Tuesdays are the day I have therapy, and in light of my recent trauma of a 65, I talked about it to my therapist. Since I equate that huge red number as “65 = kaston is a failure”, she gave me an assignment. An art project, to be more specific. I am to scan the grade and print out 9 copies. I can “decorate” it as much as I want, but I have to glue them together in a quilt fashion and hang it on my wall.
If are like “huh?”, let me explain. This is one way not only to accept that I got a failing grade, but to separate it from me. If I see, every day, that awful grade on the wall I might begin to accept it and the pain of it might lessen as time passes. And as I get used to seeing the number and not having the pain associated with it, and as I continue day by day with out dying…well I am sure you get the point now.
As a kid I always tried to be perfect for my parents. Not so I would get praised or be bragged about, but so I would not be a burden on them; I wanted to stay out of the way and not interfere in their lives. Any time that I did do something that got their attention, it was an accident and most of the time it was because I “messed up” (forgetting chores, had to get woken up for school, got sick, ect.). The same went for my grades. I was not cheered for an A, it was expected of me. But when I got a B, I was chided for it and I felt like the worst daughter on the planet; I had done something that required them to “deal” with me.
I want to let this go, but it is so hard. Still to this day, anything less than an A makes me feel like crap; I have failed, someone had to take time out of their life to show me in red ink where I screwed up. If it was perfect then only 10 min of their time would be spent on me, but every mistake means more time spent on me. I am, again, a burden.
My first step, talking about it, is here. Even if only 2 people read it, it is here for the world to know: I received a failing grade on one paper in one class 3 weeks before my graduation. I hurt, but I am still alive. I have intense emotion, but I have forgotten how to cry. It has been years since I have had a “proper” cry and probably coincides with my mother’s untimely death.
Part of my issue with letting go of this grade is the inability to let it out, to sob into my pillow alone until the tears are dry and my shoulders are lighter. But in a society where “boys don’t cry”, “only sissies cry”, and crying being seen as a weakness how can I get it back?
I ask my therapist today why I never see any of the strong adults in my life cry. My dad kicked me out of his house when he felt I had emotionally got the best of him, Harriet has gone through a lot since I have known her and I haven’t even heard a quiver in her voice, Molly is a single mom (enough said there!), and my brother has frequently gone hungry. Why have I never seen any of these people I admire cry?
Her answer was, “you won’t because they do it in the bathroom when no one is around.” I asked a follow-up, “If crying is okay, then why do they hide? Why are they ashamed?”
That is my issue. It is okay to cry, but only if no one else knows you are in pain. Why would we have a physiological way to communicate pain if it was not meant as nonverbal language to another person. If it is not okay to cry and show others that another human being is in pain, why should I bother?
The only tears I have are the ones you see here that trickle from my brain, run down my fingers and splash on these keys.
July 29th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
I was without internet access all week — just got home and read your last 2 postings. I understand being a perfectionist because I’m one myself. But try to give yourself a break because you’ve taken on an extraordinarily huge academic load this summer. Just enduring the summer and passing your courses is more than most people could have done or would have even tried. If you’d taken it easier on yourself and graduated in December, the low grade probably wouldn’t have happened.
And yes, I certainly cry. Usually into my pillow, but most recently at work, when I just felt overwhelmed with the ongoing emotional impact of the whole sexual harassment ordeal on one of my staff. I felt like I was trying to hold everything together while others around me were falling apart, and I just gave in and cried around 3 or 4 of my staff, at least a couple of whom had never seen me emotional like that. But it’s OK for them to know there’s a limit to the amount of stress I can handle without it affecting me emotionally.
I also know what it’s like to feel like a failure. I gave up on my marriage to Wade, and people in my family are not supposed to fail or give up or reneg on a commitment — certainly not on a marriage. I felt that I had hugely disappointed my Dad in particular, and I just had to get over it — but it sure wasn’t easy. I was in counseling off and on for 3-4 years about all that.
It sounds like your therapist has good ideas. Given your artistic bent, using artistic expression to process your disappointment with yourself sounds like just the ticket. But again, keep in mind that you put an incredible burden on yourself. And maybe try to look at it as a tradeoff you perhaps could have seen coming — sacrificing some degree of quality of work, in order to accomplish an extraordinary quantity of work in a limited time. Maybe you can learn something about your own limits, and take it a little easier on yourself next time.
Love,
Mommiet
August 20th, 2006 at 11:21 am
More Hippy Shit:
This is how I coped with that ONE B I got in grad school, (where I really made a 92 but it was scaled so that it was still a B) - - - and actually how I cope with a few of the things I do that piss myself off when I’m in perfectionist mode (and trust me, I am no master at this shit but I like to remember it).
OK here goes.
Have you ever really looked at Native American beadwork? It’s very ornate and amazing - it looks so perfect - but when they create something like that, they always made one bead fucked up. Why? Because there is nothing perfect in nature - (therein could like the “perfection” but that might be a human construct given to us by the Starseed Ape Ass fucking aliens) and because they wanted to emulate nature, they would intentionally make one bead just off. An oft touted example of this was the maize - corn kernels are perfectly arranged, but asymmetrical.
So think of that B as what really makes you perfect - you are more aligned with nature in this way. Wow I am such a damn hippy!!! But it’s true. I don’t think true beauty is in absolute perfection, personally, but rather comes through struggle (wine is another example of this). When life throws you these things sometimes it’s an opportunity to grow.
Or, you can just go beat that prof’s head in with a hammer, which ever makes you feel better. hah.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:24 am
OH AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN GET A B! AND YOU BEAT ME IN RUDERMAN’S CLASS YOU LITTLE DIRTY HO.