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Being alive, good judgement and making mistakes

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ms spock

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I don't know if this is the right forum for this, because I never seem to pick the right one. Sometimes when the anxiety is high my frontal cortex is not in action.

So this might seem like a very obvious thing to many people but it occurs to me I might be having an unrealistic view of how life works. I have this idea that you should know every thing before you go into a situation so you can respond properly. But life is not like that is it? It is only on TV that people can always know what is the right thing to do is.

So would it be fair to say, it is okay to make mistakes, you can have good judgement and mistakes can still be make, because as a human being you can't know everything about a situation, that is being a live and human, you can't control everything. So even if you make a good judgement at the time, for the information and skills you have, things might still go wrong because you don't have the skills or the information. You can't do it right all the time because it is not possible?

So even if you do have good judgement and thinking things won't always go right, and that doesn't mean that you are a bad person. It just means that you need to learn more in the situation or it wasn't a situation to be managed that well?

I guess I am trying to understand how being in this now works. I haven't had a lot of practice at it. I shut down but I am not doing that as much anymore. I have changed a lot of behaviours but I still am maybe overly perfectionistic.

Does anyone get that? Anyone struggled with avoidance and coming out of avoidance they have kind of had to think about this stuff?
 
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So would it be fair to say, it is okay to make mistakes, you can have good judgement and mistakes can still be make, because as a human being you can't know everything about a situation, that is being a live and human, you can't control everything.
Yep. Because all the planning and intentions in the world can be derailed by fate sticking it's nose into the plan. So them the question becomes....how do you deal with things when they go wrong? I think that's the hard part...rebuilding the resilience to roll with life when it gets wonky instead of falling back into ptsd reactions. Or at least it is for me
 
Yeah I struggle with this too.
Some of the "I need to know everything possible and consider it from every angle" for me is my hypervigilance playing tricks on me.
I'm a big fan of the phrase, "you can't know what you don't know"... because you can't. Best laid plans and all that.

Also - do you consider having good judgement necessary to be a good person? Or to not be a bad one?
I'll freely admit my judgement sucks sometimes, but it harms only me when it does. One of my best mates has terrible judgement - but she's one of the best people I've ever met. She'll run out of fuel, run out of money, make crap calls socially or professionally, and she sucks at dealing with problems and acts without thinking.
But, she's a really, really good person.
 
I agree. I spend an inordinate amount of time being hypervigilent, planning my escape, looking for land mines, and generally preoccupied with the desperate hope of being in control, that I’m totally missing out on the present. And things do go wrong that are not my fault. But because I know I’m a space cadet, I internalize every mistake as personal failure. It’s such a self defeating way of life. I work on this problem in therapy til I’ve just thrown my arms in the air and just wish I was fearless and open to a world I cannot, not need to, control. PTSD hallmarks.
At work, I let my clients walk all over me. I don’t charge for no shows, I tell myself I deserve respect and it’s f*cking 2018. Everyone has a cellphone attached to their head, they can get alerts to remind them of their appointments, there is no excuse for not calling or texting me to cancel. Nope, they just blow me off. Lately I have been working on cleaning this up. I have terminated several repeat offenders and it feels like the smart, mature, and reasonable way to run my business.im not mean, I get my ass to work 7 days a week, I deserve respect. We all do.
 
Yes. For myself it had become a way of thinking to anticipate everything. I think that is because I knew on some level that my brain went 'offline' and my executive functioning was toast at just the times that I needed it. When I was under attack.

So I would do a ton to avoid attack (perfectionism) or avoidance or porous boundaries (or non existent).

For me the idea was to keep myself surrounded by people who I could trust not to lose their shit on me - because I freeze and can't keep up and that seems to start the whole cycle again. With that calmness surrounding me I was able to look at life in more simplistic terms and I got used to the idea that just because I didn't do something 'just so', didn't mean I was going to die, or be attacked and not be able to protect myself.

Not sure if that helps at all - but when I read your post, that is what comes up for me. It is hard to let go of the need to be perfect, you know? I used to get the shit kicked out of me when I wasn't. That's a huge wall to break down.
 
