I was a “good kid” growing up. “Mature for my age,” people always assumed I was older. I was taller than other classmates, more reserved, the childlike wonder I possessed was quiet compared to my peers. I tended to isolate myself, even during recess, to draw or to write. Quiet, shy, introverted, a little adult, potentially possessed by the spirit of a 75-year-old woman. These are the things I associated myself with, what I was told I was. Now I’m starting to realize I had little choice in the matter.
I didn’t have many rules given to me as a child; the only one I can think off the top of my head of is “No boyfriend until you’re 16,” which was quickly followed up by “Of course you can date, though, you just can’t have a boyfriend.” Looking back, I think this was grown-up code for “You can hang out with boys and go to the movies or hold hands, but you can’t have sex.” Of course, I was 13, and I had no idea what the fuck the difference was between having a boyfriend and dating was. So, instead of potentially disappointing anyone, I abstained from dating altogether.
I remember being told that I was a “good kid” and that people at work were struggling with their troubled teens at home, but I never caused any trouble. I didn’t get angry. Or, more accurately, I didn’t express anger. I took on the responsibility of maintaining peace in the household, I bared the burden of potentially losing contact with a parent due to speaking up for myself. It was a responsibility I took very seriously.
Instead of begging to be allowed to drink, I was egged on to drink at the dinner table. I tasted wine, scotch, and honey-flavoured whiskey by the time I was 14. I actually had to refuse to drink. I also refused to bring wine to the dinner table, feeling responsible for the sheer amount the adults around me were drinking if I did so. I watched bottle after bottle collect, words becoming harsher, sharpened, pointed at me. I didn’t want to be that kind of person. So I didn’t drink. I was also told I could do drugs in the house with supervision, I never took anyone up on that offer.
When I reached high school, my grades never suffered all that much, even under the crushing weight of parentified responsibility. I excelled in History, Drama, English, Art, and choral. At the same time, I was having regular depressive episodes and panic attacks, “test anxiety” was the first way this showed up for me. During math tests, I felt myself slip away from the page, the numbers started to blur, time would slow, my heart would pound in my chest. I became dissociated from daily life, depersonalized, a floating head walking down the hallways of my school, wishing someone would notice just how much I was suffering.
This was, at the time, the worst thing I had ever done: suffered. I was suffering, and there was nothing to be done. I was always a sensitive kid, too sensitive even. It was probably my own fault I was feeling so scared all the time.
At some point, this “good kid” started to believe she must be inherently bad because of all that she had suffered; she didn’t deserve good things. She worked very, very hard to make sure people didn’t see her as bad, see through the cracks that felt so obvious to her. Bad things happen to bad people: so I must be very, very bad. This was confirmed whenever I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, as I often did growing up: “Hard things just seem to happen to you… I am so sorry.” Hard things happened to me, and there was nothing to be done.
I should have received an Oscar for how effective I felt I was at pretending to be good. I simply could do no wrong, aside from suffering, which I would also do my best at hiding, because people would see how very, very bad I was. Evil, maybe, lurked within me, and it was expressing itself through intrusive thoughts, which only got worse as I aged.
If I was such a good kid, why did I feel so bad? If I could do no wrong, why did I feel so inherently wrong?
When you’re a “good kid” you learn to self-regulate. You learn to hide the things about yourself that might come across as bad, confrontational, or scary. Your anger, your suffering, the things that you feel responsible for managing in other people, go to the wayside. This self-regulation was slowly tearing me apart. I didn’t know what I could do that would disappoint someone, so suddenly everything in my mind became a disappointment. I was, therefore, no matter how hard I tried, already a disappointment. This was my greatest fear, and it remains to this day: disappointing my loved ones.
There were some adults in my life who, no matter what I did, I could not please. I was never good enough for them. It was a terrifying dichotomy I lived in between. Good kid, and never good enough. The expectations weren’t laid out clearly, I couldn’t keep up with what they wanted from me, and at times, they made an effort to make sure I was at my lowest, so that they could remain powerful and authoritative. Despite the fact that I was self-regulating and responsible for the emotional balance of the household… They were in control.
I had hoped that if I was just good enough, then the turmoil in my household would end, but that wasn’t how things worked out. It’s never that easy.
I am in the sunset of my 20s, and only now am I grieving for the “good kid” I had to be, the little adult I became, to survive. I was never bad, and there were things that could have been done. I was a kid, and then a teen, and then a person in my early 20s, trying my very best, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst at every turn. Because I didn’t know I deserved better.
If you were a “good kid” like me, I’m giving you permission right now to let that kid inside your brain rest. You were never responsible for the adults around you, you aren’t at fault for the bad things that happened to you, and you are good enough. You are good, not because of the good things you’ve done, or how useful you are, but because I believe deep down we all have an inherent goodness. It’s okay to be angry, I’m sure angry as fuck now for how I was treated, and how I’ve let people treat me into my adult life because I was never sure if I deserved better.
I do deserve better. I am lovable, and so are you.
˚⋆✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