Inability to tolerate my own imperfections?

[iterative_improvement]

I wanted to ask about something I've been dealing with for a long time. I'm a college student in a technical major, and feel highly inadequate if I ever make a mistake or ask a question in class. Essentially, anything that shows I have an imperfection or that I am not as smart as the other students throws me for a loop and I immediately start doubting myself and my potential. I start thinking about everything I could have done differently to be more competent technically (especially in math). Ironically, this cycle of self-doubt paralyzes me so I don't take actions to develop my skills or ask questions when I'm confused, perpetuating the cycle. I've known this for a long time but still can't seem to get past it.

I can think of a couple reasons for this behavior:

• An abusive father who reacted with extreme anger any time I was imperfect. For example, spilling a glass of milk or accidentally making a mess would be met with yelling, swearing, and him humiliating me by cleaning it up himself as though I was incapable of helping. Obviously an inappropriate reaction to a child who just hasn't fully developed their motor skills; clearly society would not react this way to a physically handicapped person.
• The constant description of me by my family and teachers for being "smart" or "gifted" instead of commending me for my hard work ethic, something that Stefan says he tries to avoid in raising his daughter. I think this caused me to internalize the concept that I should just be smart and that it was natural, not a result of hard work.
• My uncle, a primary "father figure" role model who I've since realized is abusive and antagonistic towards nearly everyone in the family. He routinely humiliates others and dominates the conversation without giving them chance to speak, talking the majority of the time and interrupting them. Although I still to look up to him for his intelligence and technical skill, I can think of numerous examples of when he humiliated me as a child for being incorrect about something. Example: In one case, around the age of 13, I mentioned something called a "point light source", which he and his friend mocked me for since they thought it was something I made up. Nowadays I study computer graphics, and a "point light source" is actually a real thing, a source of light emanating from a point. So I was actually correct and they were wrong, yet he mocked me about this for years (although not recently, I am 22 now). 

 

I think I've developed a decent understanding of where this insecurity about being wrong came from, but I have not been able to gain confidence and overcome it. Has anyone else experienced or overcome this, and if so, do you have any idea how I can go about doing so? I fear that this paralysis is keeping me from reaching my "true potential," although whether I could ever reach a point in my life I would be satisfied with is also an open question.

Kind Regards,

-Nick 

 

[TheRobin]

I'm very sorry to hear, that you grew up with people who treated you like that.I'm not sure, I can be of much help here, but one thing that came to my mind when reading your post was, that you seem to analyze your situation and past rather erm technically, rationally, but I didn't get the feeling that there was an emotional reaction that was much part of it. Of course, since this is a text-based internet board, I might be completely wrong here.In regards to how to overcome this: Have you tried really diving into it? I mean when you feel that fear, you really go with it, like, really letting yourself feel the fear and the thoughts behind it and what fear is really all about (no matter how "irrational or weird" it might seem) and get to the bottom of it that way? Because so far it seems your analysis is rather distant and technical and I don't think that will get you that far in actually solving your problem or even really understanding what the emotion is all about.

[iterative_improvement]

Thank you for the response.

Full disclosure before reading the text below: I am not suicidal now nor do I have any plans. And intellectually, what you're about to read is indeed irrational. I've had (former) friends try to help me then criticize me for how irrational my thoughts can be, so I always feel the need to qualify irrational statements. With my therapist, I tend to be much more open.

When I "feel the fear," the most common reaction is suicidality. It's as if I have a voice advocating that should kill myself because I am not living up to my own standards. Or maybe it is the standards of others I am really concerned about?

If I were to ask a so-called "stupid question" in class for example, I would think I should kill myself right then because clearly I am inferior to my peers, and I figure at that rate I will never be as "good" as them, so why bother. I then start thinking about all the mistakes I've made: past substance abuse, skipping class, dropping out of school, while completely ignoring the negative times I was going through then, as well as the positive improvements I've made since, such as being readmitted to school. I recently quit smoking marijuana again for the Nth time, so I'm hoping it sticks but I have a lot of guilt about this as well, since I've been using it to self-medicate now for about 4.5 years. I think: "How much better could I have done if I hadn't had these problems? If I had parents that truly cared about me? Maybe then I could be as talented as these other students, or have good enough credentails to go to graduate school."

