stripper mentality

Hey. You wrote this yesterday and I've not been able to stop thinking it over:

who the hell knows how i got this way. my daddy gave me plenty of attention when i was younger. he worked a ton and maybe my perception of it was askew? who the fuck knows, but the bottom line is that i was trying to fuck myself worthy. and we all now know where that got me.

With two girls it bothers me a lot. Because this is exactly the kind of behavior I don't want my girls to fall into. It especially bothers me because my older girl already appears to seek approval from other people for about everything. She just seems to naturally lack something that tells her she's OK regardless of what other people think. My other daughter ... natural born leader, alpha personality.

So, what I wonder is if your external influences could have played a big role in your self-esteem issues? You know, punk and the punk scene talks a lot about empowerment, but the reality of the lyrics and actions pretty much teaches folks that nobody is worth anything. I wonder ...

Not trying to offend or anything. Just being a concerned poppa and blog-friend.

- Cullen

dude. funny you should mention. and man i commend you on trying to be the best father you can be. seriously. that's huge.

last night i came to a huge epiphany about this shit. i mean like fucking breakdown and cry at the kitchen table stuff.

let's see if i can do it justice w/o taking up two screens:

i'm on the fourth step in the twelve step process. a part of the fourth step is listing resentments. people about whom i have reoccuring negative thoughts. it's a rough process because there are people that i don't think i should feel negatively about but i do. but the step makes it clear that real or imagined, we need to get this shit out.

so i have this list of people that when i think of, something in me rolls her eyes, or gets irritated or however you want to put it into words.

so i have this list. and it's mostly men. the step directs us to write the events proceeding the resentment. then it says go back and describe your motivation in these situations, or what you believed that led you to act this way.

over and over again it's this thing about not feeling loved because this or that man didn't love me. not feeling worthy of the love. not feeling loved the "right" way. so i'm going down this list. same shit, re-writing the same shit. and i get to my father's name.

and i break down and cry. it's the same shit. not feeling worthy of my dad's love. textbook low self esteem male approval seeking behavior. i hated it. i was telling someone just this morning that nothing frustrates me more that being the fat part of the bell curve. then i quoted a good friend of mine who always said "generalizations are called that because they are GENERALLY true."

so there it is. is it true? well, if you asked my father, he would say that he loves me unconditionally. no matter what that i'm still his daughter. my perception, however is not that way, it's different. that he would love me MORE, if only [fill in the blank.]

again. this may or may not have anything to do with reality. is there something my dad could do/could've done to make a difference? i dunno. because that's not what happened.

don't know if that helps or hurts, cullen, but that's my experience.

it's a good thought about the punk, but i feel i found the punk because of my feelings, not vice versa. ya know? like the feelings were there and then when i heard mike muir singing about 'em i was like -THERE! that's it! that's what i've been feeling....