fear of success?

[MakersDozn]

We have struggled with fear of success throughout our life. It's not because we believed we were "faking it"; in fact, it was just the opposite. We succeeded constantly but were never recognized or praised for it.

A number of us began to wonder why we should even try. But we kept doing our best because we were also afraid of failure--not meeting the standards we perceived others as having. It was a catch-22 because nothing we could do would mitigate either fear.

We continued making the effort because we knew that if we tried, at least nobody could accuse us of not trying. It was not much consolation.

Charity, Mary, and others