There’s a common lie we tell ourselves: You’re not healthy or normal, therefore you are a failure. To the outsider looking at me and what I’ve done and what I’m doing, they’d probably laugh and think I was joking. But it’s a common reaction to having a mental illness!
For me, it wasn’t that my self-talk would say “you’re a failure” but it would say “you’re damaged goods.”
Pretty heavy, huh? But after multiple set-backs in life, like multiple divorces and not finishing my college degree, it starts to make you question yourself when you start approaching 40. Feeling damaged was especially difficult when I had to have a full hysterectomy at the age of 36 for medical reasons. As a cisfemale with no children, this was difficult mentally, emotionally, and psychologically because it went against what I thought I was biologically built to do.
I spent quite a bit of time in therapy to work on this feeling that I was damaged, I was also self-medicating using cigarettes and alcohol (because that’s a great idea). I was learning about myself with therapy, but I was also hiding from a lot of those things that I hated about myself. And the obsession with overcompensating publically was building up the damaged goods narrative that I kept convincing myself of.
So what changed?
The fear of being damaged goods still lingers in the back of my mind- like Dexter’s dark passenger (if you don’t understand that reference, you really should binge Dexter - it was an amazing tv show). But I have learned that ignoring rather than facing this fear makes that doubt grow.
I have to acknowledge my emotions real-time.
As soon as I get that old familiar feeling of failure, I have to take time right then to have a conversation with myself. That may sound bizarre, but it’s really the best way to describe it. I have to think through what I was doing at the time I felt like that. Next, I name that emotion. I read somewhere that putting the label on the emotion or difficulty helps take away the power it has over you. I’ll have to find an article about that or just dedicate an entry to it. Then I will literally have a conversation between failure-brain and cheerleader-brain in my head.
It goes something like this:
Context: I’m 2 classes away from finishing my Master’s degree. I’m working full-time as a professional at a software company and am a caretaker for my aging parents.
Failure-brain: Good job, Brooke. You couldn’t even finish that school assignment on time. You may as well just not do it now. If you get a bad grade in the class, you deserve it.
Cheerleader-brain: Wait a minute. You didn’t finish this one assignment on time because you had some pretty significant things going on outside of school.
F-B: Ya, but a lot of people have dealt with worse circumstances and they probably finished their assignments on time.
C-B: Are you “a lot of people?” No! You are you! And you only have so much time and energy in a given day.
F-B: Well if I would have planned better, I could have finished.
C-B: Wait - you still have a grace period with no penalty. Silver lining! So why is this such a problem? Just finish up the assignment and move on to the next.
F-B: Well played, cheerleader-brain. You win this time. I’m not a failure yet.
Then I imagine that the two sides of my brain give each other a high-five like a cheesy 80’s commercial.
Sometimes failure-brain wins temporarily. But I keep revisiting why I feel that way until cheerleader-brain wins. And I make a conscious effort to find the silver linings. This helps me to remember to celebrate the little wins. Because those little wins add up!
So if this happens to you, you’re not alone! It happens! And for some of us, it happens more often than the average. But we’re all works in progress.
You are NOT damaged goods. You are human.
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