Why Do I Feel I’m Not Good Enough?
Blog post by Sheila Read, LCSW
“I’m not good enough.” It’s one of the most common things I hear in therapy sessions. When I ask what people believe about themselves when upset about a situation, about half of people respond with some variation of Not Good Enough.
I frequently see likable, intelligent, driven people who are overwhelmed with anxiety and stress from trying to do all the things to succeed at work and in relationships. In our culture even self-care has become an arena for optimization. To some people, true relaxation or doing nothing feels threatening, like a step on a slippery slope to failure or losing a tenuous sense of control of the to-do list. And underneath it all is that insidious fear that despite it all you’re just not good enough.
One one level it’s understandable. We live in a competitive culture, with a winner take all mentality dominating many areas of life, from sports, to dating, to acceptance to college, to access to job opportunities. We’re drowning in social media messages manipulated to falsely project perfection. And despite social progress, discrimination and hate speech dripping with racism, sexism, and intolerance of LGBTQ+ folks is all too common. No wonder so many people conclude they’re not good enough.
Roots in Childhood Experience
And yet as a therapist I recognize that pervasive feelings of not being good enough sometimes have deeper causes with roots in childhood trauma. In recent years the understanding of what constitutes trauma has broadened from the old thinking that you had to be a victim of violence or terror of death to have trauma. The modern definition I use is that if something from your past has lasting and serious effects on your self-esteem, relationship patterns, and emotions, it’s trauma.
Growing up in a dysfunctional family is the most common cause of childhood trauma. Sometimes dysfunction is obvious, with frequent chaos and fear caused by violence, rage, poverty, alcoholism or addiction, sexual abuse, or parental mental illness and instability.
Frequently children from these types of homes become hyper-responsible, trying to avoid triggering their caregivers and make things more predictable by people pleasing, achieving, and managing. Of course this fails. You don’t have the power to change anyone else’s behavior. But children don’t know this. You may conclude it’s your fault, there’s something wrong with you, or you’re not good enough. And verbally abusive parents will compound the problem by telling you this directly, berating and blaming you for their problems.
Damage from Emotional Neglect
What’s harder to recognize are the damaging effects of emotional neglect. Your parents may have stayed together, had stable finances and were not violent or unpredictable. Yet something important was missing. Maybe one parent worked so much they were rarely home, or one of your caregivers struggled with depression or anxiety. Maybe your mom was self-centered and narcissistic or your Dad well-meaning but emotionally distant.
Emotionally immature parents can also cause damage. If your parents lacked the ability to talk about emotions or teach you how to handle your feelings, you were left to handle big feelings on your own. I’m not talking about occasional lapses that all parents make, but a persistent inability of caregivers to respond to your emotional needs.
Many kids from emotionally immature families learn to stuff their feelings, then are surprised when on some occasions they explode.
If parents repeatedly show they can’t handle hearing about your inner world, are invalidating, or don’t make time to listen to you, it’s natural for a child to conclude it’s their fault. The reality - that parents are flawed and limited — can be too much for children to bear. The point here is not to blame parents but to understand how emotional neglect helped shaped your inner world and nervous system when your mind and body were still developing.
Your Body Holds the Stress
When you live for years in situations in which you feel over-responsible and undervalued, your nervous system is under enormous stress. Humans are adaptive and resourceful and so you find coping strategies to deal with that horrible feeling of Not Good Enough. Maybe you engage in compulsive escape behaviors with alcohol, cannabis, food, shopping, social media, or phone use. Maybe you stay busy all the time, to the point where your health is starting to suffer. Maybe you lose a sense of self in trying to make everyone in your life happy.
With childhood trauma, intellectual understanding of what happened to you is important but not enough. You may already know this if you’ve done talk therapy but still are struggling with big emotions, low self-esteem, or problems in relationships. You may have emotional tools but can’t access them when you’re triggered. Or you have intellectual knowledge about what happened in the past but at heart still feel it’s your fault.
EMDR for Childhood Trauma
The good news is that somatic therapies such as EMDR offer lasting healing by helping your nervous system reprocess old memories that hijack your body in the present when you’re triggered.
When old memories are reprocessed, you have an adult understanding of what happened to you and get freedom from traumatic images and sensations. You gain a healthy sense of self-esteem, a realistic sense of control, and are better able to show up in relationships as your authentic self.
About the Therapist:
Sheila Read (she/they) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 15 years of experience as a mental health therapist. She specializes in treating childhood trauma and is engaged in advanced training in relational EMDR.
Learn more about them here. They are accepting new clients!