I'm not sure where exactly to post this, I hope this is the right place? It's about perfectionism, shame, guilt, but it's also just a story about what I've been going through today.
I missed a therapy appointment today - it's a group to prepare us for group therapy. I missed the same one last week. When I don't sleep well – I fell asleep around 4 am when I had to get up at 8 – sometimes, I just can't get myself to get up. And I don't always know what happens. I talked to my abusive mother for the first time in months, on my birthday, this week. It sucked. I watched a horror series before bed. I haven't been sleeping well for days and have been tired. I think it's probably all contributed. I've also given myself a lot of time to rest and relax, so I feel disappointed and guilty that this still happened.
Not showing up or being late was something that I did a lot growing up. So it brings back a lot of anxiety, stress, bad memories/trauma. As an adult, I can't stand being late. Now I'm always early, because being late would make me feel so terrible about myself it'd be almost unbearable. I think not showing up does the same, but it's harder for me to prevent.
I remember going into these shame spirals all the time. A lot of it has to do with perfectionism, I think. If I don't do it perfectly, then why do it at all? And of course, it's never been perfect. Because the standard I set(and I think the one my mother set as well) was simply impossible. I would skip classes, because of nightmares and abuse at home, I wouldn't be there for entire days, entire weeks. If I managed to go for one day, it always felt so pointless. I'd try my hardest, but that one day I would just hear about the days I wasn't there, and feel like a complete outsider. I was so alone. I'd be called lazy, unmotivated. By teachers, friends. No one showed any concern. Just anger and disappointment. Then I'd come home, and there'd be chaos and abuse. My mother would hate me regardless of how well I did. No one showed that they cared about how it felt for me, how everything affected me. It was incredibly hard for me to see the point of going to school - and frankly, of trying at anything.
I know, rationally, that's not my reality now.
But it still feels like it. It feels inevitable. When I do go, I rarely know if I'm doing what's right for me – I just know I'm doing what's expected. I'm getting better at listening to my gut, but it's still not the same as a ''normal'' person. Sometimes I just have to accept that I don't know why I'm doing something. If I don't go, I get temporary relief. I don't even know if I should drag myself out of bed with 4 hours of sleep. Two hours of therapy is going to be way too intense for my brain in that state. I think it's okay to take care of yourself by saying: I can't. I mean: I know that rationally. It doesn't feel like it. But I don't even call. Because I'm just terrified of someone... yelling at me, being angry, telling me what a disappointment I am, or telling me not to come back. So I sleep and wake up and feel shame, and I start avoiding and hiding even more. I don't call, I don't send and email, because it feels like I * up and will be punished. The longer I wait, the less it feels fixable. And then I freeze. I feel guilty for doing anything else, I feel like I deserve to be punished. And that reminds me a lot of being younger. I just wouldn't move if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I felt like a piece of * who didn't deserve to live. Then my mother would come home and tell me the same.
I made a promise, or a decision, last week. That I was going to reach out. Even when it feels like I can kind of sort of handle things. I'm not going to let it fester, like it's some dark secret. Because I let it pile up until I have no other choice but to do something. So this shame and fear, as hard as it is, I need to talk/write about it. I need to make the choice to take care of myself. My brain is convinced the same things as back then will happen – that someone will tell me: you're right. You are lazy. You aren't trying. And I need to start believing that it's different now. That it's not the reaching out and trusting that will hurt me, but the isolating myself. I've turned into the one who's punishing me, and I need to stop.
I'm allowed to make mistakes and I'm allowed to grow. And yeah, sometimes it's really annoyingly basic stuff, because that's what child abuse does. I didn't get to make a mistake, I didn't get to ask for help or forgiveness. So I'm catching up, right now. By doing this,reaching out, by dragging myself off this couch and going for a run, by maybe sending an email saying ''hey I'm sorry I wasn't feeling well I should've called'', by allowing myself to make mistakes. And by being angry, I think, I can suddenly feel my fists clenching, because I'm angry at the people who let me drown and cared more about me meeting their impossible expectations than about my well being.