I believe that my (repressed) feeling lack of acceptance came from my family of origin. It was a mostly a diffuse, disapproving feedback from my aunts and grandmother as well as a general sense that my mother didn't like me. I adapted by outwardly accepting their expectations and values, "being" a person they could approve of and like, though I had my own inside, in my own world. The two were just distinct. Outwardly I kind of clung to the family ways and values, in a detached sort of way. Hard to explain. The whole family was enmeshed, I think you could say. No other way of "being" there. To be really oneself, an individual, was to be rejected -- which was horrendous to me, too. And was eventually re-enacted in the last therapy, which has brought some of this more to the surface than had been apparent before.

Still, my outward, social complaint is that taking more than 50 years off and on, almost continuously for the last 20, in therapy for me to get to that seems like a scam. And I believe that's objectively valid. Some/many therapists may not know, but according to what they put out to the public about themselves and their profession, I believe they lead us on. Or at least led me on.

Yes, my learned tendency to idealize others, blame myself, and pollyannaism, a way to keep us enmeshed family members happy and feeling good about ourselves on the surface, definitely contributed to that problem. But internally I definitely TRIED to get to know myself, etc. The barriers were apparently just too great. Again, I put that on therapy -- to look out for, warn us about, look for different and better methods to help clients overcome issues like mine. Of course, if I were the only one who ever had this kind of problem. . .but I don't believe I am.