When you feel "I am not enough"

A child often develops the belief “I am not enough” when their parent cannot tolerate the child’s emotions. When a parent retreats from setting clear, consistent limits, they are left feeling overwhelmed, angry, or exasperated—and that distress often gets directed back at the child. Instead of containing the behavior, the parent blames the child for it.

The child, highly attuned to the parent’s emotional state, absorbs this tension and draws a painful conclusion: I am too much. I am not okay. Something about me causes this. What is actually a failure of emotional containment becomes internalized as a flaw in the self.

Children are far better off when firm, loving limits are placed on them. Limits provide safety. They communicate, Your feelings are allowed, and I can handle them—even the angry ones. When a parent can set boundaries while allowing the child to experience and express their own anger, the child no longer needs to act out to be seen or held. This is love.

Shame is born when a child is blamed for behavior that arises from limits that were never set. Love is expressed when limits are set clearly and compassionately—so the child no longer has to carry the burden of being “too much.”

This dynamic is especially common in homes with alcoholism. Alcohol blunts a parent’s emotional availability and capacity for regulation. When a parent is drinking, they are far less able to tolerate a child’s feelings—joy, sadness, anger, or need. The child’s emotions feel intrusive, overwhelming, or threatening, not because the child is doing anything wrong, but because the parent’s nervous system is already compromised.

This same pattern often resurfaces in adult relationships.

When one spouse is afraid to tolerate the other’s strong emotions—anger, disappointment, frustration—they may avoid setting boundaries in order to keep the peace. Unkindness, dismissiveness, or emotional overreach is quietly permitted, not because it feels right, but because confrontation feels too destabilizing. The partner who avoids limits may believe they are being loving, patient, or understanding.

Over time, the cost is profound. The spouse who absorbs the unkindness begins to feel small, resentful, or unseen. The spouse who is not met with limits is never required to develop emotional accountability. The relationship begins to mirror the early family system: one person containing the emotional chaos, the other unconsciously depending on that containment.

As with children, love between adults requires limits. Boundaries say, I can tolerate your feelings, but I will not accept being treated unkindly. When a partner sets a clear, respectful boundary, they invite the other into emotional responsibility. Conflict becomes containable. Intimacy becomes possible.

Avoiding limits does not preserve connection—it erodes it. Love is not endurance. Love is the capacity to stay present with emotion while holding firm to self-respect.

Lisa Fogel 12-31-2025