Contains abuse - I am a failure. I fail at everything

LostFailure · 05-11-2023, 06:39 PM

I am a failure. I say this based on what I think is a rational evaluation of all my failures and successes (not that I have many of the latter). All I have ever done is fail at relationships, friendships, family, work, school, finance, sex, health, and every other human endeavor and aspiration. My therapist will call this a "cognitive distortion," but to me, it is the opposite; a cognitive distortion would be thinking I am not a failure when I have failed at everything. I have excelled at or succeeded in no human activity, endeavor, or aspiration. Let's examine this:

School: I have consistently failed in all academics. I managed to pass elementary and high school not because of academic merit but because it was believed to be in everyone's best interest that I move on (that's code for the school didn't want the dumb, "retarded", speech-impaired, self-harming, suicidal, occasionally institutionalized, autistic child no more). I used to fail myself on tests and assignments, writing "failure" or a 0 score on everything I handed in, in case the teacher felt the need to tell me how retarded I was. Later in life, I was too poor to afford college, and I failed vocational training twice, the worst student in the school (I was the only one who failed at all, much less twice).
Work: I have never succeeded in holding down a job long-term and have no career. Most people in their 30s have careers, but I am stuck going from one bad job to the next.
Friendships/Relationships/Family: I can't make friends, I have no family, and I am not attractive to anyone. I can attend MeetUps, go to clubs, and do everything I am supposed to, but inevitably, it won't work out. Even if they like me initially, they will learn more about me eventually, and that'll be the end of it. I can't hide all the unattractive, failure aspects of myself forever from someone.
Health: I've struggled with eating disorders, IBS, weight, and drug problems for the last 5+ years.

Now, for success:

I self-published a book about international law on Amazon KDP. While I am proud I did this, people have yet to want to read it, not even people I know personally, and self-publishing on Amazon doesn't feel like a great success. Anyone can upload a Word document.

After all this, to think I am not a failure strikes me as a cognitive distortion. I have never succeeded or done well at anything in my life. My whole life has been a series of traumas, setbacks, failures, and disappointments.

"Failure" is supposed to make me stronger, teach me valuable lessons, or something like that, but I don't think that's true. As an example, the vocational training I did, where not only was I the only student to fail, I failed twice. I have tried to deduce the "lesson" or benefit I was supposed to gain from being the only failure for ten years, but I haven't found it. I can't find a benefit or lesson that would make being the only failure better for me than succeeding like all the other students. Similarly, I can't find the lesson or benefit in being the "retarded" kid my entire childhood and graduating from school not based on academic merit but on my ability to be a liability to a school administration.

Neither do simple platitudes or basic self-help advice work. I can practice gratitude and be grateful for the positives in my life, but that changes nothing about the fundamental essence of who I am, which is failure. I can be a failure and still be grateful for things. I can also be a kind, compassionate, and empathetic failure, so focusing on my personal qualities doesn't help ease my failure-ness. Moreover, personal qualities cannot be quantifiably measured and are entirely subjective, making them useless for determining if I am a failure. I am a failure because I have no objective and quantifiable success in life.

I don't want to be a failure anymore.

Pi.R^2 · 18-11-2023, 07:40 PM

I'm so sorry, your post was 'auto-filtered' by the RYL system and I've only just spotted it now and approved it.

It's sad to read that you think personal qualities don't count for anything. I'm a teacher and my kind of 'speciality' so to speak is teaching the students who struggle with education the most. They don't 'get' things the way other kids do and even when they work really hard they don't do as well as a lot of other kids who don't work hard and that's so incredibly unfair. As someone who is very 'successful' in the traditional sense, let me tell you that in my eyes you and my students are no less worthy than me, not at all. If anything their successes are bigger than mine. It's incredible to see people whose successes the world doesn't value properly still trying so hard and achieving what they can. Equally, they all have their own set of amazing personal qualities that make them unique people worthy of love and respect. Some are so funny I get distracted from my job getting involved in their silliness, others are so gentle and caring to other people, while others are quiet gentle souls and every single one of them is so much than their academic qualities.

Oops, ramble. I'm just gutted that you could feel so negatively about yourself when you've endured so much and overcome such an awful education experience and still applied yourself to learning and writing about international law. I'd love to read your book, if you'd be so kind as to send the amazon link :)

It can be so hard to navigate friendships, I think even for neurotypical people and especially when you're neurodivergent. Please don't give up though - it can take a while to find your people but they are out there!

Zurg · 18-11-2023, 11:01 PM

As much as you Seem to have made yourself believe so, i do not Think you are a failure. I Think the world has failed to make room for you in a way that could make you thrive. The world we live in can be a very cruel place that doesn't always have room for people a bit outside the norm. It goes way too fast and it is way too rigid for everyone to thrive in. But that is not a failure on the different kinds of People?s part.
For what it's worth, you don't actually have to prove yourself worthy in order to be in this world. Existing in itself is enough to have a place in life and society.
Success can also be a lot of things. Also non mainstream things. Sometimes success can be to find peace in the life that suits you even if it seems different from the norm. Like, i am 42, female, no job, never managed to get an education and i haven't had a boyfriend in the past 20 years. When put down in text that doesn't Sound very nice. It might even sound like a genuine nightmare to a lot of people ;)
However, the way of life that suits most of my friends, doesn't really click with me. It takes a bit of time before people get to know me and realise that i am not unhappy with the way my life has played out. My point is, you know what defines success by the normal standards. But is the normal things, the things you want?? Because if it is, there are people who can help you with a lot of things like building self esteem, explaining all the rules of social interaction and so on. You might not be totally fluent compared to people who never struggled in that respect but in my experience we're a lot of people out there who has room in our lives for friends that stick out a bit.
Now, maybe you don't really desire the life as such but more the feeling of belonging??? Again, there are people who can help you make the best of the things that you do well. In that way it can be easier to not compare yourself to people that have not had to endure the same difficulties you face. And maybe it could build into something that you could be happy with?? Because there isn't anything wrong with you, at all!!! Different is okay. And for some of us, it is a way of life because the other options are too impossible to live up to.