and check every nook and cranny.  Given that at age five I was a minor arsonist who stole matches from the kitchen and set fire to the grass over the road, I was probably not the best person to ask to do a fire safety check...

My father taught me to be an underachiever and then later in life an overachiever as I rebellled.  Nothing I ever did was good enough for my father.  The first criticism I can remember was concerning my painting of a windowsill; it was the first time I had ever painted anything other than a picture of a house and I was only six at the time.  I discovered that gloss paint in the 70s was nothing like the waterbased paints we used at school.  Eventually the criticism was enough to make me give up trying to succeed in anything as I always seemed to be a disappointment.  This attitude eventually went to it's polar opposite when I was in my early 20s and I became an overachiever after accidentally discovering I was good at things, like sewing and baking.  I then went from not caring if I pleased my family to trying to please everyone all of the time - something that has taken me another 20 years and two nervous breakdowns to give up on. 

I now live be the words that my great aunt said to me so many times, "You can't please all of the people all of the time...so please yourself".  It has, however, taken me the two afforementioned breakdowns and 20 years of therapy to see the benefit of what she told me for years.

None of the above is meant in a negative way against those people who have influenced my life - without all of them, I would not be the person I am now...and for the very first time in my life I can actually say that I like me.