Judged

I had a little (aka: epic) meltdown of self judgment on Friday.

You know.....I began retelling all the factors that went into the breakdown and I'm just not going to.  Because I promised myself this would be a place of honesty so I'm going to tell you the honest and ugly truth.  Which frankly has zero to do with the facts in this case. 

My child is not PERFECT.  She is not easy.  And I resent her for that.  And I detest myself for feeling that way.  But there it is.  Really I am mad at myself for failing to raise the perfect child.  I have a deep seated fear that I am stupid.  This is something my father said to me over and over and over.  I have put that on B and now I fear that SHE is stupid and that it's a reflection on me since clearly only stupid parents have stupid children.  And then that calls into question my single status and the fact that I've raised B alone and so not only am I stupid, solely responsible for raising a stupid daughter....this is also hard evidence that I am utterly unlovable!!  If I were smart and lovable, I would have a husband or a co-parent.  Right??

I feel like everything I do is, if not blatantly wrong, at least sorely lacking.  I am not good enough at my job, at parenting, at home.  I'm never as prepared as I want to be for anything.  I can't manage my time, my money, my home, my laundry, my life, my diet.  Anything.  I suck at it all.  I think I have passed this on to B.  I think she feels the same way and I think sometimes she just doesn't try because she already knows that nothing she does will ever be good enough for me.  Why should it??  Nothing *I* do is ever good enough for me..... so how could my offspring ever be good enough for me?

I fear I have damned her to a lifetime of trying to live up to perfect.  Another generation doomed to fail miserably and spend fruitless years cursing her own humanity.  I may as well just slot that college fund for future therapy right now.