Question
Dr.Braccio: I’m always down on konya merkez bayan arkadaş myself. It doesn’t matter what I do. I wait for bad things to happen. I try to be positive but keep believing people will figure me out and see I’m not as good as they think I am. My husband and 15 and 18 year old children tell me to loosen up and enjoy life and my successes. They believe the negative messages that my parents and grandmother gave me when I was growing up that I always had to try harder and nothing I did was good enough are the cause of my worries and anxiety. It’s strange my children can see this and I can’t. My parents still warn me not to get too confident because I could fail at any minute. I’ve got a good job with the State of Michigan where I have made steady advances over the past twenty-five years, many friends, a good husband and two fine children. What’s wrong with me?
Answer
I agree with your husband and children. You cannot shake the early messages from your youth that whatever you did was not good enough. There was a popular book written by Ciance Pauline some years ago called the “Imposter Phenomenon”. It’s theme is that some persons, regardless of what success they achieve, never feel that they are doing well enough and people eventually find out their success is fake and they are imposters rather than the successful persons people thought they are. This sounds like you. In spite of your solid professional, social and family successes over a period of time, you feel you will be found out as an imposter and fail.
Do not let the old tapes from your youth control your present. Constantly reinforce to yourself that you are successful in the major phases of your life and it will continue. You have a good job, good friends, a good marriage and family. You are a true success for all of us to stand up, take notice and congratulate.
That your parents are still giving you negative messages is a sad continuation of their unfortunate pattern of negative reinforcement. You must see it as unacceptable to you and make appropriate efforts to end it. You need to firmly let them know you are and always have been a successful person due to your hard efforts and it will continue. Even though this is easier said than done, you need to give little credence to the negative messages of your parents. Let them be burdened with their negativity and not you.
You can meet with your husband and children and say you want to learn how to be positive and see yourself in the same positive way as do others. Ask them to keep encouraging you and remind you if the old negative tapes try to take hold. They will on and off come back and you need to be on guard.
You seem like a very nice person. You need to enjoy yourself, your family, your work and your friends. Never forget that you deserve it as well as a happy life with recognition for how hard you work and your many successes.