Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi
I have been feeling like a massive failure for a while and this is plaguing me and not helping me get anywhere- but I may have just had an epiphany and wanted to share and see what you think? And also ask how you deal with feelings of failure?
so basically focusing on positives has not worked for me because clearly there are a lot of issues...
so i started writing all the reasons i am a huge failure accross my scrapbook. I then looked at them more closely
- all listings of past failures, i dismissed. That’s the past and it doesn’t help to feel bad now about those- only useful thing might be to analyse why it went wrong (if it is same kind of failure)
- some points were simply irrelevant or unsubstantiated
- then i realised there were several reasons that are actually valid concerns. So i acknowledged that yes I did fail. No use being all positive and pretending it isn’t that bad when in fact there is a serious issue (in my case repeated burnouts- this time again so bad i am no longer capable of doing my job or much else and am also physically unwell and underweight due to issues with digestion, eating and stress). But I then thought ok. Well I am like an experiment that failed and I need to troubleshoot. Step 1 is acknowledging it went wrong Step 2 - list all possible reasons why and factors that could have contributed Step 3: pick those factors and reasons that seem to have played biggest part and are likely to have biggest impact (or those are easily fixable) and start addressing them. Step 4: try again and see what happens. Step 5: repeat the above until it is working to a satisfactory level...
- i also realised there were some reasons and fears that i could truth check/ - like feeling like a failure because my friends would hate me if they knew how much i am failing and struggling- so i realised i have to start confiding in more people... i also realised having to pretend to be ok all the time Is super exhausting and isolating.
i have no idea if my new idea is going to help me, but I feel like this is one of the most helpful thought processes i have had about my feelings of being a failure. I feel much better acknowledging that yes I failed at things and it’s ok. And there are valid reasons i am feeling this way but i will now try and address those reasons. I also think what helped is that i realised that in past i never properly addressed a lot of issues so past failures do not mean future success is impossible. I hope it is not as I need to learn to cope with life.
i’m curious- how do you deal with feeling like a failure?
Dear Ann,
You make different proclamations in your writing, namely;
These are arguably very different things.
You have identified JUST ONE underlying issue in your writing.
With these aspects of your own writings in mind, I am drawn to conclude that you might be asking the wrong question of yourself (and us on the forum) at this time.
It is arguably fair to say that, if you simply focus your attention and energies at solving the sole underlying issue, the other matters will (or at least, can) then fade away into irrelevance.
Neither the past, present nor future can be attended to successfully if there is a pervasive underlying problem.
May I ask two questions of you, to help me process better advice for you (for whatever worth that might be for you?!)
In the meanwhile, I commend you for your efforts to address things and can absolutely assure you that you are not alone in your questions and struggles. Please feel free to communicate privately with me - you can simply send me a private message without going through the whole "friends" rigmarole because I have settings that allow this.
Hi- yes I agree with you- I didn’t go into specifics but I did identify the key issues: repeated burnouts, no skills to manage stress and anxiety, issues around food/eating and digestion, rigid need for routine and I’m not good at handling finances. But these mostly are very related to each other...
I am having a very bad burnout now and I had another quite severe burnout a year ago that I never got a chance to really recover from. Thinking back i think 6-9 months before that I again had a burnout (thought it coincided with long covid so I didn’t see as that initially). Then I think I definitely had another one previously... but each time it gets worse and I suffer physically (super underweight) and mentally...
I only became aware I might be autistic a year ago during the burnout and I have since been diagnosed and grown more confident in being autistic.
I cannot keep going like this with this repeated burnout cycle and never fully recovering so I am determined to address it properly this time...