good girl burnout
when being good goes bad
I’m burnt out by being a Good Girl.
Not in a sexy way. Nothing naughty about it. The complete opposite. If I were faced with the choice between naughty or nice, I wouldn’t bat an eye. I’m nice. I’m sweet. I’m an angel.
I’m a Good Girl.
I have been a Good Girl my whole life. The rule follower. The teacher’s pet. The goody two-shoes.
For the most part, I liked being a good girl. It suited me and my temperament, especially growing up Catholic amidst a generation detaching from religion.
People liked that I was a nice, good girl. I liked being liked and being nice and good felt like an easy way to be liked.
I loved being “a pleasure to have in class” because I was thoughtful and obedient and intelligent. I liked to raise my hand and say “please” and “thank you”. I liked stickers and check pluses and smiley faces.
I liked being the go-to girl. Rewarded for how sweet and kind I was. Encouraged to sit with kids less liked. Complimented for my open heart.
Goodness did not always yield returns. I was very shy. I cried a lot. I would have a breakdown over the role I got in the school play or an A- on a paper. I attracted friends who played the “ignore her until she comes crying back to apologize” game. People threw their hands up in frustration with me, especially through my 3rd grade year. I cried everywhere, including my ballet class while we laid on the floor practicing pique form. Miss Patti and my fellow dancers ignored it.
As I got older, it became more difficult to be good. I didn’t realize it then, the slow derailment of “goodness”, of how easy it was to be moral as a child hoping to get big smiles and thumbs up from those around her.
Through college, I was still good. I quickly learned I liked being bad too. The decisions I’d made as a teen about drinking and sex quickly shifted. Please note, I know there is no morality in drinking and having sex. However, it’s impossible to ignore the way puritanism has burdened American culture, even more so growing up in a religion that upheld virginity as a pillar of commitment to God.
And, honey, I loved God. God made me so good.
So I started drinking and dicking around. These felt like motes of badness when in my day to day life, I was in control of my narrative. I was still nice. I would still smile and say hello to people in the hallway even if my shyness was hard to bear. I wanted desperately for my teachers and peers to like me.
I still wanted to be the child my parents’ remembered.
Life, though, is inherently traumatic. And despite what I would describe as a good childhood, I couldn’t escape the pain of heartbreak, the unflinching carelessness of assault, the ruination of friendships, the onset of depression.
When bad things started happening, though, I tried to remain good. But day after day, I wondered where that happy little girl went. The one content with being good. The one who sang in the sunlight and danced in the rain.
Why was I depressed? What did I deserve to be depressed about after such a happy start at life? What was I doing wrong? Why had my goodness failed me?
It’s not until now, a decade away from my childhood and just 4 months before my 30th birthday…
The goodness hasn’t just been failing me. It’s been killing me.
“What are you actually upset about?”
I blink through red anger at my boyfriend, E.
“Like what is the actual problem?” he asks. He is not accusatory. He’s confused.
“I don’t know,” I finally say. “I don’t…I started one place and ended up somewhere else and —” I feel crazy. The frustration isn’t invalid but it’s coming up all wrong and jagged. I’m trying to find a way to communicate the anger and make it about him when all of it is just me.
I hit my head against the wall beside me three times. In a childish way, the way a six year old might so that a parent rushes over to coddle them.
He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me away from the wall, his eyes locked in mine. “Don’t do that.”
Tears start to flow.
“Look at me. Don’t do that.”
This is not uncommon. For me to ramble through a list of issues I’m having that may or may not have to do with him all at once when the truth is none of those problems are a level 10 problem. They’re a bunch of level 2 problems. I let all of the level 2 problems in my life get to level 10 before I express them which means I'm expressing like 50 problems at once that feel ginormous because they've all compounded together like a huge wad of gum that some middle schooler has been collecting.
I was that middle schooler. I did that I would rechew the gum. I’m sorry.
I hold onto my level 2s because…what if someone thinks the level 2 is a level 10? What if someone hates me for having a level 2 problem?
I better hang onto it. So that when it’s level 10 it really counts. It really matters.
I’ll be valid for having it.
He was gentle and kind as he brought me back to the moment. To me and him.
“I don't know who made you feel like you were too much or that you were bad for having feelings. But you’re not.”
I say nothing, wide-eyed. It’s dawning on me that what he’s just said is what I’ve been desperate to hear.
“You’re not bad.”
That’s when it clicks. I feel bad for having needs. I’ve felt bad for having needs all this time.
I’m in Good Girl Burnout.
As I’ve stated, I was a really good kid. I loved being a good kid. I wanted to be the teacher’s helper and the line leader. I wanted to make people smile and wanted to be celebrated for this goodness.
But I was so scared to step out of line.
My good, happy childhood felt tethered to my goodness.
There weren't obvious threats. No one ever said to me, “This is what happens when you step out of line.” They didn’t have to. Because my goodness would not allow me to get even an inch to coloring outside the lines.
However, there was a threat. The unknown answer to the question, “What would happen if I wasn’t good? For just a moment?”
I never wanted to know the answer.
So here I am. 29 years old. A chronic Good Girl. And my mind has finally given out on me.
I have Good Girl Burnout.
Good Girl Burnout happens when you have tied your happiness to your goodness. And when that goodness fails you, when the goodness doesn’t yield the returns they used to when you were a child. You don’t have the validation of school or dance class or your home life. You just have the real fucking world. It makes you start to wonder why you’re broken. When could it have possibly happened? And what did you do to cause your pain?
Nothing. We did what we had to do. We did what we thought everyone else wanted and believed we wanted it too. Maybe we did.
But we deserved to be a little “bad”. To put our needs first. To not always be a pleasure. To sometimes cry just because there was a level 2 problem that needed dealing with rather than bottling it all up to make a level 10.
The joke is none of that is “bad”. It’s simply human.
What if I had allowed myself to be a human all those years ago? What if I had asked for help with my sensitivity and procrastination? What if I didn’t bend over backwards to make other people comfortable? What if I didn’t mold myself to an idea of what the world wanted from me?
What if instead of looking at the “threat” of what would happen if I wasn’t good, I embraced it and saw what life had to offer me?
I have wondered, “What happened? Where is that that excited happy girl who was good and happy just to be there and the little things made her happy and she didn't want too much but she also wanted more?”
Maybe you’ve wondered that too. Why does life feel so heavy when I was good all that time?
Well, the years caught up with us. Being good all the time. caught up with us. And now we are dealing with the repercussions of years. The burnout of believing that being good for so long would yield returns that would make life easy. Good. Fair.
Who is to say how long this burnout will last? I have 29 years of trying to be malleable, mistaking goodness for gladness.
The first step is recognizing that us reformed Good Girls deserve to give ourselves so much grace and kindness.
Some of us are lucky to have people around us to validate the goodness inside us that exists just by being. But now it’s our turn to take up the mantle of validation.
I am good just by being.
You are good just by being.
We are good. Or maybe we are a different word.
Maybe we just get to be. And that doesn’t mean we deserve any less.
So I’ll steal my boyfriend’s words to remind you:
I don't know who made you feel like you were too much or that you were bad for having feelings. But you’re not. You’re not bad.
In Love Letters, I explore the rage and joy of being a woman, the truth in contradiction, and the profound hidden in the pedestrian. If this piece resonated with you, tap the heart below. If you want it to resonate with others, consider restacking or sharing with your friends. And if you’d like to support my work further, the best way is by becoming a subscriber.
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