Oh God I have a blog.

Although I'm not sure if it's a blog in the usual sense- I don't particularly want anyone to read it or turn it into a book/film/comic book series. I think I need a place to talk about the things that I think and feel but never speak of for fear of being thought badly of; a place I can actually say, or rather type, out loud the things I don't talk about.

I have huge issues when it comes to myself. Not huge as in suicidal huge, but huge as in I never really realised how deep-rooted my problems were until I went through six months of therapy and came out the end thinking 'Holy shit, things that I took for granted as commonplace in my childhood have seriously fucked me up far more than I was aware'.

I was often told things growing up that seem to have really stuck with me and lodged myself in my sub-conscious- I remember my dad saying that I was selfish and never thought of other people for myself, never thinking of my mother etc. I remember particular details vividly- the colour of the room we were in, the direction we were in relation to one another, what he was wearing. I don't remember a lot of things about my childhood, but times like those really stand out.

And whether it was true or not, as how many six or seven years aren't selfish and thoughtless at one time or another, I've become so frightened of being true to what my dad said, or indeed becoming like him, that I constantly worry every day that I am a nasty, selfish, bitter, careless person.

My therapist made the point that if I was worried that I was selfish, and if I actively try not to be, that means I wasn't. (Kind of like when I read that if you were worried you were a psychopath, you weren't. Which was reassuring.)

But what if I really am selfish, and just very good at pretending not to be? I spend so much time making sure other people are happy and trying to please them and doing kind, thoughtful things for them, but if I'm aware the things I'm doing are thoughtful does that mean they really are? Am I doing all these things to present an image of a kind, thoughtful, considerate human being when in reality I just want people to think I am one, which is surely a selfish act in its own right?

I feel like I'm a master con artist. That I want so badly to be thought of as kind that I do certain things that will trick people into thinking I am, all because of a fear of being what my father said I was.

Something that has possibly already happened.