Falling Practice

I am trying to create and rely on a different script when difficult things or even crises come up on in my life. My old script was, apparently, to tell myself that this was all my fault and that no matter how well I dealt with the problem, it was still going to be my fault, that God would be angry at me, that my parents would be disappointed in me, that I would be unworthy to be loved by my children, and that it was always going to be like this, crisis after impossible to resolve crisis and that I would always ALWAYS be a failure.

I’m writing this down for myself because I want to assure other people who have a similar script that yes, it is real and yes, it sounds that bad when you put it up for other people to read. None of us who have these awful scripts installed would ever think of using them on other people we care about, not children or spouses or family members. And yet . . . I suspect that people around us can hear some echoes of the script when they deal with us. Sadly, I also think that one of the most harmful things I’ve done to my children is to give them such an up close and personal look at my script and to model for them that it is normal adulthood (or maybe just motherhood) to have this script running non-stop in the background.

This is why every time something good happens to me, I ignore it and move on to a new thing I have to work on. Because the script runs regardless of what accomplishment I’ve achieved. Some part of me keeps thinking OK, fine, let’s try the next thing on this list because surely after x number of years of accomplishing an incredibly long list of things, eventually at the end, there will be peace. At the end, I will *feel* the sense that I’ve done well and that I can at last tell the script to fuck off, that I will *feel* like I am a good person who is worthy of love and good things. But since it’s not right now, well, instead of trying to fix myself or the script, I just have to keep lashing myself to move onto the next thing.

Now that I am aware of this (thanks, therapist, who said to me recently—I think that might be the first time in over a year I’ve ever heard you take credit for actually accomplishing something incredible), I’m trying to install new software in my brain. I’m playing with the script that I might want to be running in the background in the way in which I might gently guide a toddler toward not hitting another child or not smacking their head against the wall repeatedly when angry.

“Humans make mistakes and you are human and you are allowed to make mistakes.”

“You are a resilient person and have overcome many things and will overcome this one.”

“You’re going to look back on this in just a few months and not think it was that bad.”

“Your beloveds will still love you despite this, and maybe even more because of this.”

Instead of trying to avoid failure at all costs, seeing any hint of it coming and desperately working a thousand miles an hour to turn the ship, I’m trying to think instead, “here’s a new chance for you to practice giving yourself grace and learning from mistakes.”

Yes, I know that people learn from mistakes and that actually, mistakes don’t mean that anyone is a terrible person. Nonetheless, much of my life has been aimed at never ever making mistakes. Truly. I have believed that I made mistakes rarely (which actually turns out not to be true) and I have thought that the main lesson of making a mistake is simply a way to make sure that I never make a mistake remotely related to that again, and a reminder to try harder next time to never make a mistake.

I know that for most people who are terrified of mistakes, they tend toward the strategy of not trying difficult things. For whatever reason, this is not my general modus of operandi. Instead, I throw myself at new things and work my ass off day and night without rest, give up sleep or rest and relaxation or anything I might enjoy, so that I can throw myself thoroughly at the ONE THING.

And, this is difficult for me to admit because it sounds so childish, the other program running in the background seems to be an erasure program. This program likes to hide from me the reality of my mistakes. Sometimes it does this by distraction—look over here at the new thing you can be great at! Sometimes it does it by just refusing to look at the mistake at all. Not in the “it didn’t happen way,” but sliding it into other things or just not looking at it squarely and hiding it from my conscious awareness precisely so that I don’t get scared of trying new things. I like to think of myself as good at everything I try, though this is demonstrably untrue as well as simply ridiculous.

Maybe this is why I keep thinking that the elusive idea of “true adulthood” is still something I’m trying to achieve because I actually am still unfolding to myself and surely adulthood comes after actually seeing who you really are. Mistakes don’t just teach us how to try again better, they teach us who we are. And as long as I can convince myself that who I am is actually not an inherently evil or terrible person, then I can work on seeing failure as practice, as falling practice with a net underneath that is actually held up by me and a new script I can run for myself.