Category Archives: perfectionism

At a loss

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Yesterday I got hearing aids.

A little more than 20 years ago I had my hearing tested and discovered that I had hearing loss due to what was described to me as hormonal hearing loss.  This news triggered feelings of worthlessness and I remember wondering who would ever love me with this loss.  I didn’t understand it at the time, but growing up as an adopted person I didn’t have an inherent sense of value and believed that I had to perform and be perfect to be loved and accepted.  Understanding of my value and worth would come years later, and even still I’m working to untie the untruths of my adoption and how it plays into my existence.

My hearing loss required surgery, which I did a few months after getting married.  I was told that the surgery results would ‘last’ for about 15+ years.  The pandemic with all the concerns about staying alive, masking, and home-schooling my children superseded any need to test my hearing over the past few years.  

Fast forward to last fall when I got my hearing tested again and learned that my hearing loss would benefit from hearing aids.  Hearing aids conjure up images of my grandmother and the huge devices she had in her ears that were constantly squeaking.  Hearing aids meant you were old and old meant you had little value, at least in our society.

I barely spoke about my appointment, even with my family.  I felt a huge sense of embarrassment and shame– the old defect not holding up her end of the deal to be perfect.  At the same time, I grew frustrated in group settings when I had no clue what someone was saying because the background noise was too much for me to be a part of the conversation.   That, combined with reading articles that hearing loss can lead to dementia spurred me to make an appointment.

At that first appointment, I tried the different options and was told that our insurance plan fully covered the best hearing aids.  The cost would have been an easy excuse to opt out, but that was now off the table.  My fitting appointment was scheduled for yesterday, a few months after testing the options.  I was tired walking in, partly because we are coming back from spring break, and getting into the school routine is always tough for our family.  Also, in the time between the first appointment in January and yesterday, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and passed away.   The past few months have been an emotional minefield and we are still walking around in a fog, wondering what just happened to our family.   Hearing aids are a minor inconvenience compared to the storm we just weathered. 

I’m only a day into using my hearing aids and can report that I don’t have to listen to the TV at such a high volume and can now hear my slippers scuffing across the floor.  The real test will be when I’m out socially or among the soft talkers.   They are taking some getting used to – my ears are itchy after a few hours of them in my ears, but I’m sure that will change with time. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having mixed feelings.  Shame wants to rear its head, but a sense of acceptance is also present. If unraveling my adoption journey has taught me anything is that facing the truth, while scary, is much easier than trying to avoid it.

Mistake

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I’m ridiculously hard on myself and always have been but haven’t thought much about the reasons why I’m so hard on myself until recently. 

A few weeks ago, my husband made a mistake – a big, costly mistake.  In reaction he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, I made a mistake.”  Immediately I felt myself tense up. I was shocked by his reaction. I thought to myself, are you kidding me?  THAT’S YOUR REACTION?  You make a huge mistake and you shrug your shoulders??!!!   Even typing this a few weeks later I can feel the tension building in my stomach and shoulders.  How can he react like that, so calm about his mistake?

I was startled by his response, along with being completely annoyed by his reaction (and the mistake), but I was simultaneously curious.  How is possible for him to react so casually about this mistake?  Why isn’t he taking this more seriously?  Why isn’t he yelling at himself or punishing himself?  And it was with this question that it dawned on me that I have some work to do around mistakes, especially because my children seem to be taking after me and are extra hard on themselves when they make a mistake. 

When it comes to mistakes, I am tough on myself.  I personalize it. I say the meanest things to myself, but usually not out loud.

And here’s where the hard truth comes out – the one that hurts to admit.  The one I am scared to share yet has colored much in my life without me even realizing it. 

I am a mistake.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I am a mistake.   A whoopsie, an “oh no I am a pregnant, 20-year-old un-married Catholic dating a Protestant” woman’s child.  I can’t say what I ingested while in-utero, but I suspect that the words screamed at my birth mother were not kind nor supportive.  The little I do know is that her parents were pissed, and she was sent out-of-state to have me and give me away.  No black marks on their perfect Catholic family.

So, you see, I really was a mistake.  

I was adopted and raised by loving, but flawed people.  My Mom is a perfectionist and so when I made a mistake or didn’t measure up, she’d get upset.  I understand now that my mother’s perfectionism had to do with her own trauma and anxiety, but as a child, I had no clue and would get very nervous when my mom got angry for fear that if I upset her, she’d give me back.  Spilled milk infuriated her.  She would get impatient with me when I didn’t behave in a way that she understood or when I didn’t agree with her.  I understand now that this disconnect had to do with the fact that we are not genetically related, as more research is done on adoptive families.

To me, a mistake was proof that I was damaged, and it confirmed my worries and belief that I was unworthy.  It was an earthquake, rattling the foundation of what was an already shaky sense of self.  One who was trying so desperately to please her parents, to do whatever they wanted to ensure their love, but would always slightly miss the mark.  I was fearful that a mistake would cause my parents to give me back – to return the damaged goods.  I felt like I had to be the perfect daughter in the mold they wanted – and when I fell short, which was frequently (because let’s be honest, who is perfect?), I was super hard on myself, figuring it was a character defect keeping me from this elusive perfection.

The amount of tension I feel in my body as I write this is incredible.  I feel sick to my stomach, afraid to even put this on paper.  If I’m brave enough to post it on my blog, which I don’t promote and that my parents may never see, will I still be punished for it?  Why am I terrified to share this painful truth?  I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt like a mistake.

Whoever thought that revealing one’s self would be so challenging?

I’m doing the work, through journaling and therapy because I no longer want to go through life being hard on myself.  I certainly don’t want my boys to feel that they are anything less than the wonderful, flawed humans that they are. I am working to heal myself.  And while it is still cringe worthy when I make a mistake because old habits die hard, I’m working on being gentle with myself.   I’m going to post this without agonizing over whether it is “perfect” enough to put out there.

Here’s what I do know:  I’m here. If I was truly a mistake, I wouldn’t be here.  Maybe my birth mother and her family believed that I was a mistake, but I’m not.  She MADE a mistake by not using birth control – or having sex before marriage – however you want to look at it, but I AM NOT THE MISTAKE.   I am here for a reason, so that can’t be a mistake.  I can’t carry her mistakes or her shame anymore.  I can’t carry my mother’s anxiety and perfectionism either.   They’re on their own.  They’ll have to heal themselves because I’m focused on repairing myself.

I wish I could wrap this up with a nice tidy bow, saying that I’m no longer hard on myself, but that wouldn’t be honest.  Instead, I’m taking this day by day.  Every day is a new day to practice, to embrace my shortcomings and work on saying, “oh well, I made a mistake but I’m not a mistake.”