This is a chapter from “Unpacking” – page 20
That inadequate feeling…
I’m fed up of feeling inadequate… Fuck what does that even mean? The word inadequate suggests that I’m in fact equating myself to something; I don’t even know what that thing is, so how can I be not it? It’s a frustrating human thing we all do; we measure ourselves up against shit that isn’t real or even measurable. So now I have to work out what my metric value system is and what I’m not equating to so I can ensure that my emotional suffering is actually worth the effort and time I give it to thrive.
When I was younger my inadequacies were centred around not being cool enough, I was at times a quiet kid, at times a complete loon and at times just going through the motions, so was pretty much “in neutral”. I’d look at the other kids and wish I fitted in with them, with no real idea why I felt that way. I didn’t have any actual evidence to suggest that perhaps they didn’t want me to fit it, I just felt that way. Inadequate! And so that was the card I played. I can see now how those behaviours have stuck, and yet perhaps a variety of reasons, I’m still playing the same cards, from the same deck I had as a child.
As I turned into a teenager my inadequacies morphed into things like: I’m not pretty enough. I’ve never felt like a pretty girl, so instead of actually try- ing to improve that I dressed down, never wore makeup and really worked on that emotion. It’s almost as though I took the concept of how I thought I looked and multiplied it by ten.
As an adult, I still feel most like myself when I’m wearing my blundestone boots, a pair of knackered old jean shorts and a singlet with no make up, a cap on and sunnies to hide my eyes. I have massaged my internal dialogue about the idea of “I’m not pretty” to mold myself into who I am today. It has taken 42 years for me to concede that I do look nice in a dress (sometimes with boots), and that wearing makeup (albeit only a smidgen) does actually look nice and to accept that when I bother to go and get my hair done at the hairdressers I look remarkably less like a hooker with overgrown roots and bushy eyebrows.
When I travelled as a 20 year old I was comfortable and warm inside my skin by then so the inadequate monster metamorphosed from I’m not pretty enough into ‘I’m not hippie enough’. A lot of people who travelled in the late 90’s tried really hard to be ‘alternative’. With their dreadlocks, slightly sun kissed features, baggy cotton pants and worn out singlets that could probably fall off at the tiniest of flicks – that somehow looked great on them and made me look like I’d been dragged through a bush backwards. They had tattoos or henna adorning their bodies and carried cool satchels and they walked like they were floating. They owned their stature and other “cool” beings flocked to their sides “needing” to soak up their obviously alluring energies. Ugh!!
The concept of trying hard at something never even occurred to me. I knew I’d look like a fucking fool in that get up so in true Angie fashion, I didn’t even bother. I had given up any notion of actually feeling like I belonged to any- where or anything, and just got on with life inside my own shell. But, deter- mined not to stay stuck inside one stationary shell forever, I decided to become a hermit crab. I’d take my unpretty formless body and relocate it (without decoration or modification) into a new location and see how my inadequacies faired in the new place for a bit. Sometimes I’d be fine for ages, sometimes the shell would scratch or hurt, sometimes it had too many parts that pinched and I’d leave that shell and locate another one that felt easier. So always in search of this elusive ‘right fit’, I’ve been wandering the planet trying to see where I might belong without ever actually trying to fit into anything.
When children came along the “I’m not a good enough mum” demon popped her head up to say G’day and as soon as she did, I hit ‘Struggle Town’. A depression seeped into my mind and everything got dark for a while. Despite being reassured by so many people that I was a good mum – I’d question it.
Trying to run a full-time marketing business from home with five staff and look after two babies under 18 months was in itself a massive challenge, but I thought I should be able to handle all that, and then some. How wrong I was. If I had conceded defeat and put my hand up and said “help” things may be different today. Instead I harboured deep seeds of resentment. Par- ticularly towards those ‘yummy mummies’ whose lives seemed to gush with ease, and to my husband, despite his numerous and unwavering attempts to help steer me towards doing things for myself. Even my employees who just came to work and swanned in and out without the pressure of having to keep the business afloat amidst dirty nappies and sleepless nights. I was turning myself into a wreck and it was all self created.