Conversely, I tend to be filled with pride and grandiosity whenever my performance is superior to my peers. If I see that I'm outperforming others, I often feel superior to them and derive a sick pleasure from putting them beneath me in my mind. I also feel superior to students with other majors with lesser job prospects, and this is something I tend to remind myself of daily to keep what little semblance of self-esteem I have. It's one of my worst traits in my opinion, I think without this I wouldn't be so hard on myself either.

All throughout my childhood, I felt like I had to be the best in school. In high school, my class rank was #1, but now I'm at a top university in the US experiencing the stereotypical feeling of a little fish in a big pond. With the abuse from my father, I was desperate to do anything I could to earn his love, and I think part of me figured that if I did well enough in school he would treat me with respect, since that was an area he tended to compliment me in. I always felt threatened that if I dipped below the average, I would lose the love and affection of my family, or worse yet, become like my parents who never did well academically. 

Those are the general themes my thoughts and feelings lead to.. I am sure there is more I haven't thought of.

[LovePrevails]

hey I don't prefer replying to posts like this in text but if you think you would benefit from talking it out with someone who has some considerable experience tlaking people through these kidns of things please, by all means, add me on skype: Amashaman

[cherapple]

To put it most specifically and bluntly, *your parents* had an inability to tolerate your imperfections, and they reacted murderously toward you—thus the suicidality—when you didn't live up to their irrational standards. Be careful of taking the blame for parts of yourself that you neither chose nor created. That, too, would be your parents wanting you to fail to see the truth by removing scrutiny from them and placing it on yourself. The way to begin recovery from these things is to get to the roots of their source. Otherwise, you're left forever circling around the mystery of what's "wrong" with you, when there's nothing wrong with you and never was. You just had the bad luck of bad parenting. I'm really sorry that it was the case.

[TheRobin]

Thanks for the long response. Sounds like an awful spot to be in. I shortened it to that part, where I feel I can maybe say something productive and helpful. So I don't want to minimize your story, I just don't feel I can respond with anything useful to the rest, I hope that's ok for you.

 

When I "feel the fear," the most common reaction is suicidality. It's as if I have a voice advocating that should kill myself because I am not living up to my own standards. Or maybe it is the standards of others I am really concerned about?

 

The first thing that came to my mind here was to ask, whether you tried having a dialogue with that voice and ask it why suicide is an appropriate response to failing one's standard and see where that leads you.

Another thing you could do is (and probably you already did that, but I'm gonna say it anyway, just to be sure) to scrutinize your standard a bit. A question would be "How did you come to have these exact standards?" "What do you ahve them for? (I mean what purpose to they serve you? In the sense, that, for instance, if you're a doctor performaing an operation there are certain standards of hygiene, which have the purpose of not infecting the patient. Or if you produce something, then each part has a certain standard of quality it needs to adhere to, so that the final product works properly etc. So what goal do your standards serve here?) And are these goals, that you chose to have, things that you want for yourself or do they originate somewhere else and/or weren't conciously chosen?

And you're probably right that other people's standards also could play a role here. But I'm more inclined to think, that it might currently be, that you're still carrying around other people's standards as your own anyway, so you might want to make sure, that's not the case before you spend time on figuring out how other people's opinion of you affect you. Because of those two things are entangled you can never be sure which one you're actually looking at, making it impossible to arrive at a clear conclusion about one or the other, if that makes some sense.

I hope that was of some use to you.

[Rick Horton]

Whether or not your parents have responsibility in where you are now, you have the duty to control your life from here on out. Don't adopt the methods your parents used. Be nice to yourself. Your inner-critic is probably a lot like your parents, right? Mean, abusive, doesn't like you, blames you, calls you lazy..... Well it's no wonder you wont be happy and move forward. You must make sure that you as your inner critic become nicer, quieter, more supportive. When you are down or fail, your inner critic MUST be truly loving and forgiving, attentive and supportive to you. Then you will feel a whole lot better about yourself.