[Mefisto]

I wonder about how other people react to their mistakes.
I did very stupid thing today - had conflict with my diploma supervisor, who will be defender of my work before academic commission. Because of that i probably will get very bad grade of diploma or even wont graduate at all.
Whenever i do something wrong, some weird mechanism triggers inside me - i start to remembering all the mistakes i did in life, which were countless, all the hurt of those mistakes, all the bitter consequences. It always ends like wallowing in very strong self-hatred with comments of my worth as human being.
I dont get it, why i always screw things up in things that majority of people do without any problems. I doubt that any of my study peers had conflict with their supervisors, they all have friendly relations with them. No one among them also wasted so much time during education like i did - i have zero experience in my study field, because i worked in dead-end stupid office job for many years, and in my area of living almost nobody hires people without experience. I never met someone who have as easy job like mine and still screw up at work. I never heard that someone lost as many friends as i did. I never met a person in real life, who had as terrible situation in dating life as i did. What the hell is wrong with me? I cant escape self-hating thoughts and feelings because of all the wrong things i did. Am i overreacting or this is normal reaction for someone who screwed up so much in life?

[kaliope]

haha......i am not laughing at you....i saw the title of your thread and starting laughing at myself because it reminded me of how i used to get suicidal over burning toast. that is a reaction that is not normal for making a mistake...lol. i dont know your past history but for me, i come from an abusive past, a perfectionist for a father and felt i had to be perfect in order to be loved. i was highly criticized for doing wrong. if i didnt do things right, say clean my room to his standards, he tore the whole thing apart and made me start over. there was always catastrophic consequences. so for me, when i make a mistake, it triggers me to think there are going to be catastrophic consequences. i feel like my whole world is going to be blown apart because that is what always happened to me. so i say all those horrible things to myself that were said to me as a child. i tell myself how worthless i am, how i dont deserve to be loved, how i deserve to die. it has taken me a very long time to realize that making mistakes is ok and that i dont have to be perfect and i dont have to kill myself over burnt toast. now when i have that negative self talk i follow it up with something positive about myself because while i may not be perfect, i do have a lot of strenghts. i hope this helps.

I missed a "closed" sign on a door and went to try and open the door. Called myself stupid, went on about my stupidity for a while, felt embarrassed - I wasn't alone. my brother in law was with me. He asked me why I talked about myself so badly over the door - I'd never thought about it before. A very simple, innocent mistake, how my reaction was so out of proportion.

reacting to a mistake and acknowledging it, maybe even saying "silly me" is natural. Holding on to it and ruminating about it not natural. OUr experiences shape us...

I too had a perfectionist parent (mother) who tried to "encourage me" to be better and not accepting mediocrity. She was so intimidating and strong in her encouragement that it never seemed like encouragement - it felt like criticism and scolding. I never felt encouraged to do better - I felt scared to mess up all the time.

When I make mistakes, I do catch myself saying "stupid" or "idiot" and I usually tell myself to take it back. I'm aware of what I said about myself and I think it's getting better. I just hope some day I can just go "oops" and be done with it.

[shezbut]

I can relate to feeling this way.

I have a bad habit of over-catastrophizing. I've done so, for as long as I can recall...even though I do NOT enjoy it. I simply cannot believe that I am pretty enough, smart enough, good enough, whatever. In my mind, everyone else wins, hands-down!

It's a very difficult habit to break. It can be done though ~ at least that's what i have been told.

[dysphoricspirit]

I think the normal reaction is to try and learn from your mistakes and move on.

I've done a lot of stupid things in my life that I regret, sometimes I obsess about the past so much that I forget that I have a future ahead of me, so it's best to just focus on not making the same mistakes again.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Well it depends how often you make the same mistake...just joking.

We all make mistakes of course, but I for one, seem to think I am different from the rest of humanity and must not on any account make mistakes and it is the end of the bleedin' universe if I do. If I make mistakes I get depressed. When depressed I make more mistakes, you get the idea I am sure.

Mistakes are regrettable, but the end of the universe, probably not. As I once read, 'things only go wrong so they can be put right'.