Phone notes I

At volunteer's work. Someone is doing my work today, I'm teaching them. Handy, cos now I get to write and do my real work. I didn't write this morning but did get some mental work done and wrote stuff down in my phone. The pain is slowing me down when it comes to writing, at least in the matter of quantity, but I find as I go along, that the process is now almost continuously on my mind. 
I get diverted sometimes by things I do at the volunteer's work, or trains of thought whisking me away to places of Hollywood loveliness or exciting stories of bravery, but I always come back to the process sooner or later. Lately, it tends to be sooner. 
I don't know where to start, I have several notes in my phone and they all need tending to. 
Funny how that works nowadays; I'm reading, walking, or listening to music, and then somewhere, it itches, just a tiny little bit. I let it itch, let it become clearer for a while, when it thinks I'm not looking, and then I look at it. Then I feel “no, I don't want to go there,” which means jackpot, I'm onto something worth pursuing. Then I start to investigate and deduct and dissect, using uncompromising honesty. Which is scary at times, and liberating at all times.
I get to things and ideas which I thought I'd never be able to express 'out loud' to myself, let alone on the Internet. Ideas that scare me, shame me, make me think I'll never go there, and then I do. That's liberating as well, because it sets me free from certain limiting ideas and beliefs I apparently have about myself. 
The person who's approval I need most might not be my father, it might be me. Ouch. 
It does pain me to let it go though. That was my first note. The 'they' I was referring to last night can always be brought back to one person in the end; my father. My Ex was/is just a rerun. Every other person I've tried to please was another version of my father. 
I'm sorry, but I have to let you go, it's unhealthy for me to keep trying to please you, impress you, get your approval, I even talk to myself in the way you did and still do. Critical, cynical, judging, full of contempt. You make me feel stupid, inferior, unworthy of just about anything. Not good enough. I have to let you go. I have to let go of all my versions of you, my expectations, my hope that someday you will respect me and be proud of me. That hurts you know.
I do understand how you came to be like this, but that's your thing, you have to deal with it, or not. That's your choice, and this is my life and I can't go any further if I don't let go of this need for approval. 
I want to know in my heart, mind, everything, that I am perfect just the way I am, just because I am. For no other reason than that. Maybe I'm not ready for that yet, but it's necessary for me to acknowledge what has to be done. I can't look the other way.