Dear noname:

You are welcome. “I wonder how to allow myself to feel special, worthy, or important?”- when you get punished for feeling special by the abusive inner critic, no wonder you are afraid to feel special. Got to disarm that cruel critic and replace him with a fair, empathetic and respectful inner critic.

Regarding your concern about “helping out of a selfish need instead of a love for people”, as a therapist and otherwise, not wanting to be like your father who helped others “under the guise of being a Good Samaritan and getting an ego boost”-

(1) putting aside the term “ego”, it is okay to enjoy a positive emotional boost as a result of helping other people, it’s natural and okay.

(2) focus on communicating with the person you are helping truthfully. You don’t need to tell the person you are helping much of what you think and feel, but what you do tell him/ her, make sure it’s the truth, nothing pretentious. Better say less than more when you are in doubt about being truthful. Focusing on  what you say being truthful should help with your imposter syndrome.

(3) unlike your father who placed other people first, helping them while you and your sister were tired and hungry- place yourself first, help yourself before you help  others. Once in a while, during the day, stop and ask yourself: how can I help you now? (think of the person asking this question as the replacement inner critic I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post)

anita