This post is dedicated to all of my mistakes. Yes, all of them - the ones that I have made, the ones that I may be making right now and the ones that I will make in the future.
Despite what I know to be true to human nature, I am a perfectionist. Well, in particular ways - not in the way it is often used to describe people who are meticulous. I can be meticulous, but I'm not always that way - I mean in the way that describes someone who strives to do something the perfect or ideal way. I strive to be the ideal being that I want to be. But let's look at the word, "strive", for a moment. It means "to devote serious effort or energy" or even to "struggle in opposition". Hmmm... That's fascinating, actually. I just looked up the definition but now I see why I'm not really a perfectionist - I don't expect to meet the goal, I'm just trying to go towards it - like a point in a curve and the tangent line to that point! Each point in a curve has a direction it's going in, in a straight line, with a slope and y-intercept, but it never actually goes there! I always found that part about math to be amazing (limits)! I guess it must have to do with each consecutive point on either side. Anyway...I diverge. Not only do I not expect to meet the goal of perfection, I struggle constantly in imperfection (its opposition)! That's the perfect word to describe it!!
Part of my "recovery" is to accept my and others' imperfections. Every human is imperfect. This actually is the basis for the faith part of the recovery process - because we are imperfect by nature, we put our faith in a "higher power" to help us. So I guess I'm putting Jodi & Abby as representatives of a higher power, right? But since they're dead, it's ok? I hope so. My therapist always talks about how I'm putting this person or that person as my "higher power" which is part of my disease and why I can't see them as imperfect human beings but once they show imperfection, I'm devastated - which is an obvious problem! But these people are all alive - what if I put my sister and my friend as my "higher powers"? I think it's ok...I'm going to talk to my therapist about that, though. I guess I still don't trust my own judgment about these things. In any case, the point is that I need to realize: 1) that it's ok to be imperfect, or to really accept my imperfections as part of human nature and as long as you "strive" for better, it's ok and 2) to see other people's imperfections...and to accept those too, not to put them above or below me but equal.
Part of my "recovery" is to accept my and others' imperfections. Every human is imperfect. This actually is the basis for the faith part of the recovery process - because we are imperfect by nature, we put our faith in a "higher power" to help us. So I guess I'm putting Jodi & Abby as representatives of a higher power, right? But since they're dead, it's ok? I hope so. My therapist always talks about how I'm putting this person or that person as my "higher power" which is part of my disease and why I can't see them as imperfect human beings but once they show imperfection, I'm devastated - which is an obvious problem! But these people are all alive - what if I put my sister and my friend as my "higher powers"? I think it's ok...I'm going to talk to my therapist about that, though. I guess I still don't trust my own judgment about these things. In any case, the point is that I need to realize: 1) that it's ok to be imperfect, or to really accept my imperfections as part of human nature and as long as you "strive" for better, it's ok and 2) to see other people's imperfections...and to accept those too, not to put them above or below me but equal.
Part of dedicating this to my imperfections is to acknowledge some. One of them is my previous post when I was angry - "Pandora and Me". I want to acknowledge that I was blowing myself up in defense due to feeling rejected and angry. I jumped to a bunch of conclusions because of my lack of self-esteem, the lack of my own ability to feel of worth. Then I tried to make myself feel better by feeling "better-than" someone else. I find that embarrassing - because I know better! But ok, I'm judging myself there...the thing is that I have to "take the shame out" of this imperfection. That's hard to do because I feel ashamed and that feeling is deep.
Well, the rest is even too personal to put on my blog (although maybe I push the limits already on the level of the personal on a blog). The roots to that deep feeling of shame is related to childhood abuse, I just remembered. I don't want to publicly describe the details of any childhood abuse, but essentially the message I got as a child was that being imperfect would hurt me. I also don't want to put blame on the "abuser" because I assume it was merely the heritage of abuse. The point is that this is where it comes from - my shame regarding imperfection. It's not my shame, though.
The point, for me, is just to move on with healing which means growing up. The point is that I want to own what I did/said/wrote and also forgive myself that I did/said/wrote stuff that I don't really like or even feel anymore.
Lastly, I want to forgive others who have hurt me or been imperfect, themselves, especially those that disappointed me because of it. I am sorry for putting you above me - making you my "higher power". You are only human, just like me. And we are "perfectly imperfect".
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