Kathleen H

“When I was sent to rehab for a year and a half at the age of sixteen, I was able to crawl out of the addiction but found myself just anxious to be thought of as the poster child of a “good client” as a substitute for genuine self-worth. Even a very real experience of religious faith was hijacked by my need to fill this hole. After becoming a missionary and attending seminary, I was quietly ashamed to discover that a majority of my motivation for doing so was again to become a person who was seen as good enough by those around me. I realized in my late twenties that I’d been playing out the same pattern over and over without realizing it: looking for a role to fill that would finally make me worthy of kindness and love and belonging. When I viewed getting my life together as a way for trying to atone for the sin of falling apart, I stayed stuck in a shame-fueled cycle of performance, perfectionism, and failure.”
― K.C. Davis, How to Keep House While Drowning