Disappointment

A revelation occurred yesterday. I’ve recently been operating based on the belief that my dips into depression have definite triggers. That one incident is enough to make the bottom fall out of my stomach, and that all I need to do is work on being mindful of my thoughts and feelings and reinforce the notion that I’m allowed to get things wrong. It’s nice to know that I can falter, I can make mistakes and the walls won’t come a-tumbling down.

What of the rest of the time? What of all those little incidents that don’t make me spin out, but happen anyway? There are an awful lot of them. They happen constantly, a barrage every day. A thousand quiet moments in my head, always chipping away, all rooted in the same spot.

I’ve always firmly believed that my greatest fear is disappointment. That someone will look at me, and be disappointed in me as a person. This is, of course, very closely tied to my desire to make everyone around me happy and, in doing so, prove that I am a good person, so everyone will like me. None of these things actually happen, but this has rarely stopped my dogged pursuit. If ever I have had to acknowledge that my actions have not made someone happy, have caused someone pain, even indirectly, I feel the weight of having done something horrible rip through me. I shed tears over even the slightest possibility that I might be a Bad Person, or, more likely, that I am not Perfect.

This is difficult enough to overcome rationally, when the constant messages being fed to us all include, “You must be perfect,” and, “You must not fail.” These are then mixed in with, “You must be true to yourself,” and, “It’s okay to not be perfect.” This makes for a very confusing time. It’s easy to say that we should ignore the former advice as being untrue and the latter as being true, but it’s much more difficult to put into practice. There is always the nagging feeling that maybe I should be trying harder, maybe I could be better, even if I’ve done all I can, to the best of my ability. My rational mind says, “You’ve done well,” but part of me says, “You could have done better, feel bad,” and I do.

A nasty consequence of this renders me unable to approach people or make decisions when asked. I freeze for a moment, contemplating if my approaching them (to say hi or ask a question, or for any reason) will bother them. Am I intruding? Will they be annoyed? Will they be disappointed in me for interrupting them? When I’m asked to make a decision, I again, freeze. What if no one else likes my decision? What if it’s the wrong decision? What if everyone is disappointed in the decision that I’ve made?

The problem is clear. There’s no way I can know any of this beforehand. It plagues me and fills me with doubt. I can’t know, so I don’t know, so how can I approach them? How can I make this decision? There’s not enough information! So I defer. I put it off. I don’t need to ask them, I don’t need to talk to them, it’s much better if you make the decision. I do this, to the point where others are making decisions for me, because I don’t want to disappoint them. The most striking example is that I used to defer the decision of whether I wanted to get that top/pants/skirt to my mother, or my cousins. I would let them make the decision, because then they wouldn’t be disappointed when I chose the less feminine option. Similarly, they wouldn’t hold that smug, victorious glint in their eyes when I did choose the more feminine option. Shoes were another matter. I have always understood shoes.

These things happen so frequently that they are a permanent feature in the background space of my life. They occur so naturally that I don’t usually realise what I’m doing until I’m halfway through doing it. And then I start worrying about what I’m doing, and trying to reason and logic my way out, but can’t, because it’s already taken hold. If it catches me at the right moment, down I go.

So what can I do? At the most basic level, I’m actively trying to put myself first. This goes against the most deeply ingrained message of my childhood and upbringing in Christianity in general, that we put others (especially God) above ourselves. Given I’m not beholden to those beliefs anymore, I have no trouble putting myself before God. Letting go of the other half is more difficult. I’ve grown to care so much about everyone else that it’s second nature to abandon my wellbeing in the face of another’s chance at happiness. It’s just a thing that I do. But it’s not something anyone else does. We might all care for each other, but at some point, we stop and say, “I need to think of me now and you need to think of you.” I just need to learn to do that.