Failing to move past the childhood feelings of not fitting in, followed by the teenage angst of ‘not pretty enough’, then the traveler version of myself being not hip enough, and finally convincing myself I was not the worlds greatest mum, I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and I kept it all to myself in a glass jar. The thing about glass jars is that you can see through them. Everyone did and my emotion was clearly etched on my face – I was turning into ‘Angry Angie’. I’d play the sarcastic bitch card, alongside the nonchalant “I don’t really care what people think of me” card whilst wearing my “this is who I am and if you don’t like it fuck off outfit” everyday.
As a result I’d repel people. Sure I’d have some friends but mostly they’d come and go. I’ve noticed that people “like” me but a lot of people don’t really want me to be their friend so I don’t get invited to much, they seem to steer away from me and I’m not surprised I’ve made myself into the person I am, but I had a choice.
Life is full of choices and I have carved myself into who I am. I could have tried to fit in at school, but I didn’t. Instead of avoiding the shops and girlee trips my friend Sarah used to try to drag me on, I could have embraced them and tried the clothes on, let her do my hair and makeup and taught myself to feel “prettier” but I didn’t. When I travelled, I could have morphed myself into whomever I felt like, to try and “find myself” by getting outside of my skin, but I didn’t. Instead I just wandered aimlessly around the world look- ing at life through my normal coloured glasses and seeing what there was to see. When kids came I could have joined the mothers’ group and shared my parental stresses with other women, I could have made like-minded friends. Instead I saw them as annoying and quite frankly I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than go to a ‘mothers group’ (ugh!). I went to one group once knowing that I’d hate it, hey and guess what I did – I hated it, because I told myself to hate it. Fucking idiot – honestly.
Now as a mum of two beautiful boys who have thankfully not been too scarred by my inability to try new things and be a little bubblier, I can see that I’m still making some dumb mistakes. I want to acknowledge these and move past them instead of bottling them up and building a case against myself and making myself feel like I’d be better off if I didn’t exist.
See no one cares if I don’t fit in, apart from me, no one cares that I don’t feel pretty, apart from me, no one gives a shit if I am hip, only me and no one cares if I am a marginally better Mum because most people see me as a good Mum already. So, when the feeling of I’m not good enough came up again recently after a conversation with my husband I knocked it on the head. It’s time to stop this shit and pull my head out of my arse.
During my late thirties and early 40’s I’ve struggled with a bit of depression and have taken an antidepressant pill, which recently I stopped taking because I wanted my feelings to be real not blurred out in any way shape or form. I’ve made some errors in judgment and have landed myself on hot water and they were all based on the “I’m not enough/ adequate” principle.
Well it’s time to stop this shit: I AM ENOUGH!. I am adequate. If I’m going to measure myself against anything it’ll be my mistakes, because those are the things that have helped me to grow. Those mistakes are what I don’t want.
When I’m not being my best I can only get better so instead of beating myself up, I’ll use those experiences as my measuring stick of what not to do.
I’m not inadequate, I’m equitable to myself and only myself because I don’t want to be you or anyone else. – Like Oscar Wilde once said – ‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken.’ Finally, I want to be simply ‘me’.
This means working at being the best version of me I can be. I’ll use my own life experience to judge my behaviours and myself.
Along my journey of self-discovery, I have learned a few big things, and I’m going to share those with you. I am writing this book, because one of the biggest things I have finally learned, and understand, is that everything I’ve just detailed over the past few pages, all those feelings and experiences, are not unique to me. I’ve started having conversations with other people who all feel or have felt exactly the same way at times. They are part of the ‘me too’ brigade that can empathise with exactly how I felt, at various ages and stages of their lives.
So I know I’m not writing this, and you’re not reading this, because I’m having unique experiences. We all go through long, and sometimes multiple, periods of our lives where we feel inadequate.
So let’s talk about this shit. We all need to get better at acknowledging our fears, facing up to our inadequacies and looking at them head on and seeing if they really are realistic.
In reality, only you care enough about you to look that deep anyway, everyone else is running around this floating rock we call home trying to work out who they are and sifting through their own crap.
You’re enough, get on with being enough and improve on your enough-ness as life’s challenges hit you square in the face, just don’t forget your lessons along the way or you’ll just re play them till you do.
This is a chapter from my book Unpacking. You can read a bunch of other stories just like this one in the book. Buy your copy today
