I'm trying to figure out why I feel so bad. Everything should suggest that things are going well. I have a job, a good job, and it's remote for now, so I'm even saving money. I guess the thing is that I need to finish the licensing course before I can sign a contract and be paid, so nothing is official. 

Do I need validation and approval that badly? Why does it matter if my mom doesn't think what I do is acceptable? I'm a grown woman, and I don't need to please her, or anyone else, for that matter. All I need to worry about is pleasing my damn self. It's so hard. Why is it so hard? I'm living in a near-relentless storm of negativity, doubt, and disapproval, and a severely emotionally unhealthy parent who is trying to have a codependent relationship with me. I know she's all kinds of messed up, and it all says much more about her than me. But it's hard to live here. I'm doubting my sanity, doubting my reality, struggling to keep my head up when it feels like I'm being slapped in the face every few minutes or so. Heaven help me, I've started to freeze up every time I hear the shuffling of slippers.

I never really got help. And I don't think it's quite fair for my parents to blame me for things that they directly caused. I'm not blaming everything on poor parenting; that's ridiculous. I've done my fair share of stupid shit all on my own volition. But I never even had a chance. Jesus, I mean no one even taught me my times tables or told me not to talk to strangers. I was a little gremlin child living out of a near-literal gutter with no support or guidance or positive reinforcement in any way. All I had was what I decided to be. It kind of worked, I guess; my younger siblings are fairly normal, character-wise, and have good social circles and gainful employment, so at least I didn't fuck them up, too. And my character is on the road to being what I want, and I've always been mostly authentic to myself, so that's a good thing. What if I'd had literally anything to help me, though? Imagine what I could have been if I'd been assessed for ADHD or anything besides being dumb/bad at studying? It's not that I was totally without help. I always asked my teachers for help and came in during office hours or lunch, and they knew I was doing my best, so they were patient with me, even though I'm sure I was annoyingly inept and dense. And everyone knew it was just math. I was so good at everything else. I'm pretty sure at least some people knew what was happening at home, too, but no one really did anything beyond being supportive and giving me embarrassing private pep-talks. I remember my gym teacher (whom I disliked because he made me run the mile) took me aside one day and asked about the scars on my arm that I hadn't been able to hide under the black tourniquet I wore every day (very obvious in retrospect, but I thought I was so sneaky and counter-cultural because I told people it was a symbol of rebellion against the man or something along those lines) because it's hard to wear that sort of thing in PE clothes or in the pool, which is where I think it happened. 

My family has always been very "do the bare minimum and call it fine," and that works for some things, but it didn't work for my mental health, because the bare minimum is just keeping me alive, and in fairness, that did happen, but there's so much more to life than just not dying, and I wish someone had realized that and helped me, because I was so lost that I didn't know which way was up, and I could help myself as easily as I could climb Mt. Everest. Eventually, I did gather what I needed, but it was so much harder than it had to be, and it took so much longer. Actually, all of this could have been avoided with some preventative care, but that ship has sailed.