“As a young child, I realized that if I presented myself as perfect—caring, generous, understanding, and compliant— then I could control how people felt about me. At all costs, I wanted to be loved!
I’d created a fantasy persona, but even now, I couldn’t recognize how far I had strayed from my self-imposed standard of perfection. I guess that’s what happens to a person when they receive too much praise. Was I as wonderful as everyone painted me? Or was I a skilled con artist? I had been riding the superiority- inferiority seesaw all weekend.
As I grappled with a carousel of gnawing thoughts, I drank my third shot of scotch and snorted some blow, all to crush any self-doubt.”