• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

I am a failure

Status
Not open for further replies.

whiteraven

MyPTSD Pro
While this is definitely a core belief, I don't think it's a distortion of any kind. No one else can decide for me what success and failure is. I have failed, in more ways than not.
 
Failed at what?

& Failure is a great chance to do better. That 'failure' ain't so great to warrant claiming anything valuable.

Much less the most valuable, life.

It just ain't that big of a failure.
Just smaller things that feel big as they went on for a long while and exhausted you.

It's totally ok to be bones deep exhausted.
Doesn't mean you are messing up in anything that matters.
 
Totally missed this and forgot I had written it.

Failed at what?

Hm...well. Not trying to be dramatic here, but I feel like I have failed at life. Or maybe at the things in life that we typically see in failure/success terms. Home life, job, finances.

Just smaller things that feel big as they went on for a long while and exhausted you.

It's totally ok to be bones deep exhausted.
Doesn't mean you are messing up in anything that matters.

Yeah, not sure. They *are* big things. Things that, had I been successful at, I sure as heck wouldn't be where I am now.

If I make myself focus on just NOW, then everything feels just how it is, but when you're talking about careers and money and family, it's hard to focus on right now, esp. when you've f*cked it all up.

I do think there are some things I did not fail at. Like, the care I've provided for my cats. Although truthfully, they are both sick now and likely not going to live too much longer and that feels like my fault.

I have 3 degrees, so I didn't fail at education. Mostly didn't do much with them, though, so...

I *am* bones-deep exhausted. Thanks for articulating that so well.
 
I understand defining myself by those terms.

But in another way, I wouldn't call myself a 'success' to have a better career, or a spouse, or children, or a loving family. Instead, I likely would have different demands at work- which I may or may not enjoy or find fufilling; a spouse would be someone I loved, not an accomplishment; as would chidren, whereas I'd be a mom, but not ncessarily a loved one; and a loving family is dependent as much on each person as it would be on myself. Etc.

I do think, no matter what I feel about myself, I can't change the past (and maybe would not be capable if I had that chance), and I am still 'here', but I do have a choice on what I think, how I treat others, if I am kind or bitter or self absorbed or self pitying. So I think I try to add sometthing positive or neutral. I never got a lot out of accomplishments, so I might not be of value, but it didn't really do a lot for me, either.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I think I only think I am a total failure when I am very depressed. It's hard then to focus on anything except what I've done wrong and how I am somehow not...complete or smart enough/good enough.

This feeling totally sucks. So easy to focus on those bad things and let your head tell you you aren’t enough.

You are enough. Just as you are.
:)
 
I see these as difference voices or voicings maybe is more appropriate. We (meaning us, me, and throw my wife in there too, she gets to weigh in lol) are talking about the same thing, but we see it differently.

I would say this is one of the most Central or core issues of my? Therapy, recovery. I worked so hard on this, and I really believe that disapproving voice tried to kill me. Part of me anyway.

It's still "there". I have to deal with it still, but it's so much easier if I have as little as possible to do with others because that turns it on? Something like that.

Yes I failed, you'll have to excuse me, or not. I don't want special treatment but, if you expect a lot from I'm liable to let you down. It comes from my childhood, I know that now. You don't have to know and you don't want to know. It's enough that I know.

So I prefer to say survivor, because I survived something. I'm not always happy about that and I don't see it as an accomplishment nor do I expect anyone else should. There are people who went through similar things perhaps and they do better. I'm glad. I do what I can.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top