I have another topic Id like to bring up. This is embarrassing, but its all anonymous here, right?

I get together with my girlsfriends from time to time. Maybe once/week or even twice/week we get together for lunch and/or dinner. I love to chat, I love a small group with intimate conversation, but I also like a big group with the conversation split up. Sometimes it happens that there is one big conversation, and I enjoy that, too. I adore the friends I have made since moving to this area 2 yrs ago. When I get together with them, I plan my food so everything is safe and we go to safe (usually vegetarian)restaurants . The thing I would like to bring up in therapy (and here), but not sure how, is that I need a glass of wine to relax me. I feel more confident in myself once Ive relaxed and had some wine. I dont drink compulsively, but I definitely could if I were not so concerned with weight. So, drinking heavily is not what I would ever do. I have had drug issues in my much younger years, but its not a problem now.

Its as if I feel...not anxiety...or maybe it is some kind of social anxiety. I feel as if I am not good enough. My friends, who know me and seem to really like me. My fear is that they will see what a mentally ill (not that some of them arent themselves!), flawed, selfish, sick, unlikeable, stupid, unworthy, childhish, and all together awful person I am. I feel much more confident and relaxed about myself after a glass of wine. It probably comes down to, again, the way I feel about myself. That I have to dress up and look good, have some wine and then go play with my friends. Im not good enough as I am. I posted a while ago a list of the awful, deep feelings of self-hate I hold and the things I do, behaviors, that might not overtly look like self-hate, but I know they are.

So....I go on with life, being social and chatty, dressing up, heels and make-up, going out with my friends and even having fun, but with deep feelings of self-hatred driving much of how I behave. And, maybe, that is where the glass of wine comes it. It doesnt take much for me to feel relaxed with some wine because I eat so little, one glass will pretty much do it for me.

I will bring this up in therapy monday. I wrote about it in my journal. And its all connected, I guess, with the bigger picture of growing up in an abusive, invalidatiing environment. But where to go from here? Where and how does it end? How can I just feel its OK to me?