“I am such a failure!”
This phrase has been my mother’s mantra for years.
“Just look at my children, I tried so hard to do everything right and all I did was fail.”
It is pointless to point out all the things her children have succeeded in doing because the one thing we have all failed to do is validate her worth and her choices. We can never be good enough.
My mother once told me that with all my musical talent I would make a great music minister’s wife. I am neither a professional musician nor married to a minister so my life is not much of a success story. Things looked up a bit when I went to join the Navy, but I enlisted rather than go officer in order to get the program that I wanted and that was a bit of a disappointment.
I’ve always been a disappointment really; refusing to “apply” myself to get straight A’s, which I did in college once but since “I wasn’t walking with the Lord” it didn’t mean a thing. I left conservatory after one year, much to her chagrin, and chose to attend an Ivy League University instead. My parents wouldn’t pay for me to attend a “pit of humanism”. So I found a way to get myself through. This again was a demonstration of her “failure to impart the importance of remaining under the protective umbrella of my father’s authority until I married and was under my husband.”
I am a failure; I am never good enough. Somewhere along the way I learned this mantra for myself. It was re-enforced every time I didn’t make an audition, every time a lover left me, every time I went above a size six. I learned to criticize every inch of my body and ounce of my mind. I learned that is was easier to be harder on myself than let anyone else find a fault I hadn’t.
Part of me strove for failure because I was never wanted my mother to be wrong. I desperately wanted her to be right, for her not to be a failure and for me to be the problem. I was afraid that if I did prove her wrong once and for all it would be the unforgivable sin and I would never be allowed home again…………
(Have to finish this later)
This phrase has been my mother’s mantra for years.
“Just look at my children, I tried so hard to do everything right and all I did was fail.”
It is pointless to point out all the things her children have succeeded in doing because the one thing we have all failed to do is validate her worth and her choices. We can never be good enough.
My mother once told me that with all my musical talent I would make a great music minister’s wife. I am neither a professional musician nor married to a minister so my life is not much of a success story. Things looked up a bit when I went to join the Navy, but I enlisted rather than go officer in order to get the program that I wanted and that was a bit of a disappointment.
I’ve always been a disappointment really; refusing to “apply” myself to get straight A’s, which I did in college once but since “I wasn’t walking with the Lord” it didn’t mean a thing. I left conservatory after one year, much to her chagrin, and chose to attend an Ivy League University instead. My parents wouldn’t pay for me to attend a “pit of humanism”. So I found a way to get myself through. This again was a demonstration of her “failure to impart the importance of remaining under the protective umbrella of my father’s authority until I married and was under my husband.”
I am a failure; I am never good enough. Somewhere along the way I learned this mantra for myself. It was re-enforced every time I didn’t make an audition, every time a lover left me, every time I went above a size six. I learned to criticize every inch of my body and ounce of my mind. I learned that is was easier to be harder on myself than let anyone else find a fault I hadn’t.
Part of me strove for failure because I was never wanted my mother to be wrong. I desperately wanted her to be right, for her not to be a failure and for me to be the problem. I was afraid that if I did prove her wrong once and for all it would be the unforgivable sin and I would never be allowed home again…………
(Have to finish this later)
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