MISTAKES

Nov 9, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“Most of us agonize over mistakes because we internalize the error.” BRB p. 38

When we were kids, making a mistake meant being verbally and often physically abused. Our mistakes provoked over-the-top reactions from the adults around us who did not have the tools to understand that we were just doing what kids and people in general do – make mistakes!

But instead, we heard shaming comments like, “What’s the matter with you? Are you stupid? Are you an idiot?” or “You should have known better. Look what you did!” And on top of that, many of us were spanked, slapped, or beaten as well. It seemed like the end of the world when this happened. The mistake could never be undone.

Part of the result was that the more it happened, the better we got at shaming ourselves. We no longer needed to hear it from someone else – because those messages had become internalized. We carried this self-shaming behavior into our adult lives and many of us became merciless in the way we treated ourselves.

In ACA we learn to gradually reprogram those inner critical parent messages and understand that making mistakes is part of being human. We all do it. When we make a mistake, we talk about it, examine the nature of what we did, forgive ourselves, make amends when appropriate, and move on. We begin to think and act like true adults!

My experience:

A Poem from “A Gladiator’s Journey”

PTSD

Wrong is something you could never be

Emotional stifling is what it taught me

Dearly you paid if you dared to be wrong

The remembrance of abuse has been so very long

My body now reacts in ways I don’t know

A survival tactic acquired from so long ago

For the tactics have been absorbed and remembered deep

The body now reacts without even a peep

Fear and abandonment is what drives thee

Control of those emotions has eluded me

To be wrong now the endurance of fear has been long

What must people think that I am never wrong

I can feel it in my back, the burden is immense

My abandonment issue is very intense

The pain is dizzying, I can feel it in my shoulders

The knots that have developed are like 2 ton boulders

Why couldn’t the deeds just have been explained to me

Instead of being treated like Kunte Kinte’

I was a mere child curious to explore the ship

But my experience was curtailed by the crack of the whip

I could never share the excitement of what I did today

For fear that it was somehow wrong and I would pay

The tears that now flow are but a fraction of what are

I am still trying to get to all the pain from afar

The outcome, was not to share or always be right

No other options existed in my sight

I live in the shadows afraid to share

More afraid than not that most won’t care

The loneliness and suffering of always being right

I can no longer engage in the infinite fight

I now surrender for I have finally lost

time to pay the ultimate cost

So I put down my weapon, I bend my knee

I bow my head and I whisper please take me

This trauma I suffer can no more be

I have nothing else for which to give to thee