Have you ever felt like you’re not enough? Like no matter how much elbow grease, sweat, blood and tears you put into yourself, your job or your family just isn’t enough? It is an overall tiring and overwhelming sensation that makes one feel insecure for a large majority of their life. Whether throughout childhood, teenage adolescence or adulthood everyone has experienced this feeling. Where did this start? and.. why did it start? Maybe growing up you were always left out as a kid, neglected by  your parent’s, grandparent’s or guardian. Some where and some how it started. Most of the time every day and night can feel like a never ending loop, like one is stuck in a single day and it just repeats day after day.  A lot of people who feel they’re never good enough spend half their life finding something or someone to be good for to feel almost complete. Though the void is never fully filled it is enough to resemble a scab over a large and deep laceration. At the age of 17 always find myself coming back to the same questions; Am I good enough? Why don’t I feel good enough? Will I ever be good enough? The simple answer is.. yes. My Father never really cared to be around after him and my Mother split up when I was 11. I figured to him I was a burden and nothing more to him. Living with him was one of the worst things that I’m glad I got out of and am thankful for everyday.. I know people of divorced families and even those who are not can relate to this blog which is why I’m writing it. For me, it started when I was around 4 years old, my Father and I never had  a good relationship and I never knew why until I grew older. It was like he always looked at me differently from my other siblings, like I was the mut. As I grew older the strain in our relationship grew as well, we hardly spoke, laughed or spent time together. As a little girl when it is your Father it hits very hard.. he is supposed to be the first real man in your life. Teach you how women should be treated, respected and loved.. show you how a real man should act and set an example for his children. Vise versa with women. We drifted and even though I longed for him to want to notice me, it never happened. Elementary school is where things got bad for me, becoming edgy at an early age, rebellious, harming, talking to strangers online and not being safe from the world. Reality and online. I always saught for older people (particularly older boys) to give me the comfort I needed, or so I thought I needed just to get through my life. When my Mother and Father finally divorced, I moved back to my home town and fell into a 5 year depression episode. Depression episodes really can last from days, weeks, months and years. It is tough but you do get out of it at your own time and pace, with help as well of course. The 5 years was the hardest thing I had ever experienced, I only cared about one thing and that was being good enough for society. That meant making myself pretty, starving myself to be skinny, acting as if everything was fine and being utterly reckless. I spent those 5 years looking for someone or something to give me the one thing I wanted and completely lost myself. I really can say I went mad for a brief moment because I was. Harming, starving, degrading, rage and insecurity were the only thing I felt during the days and night. Going to the hospital for smoking and drinking illegal substances just to numb the pain of not feeling wanted or good enough drove me to the one thing I never wanted to become. It became a slow addiction and I didn’t even care that it was making me lose friends because it meant that no one was bothering me while I was numbing the pain and I could be reckless and move disgustingly. I didn’t care about the consequences just being in a non mental incoherent state is all I wanted. For a while it worked, until it didn’t. It led to thoughts of suicide and an attempt that failed ao miserably that I dropped out of school and didn’t come out of my room for months or go any where. It was the hardest 5 years of my life and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. The only thing that made me stop drinking and smoking was the realization one day that I really was losing all my friends. My best friend Lou told me on call that he did not want to be my friend anymore because of how I lived, didn’t care for myself and was a bad influence on people with the smoking and drinking. He was right. After that, I cleaned myself up, spoke to a doctor and finally got back into counseling, got on medication that didn’t really help so I’m currently not on any antidepressants but I’m okay with that. Anywho.. back to the big question. The entire reason I was in a manic depressive episode for years was because I never felt good enough.. so I took it upon myself to do some soul searching and after an entire year I found myself again. I found that I don’t need validation from anyone but myself and you don’t need validation from anyone but yourself. It is okay to be lost for a while and even if it does take a very long time the road does end with goodness. (I apologize it got sloppy at the end I’m very tired and exhausted, I’ll be writing tomorrow about ED) .