A psychiatrist friend of mine once pointed out to me that I have an incredible habit of setting myself up for failure. Seriously, I am awesome at this, I could win prizes and shit I am so fucking fabulous at setting myself up to fail. Now, he told me that probably 15 years ago, and as much as I can recognize it as being absofreakinglutely true, I still have not figured out how NOT to do it. I think I have figured out the psychology behind WHY I do it, I am just terrified of success, but I don't know how to get past that and stop doing it.
I am sitting here driving myself insane at the moment trying to figure out how to find a way to "support" myself, to "pull my own weight in the world" as it were. Actually, I have been struggling with this all my life, but more so lately than O have in a very long time. But no matter what I come up with, I find a way to shoot myself down before I even really try. I just can't convince myself that anyone will ever see any value in anything I can do. Now, my "logical" brain knows that this is ridiculous. I am a highly educated, extremely talented, person with an extensive background in a wide variety of marketable skills. I know this, without a shadow of a doubt I know this. But, I also have that voice in the back of my head telling me that I am "worthless", that I "will never amount to anything", that I "will never be anything" ...
And for some unfuckingfathomable reason I always make sure the voice wins. I just feel like, somehow, by proving the voice wrong I would be dishonoring it, and since it came from my family, I am thereby dishonoring them. I know that is totally insane, especially since I threw my family out of my life almost a year ago, but I just can't work my way past it. I think that breaking with my family is what has given me this drive to find a way to make money, I have never cared much about money before, but now I would really like to do some things with what is left of my life, and they all take at least a little bit of money. And since I don't have to worry anymore about what anybody else thinks about what I am doing with my life I would really like to quit wasting it and start living it. But for some reason, I cannot let myself find a way to succeed.
I have really been trying to figure it out. The t-shirt idea was not nearly as successful as I had hoped it would be, and I must admit that at least part of that is entirely on me. I still haven't listed the larger sizes that people actually requested because I don't really expect anyone to buy them. I haven't advertised them very much except it fits and spurts, I pretty much just listed them all on Etsy and forget about them. There are a lot of things I could be doing, and probably should be doing, to try to get them to sell, but once again, if I succeed at something, that might reflect badly on those who have clearly told me I am not allowed to succeed unless I do things their way.
So, I am putting some real effort into producing what I hope may be marketable goods over the next few months, and maybe I might even figure out how to promote them so that people will actually see them to at least give myself a chance to do something "successful" with my life. Goodness knows, raising 5 kids, mostly on my own, doesn't count for shit, no matter how great those kids might have turned out, I need to be making some damn money!
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