So them the question becomes....how do you deal with things when they go wrong? I think that's the hard part...rebuilding the resilience to roll with life when it gets wonky instead of falling back into ptsd reactions. Or at least it is for me
I need to work on this.
 
Yeah I struggle with this too.
It helps to know that I am not alone.

Some of the "I need to know everything possible and consider it from every angle" for me is my hypervigilance playing tricks on me.
I'm a big fan of the phrase, "you can't know what you don't know"... because you can't. Best laid plans and all that.
Yes I keep thinking if I am "good" and well prepared things won't go wrong or astray or off on a tangent, but that is not realistic about life.

Also - do you consider having good judgement necessary to be a good person? Or to not be a bad one?
I'll freely admit my judgement sucks sometimes, but it harms only me when it does. One of my best mates has terrible judgement - but she's one of the best people I've ever met. She'll run out of fuel, run out of money, make crap calls socially or professionally, and she sucks at dealing with problems and acts without thinking.
But, she's a really, really good person.
I guess I want to have good judgement. I didn't consider about being a good or bad person. I considered it as having good judgement so I don't get into the bad situations that I have gotten to in the past.
 
I agree. I spend an inordinate amount of time being hypervigilent, planning my escape, looking for land mines, and generally preoccupied with the desperate hope of being in control, that I’m totally missing out on the present.
Me too!


And things do go wrong that are not my fault.
That is what I am trying to come to terms with, it is not all my fault. So I would freeze and do nothing so nothing is my fault, and that is a sad and stunted way to live life.

But because I know I’m a space cadet, I internalize every mistake as personal failure. It’s such a self defeating way of life. I work on this problem in therapy til I’ve just thrown my arms in the air and just wish I was fearless and open to a world I cannot, not need to, control. PTSD hallmarks.
I also internalise mistakes as personal failures, and I am willing to work on this now.

At work, I let my clients walk all over me. I don’t charge for no shows, I tell myself I deserve respect and it’s f*cking 2018. Everyone has a cellphone attached to their head, they can get alerts to remind them of their appointments, there is no excuse for not calling or texting me to cancel. Nope, they just blow me off. Lately I have been working on cleaning this up. I have terminated several repeat offenders and it feels like the smart, mature, and reasonable way to run my business.im not mean, I get my ass to work 7 days a week,


I deserve respect. We all do.
Indeed! That is so true!
 
It depends on how you view situations where things don't go as planed. Instead of beating myself up about a "failure" it is a learning opportunity and there are many times by being open it can allow me to see new opportunities.
That is a good way to see it!
 
It depends on how you view situations where things don't go as planed. Instead of beating myself up about a "failure" it is a learning opportunity and there are many times by being open it can allow me to see new opportunities.
Seeing it as a way to see new opportunities is a good strategy.
it starts with respecting ourselves and acknowledging our own intrinsic value.
I guess that is where I am at.

Just make sure you're not putting too much blame on yourself....
Bad situations don't just happen, perpetrators make them bad.
There is definitely a lot of that in this, there is no doubt about this. But what I am trying to do is look for other ways to doing this, other ways to look at being in the moment, and other ways to think about and experience mistakes or things going wrong.

Yes. For myself it had become a way of thinking to anticipate everything. I think that is because I knew on some level that my brain went 'offline' and my executive functioning was toast at just the times that I needed it. When I was under attack.

So I would do a ton to avoid attack (perfectionism) or avoidance or porous boundaries (or non existent).
I do that as well. The perfectionism.
For me the idea was to keep myself surrounded by people who I could trust not to lose their shit on me - because I freeze and can't keep up and that seems to start the whole cycle again. With that calmness surrounding me I was able to look at life in more simplistic terms and I got used to the idea that just because I didn't do something 'just so', didn't mean I was going to die, or be attacked and not be able to protect myself.
I am trying to do things like that create safe spaces for me.
Not sure if that helps at all - but when I read your post, that is what comes up for me. It is hard to let go of the need to be perfect, you know? I used to get the shit kicked out of me when I wasn't. That's a huge wall to break down.
Yeah it is a huge wall to break down, along with the corrosive self doubt, the feelings of not belonging and the feeling of not being good enough.
 
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