Yousuf Raza – The Stigmatization of Failure

I feel like I'm not good enough for

anyone, not even for myself.

I failed myself.

I feel like I shouldn't meet anyone.

I just wanted to be alone, laying in

my bed, don't talk to anyone.

I have failed some subjects in my last

semester.

For the first time in my life, I

had a very good academic record before that,

but I'm not even good in them.

I don't know why I can't help it.

Things are getting worse day by day.

Okay, so that's that little voice in our

heads that I was telling you about, that

was holding me back from doing this.

This is that voice becoming very, very exaggerated.

This is that voice taking more control or

being given more control than it deserves.

So what is good about this little narrative

is that you're being able to identify it,

that you're being able to say, you know

what, I feel this way.

It doesn't necessarily have to be true.

And that is fundamental to dealing with ourselves.

Reality or truth about ourselves, about the world,

about the people that we're dealing with, about

the future, it does not have to be

exactly as we feel it.

Our feeling, or our thoughts for that matter,

are not 100% reliable truth.

So if I feel it, it is.

No, that's not a, because you look at

this narrative and already you're doubting that.

You're being able, you're performing the first step

necessary in growing out of this situation, which

is self-detachment.

That it is you looking at yourself as

a third person and commenting, okay, I am

feeling this.

Can't be right.

It wasn't this way before.

And that's just the first step.

The second step will be okay, fine.

I feel this way.

It's not true.

And then there's reasons for why it's not

true.

It's an exaggeration.

These are called cognitive distortions.

Our colleagues who specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy,

they would tell you more about this.

These are cognitive distortions, incorrect thinking habits.

Let's call them that.

And what is common to most, it's very

interesting to search what different type of distortions

there are there.

It's a very informative and it'll help you

understand yourself better if you search them and

try to get an understanding of yourself in

there.

But one thing that's common to all of

them, or most of them at least, it's

absolutization.

What do I mean by that?

That most of these thoughts, most of these

distortions, they come at you with this everything,

this all or nothing kind of an attitude.

I'm completely useless.

I don't want to meet anyone.

I don't want to see anyone.

I'm not good enough, even for myself.

So you see these hyperbolic terms being used,

these absolutist terminologies coming in.

Those of you who've gotten any instructions on

how to answer MCQs properly, the good MCQs

that are made, know that those MCQs that

are absolutes, that use absolutes, are almost always

not the right answer.

So this applies to these thoughts as well.

I am going to judge the validity of

my thoughts and feelings if those thoughts and

feelings are coming at me with these markers

of absoluteness.

Then I know that that little voice in

my head, those little demons inside of me

that want to hold me back, that want

to see me fail, that don't want to

let me grow, it's from there.

It's sourced in there.

And this is something that is consistent with

psychoanalytic thinking.

The psychoanalytic school within psychology that it identifies

within human beings these multiple dimensions, these almost

sub-personalities that instigate negativity, that hold us

back, that come in the form of thoughts

and emotions that we feel as our own.

But as soon as you're being able to

see them as third person, you're growing, you're

maturing already.

The next step would be, okay, is this

true or is it false?

I see absolutization there.

I see that all or none principle applying

there.

I see exaggerations there.

Equally important is to note that they're not

always entirely incorrect, that these thoughts have some

basis, some evidence in reality, which they exaggerate,

but they're not completely false.

Otherwise, they wouldn't hold.

Otherwise, they wouldn't hold.

So what is for me to do is

to be able to identify from these thoughts,

the truth, and then find out what is

actionizable.

That's a term I came up with.

Well, how can I act to improve from

that truth that that thought is giving?

So for example, I failed a couple of

subjects in that semester.

That part is true.

But for me to draw from that, that

I'm a complete failure, that's not true.

If I remember correctly, this question came from

a medical student.

If you're a medical student, that means you're

pretty smart.

You're pretty intelligent.

You made it all the way to med

school, didn't you?

Right?

So if failing a couple of subjects is

telling you that you're not good enough at

all, and you're not intelligent, and the cognitive

distortion will say, all of what happened before

that was a fluke.

You just did it.

That was luck.

No.

How does that make sense?

Evidence in your own life tells you that

this is an exaggeration.

This is false.

Yes, that failure did take place.

How do I learn from that failure?

And another problem, and this is another one

of those cultural sicknesses, that as a culture,

most of us, we look towards failure.

Failure is stigmatized so much.

We've made failure, we've horrified it so much.

We've demonized it so much that it's just

one of the most frightening things ever.

Whereas there is no success without failure.

We don't get it right always.

And if we're not able to contend with

failure, we will not be able to progress

on the path of success.

It is a part of the process.

Right?

So coming to terms with failure, the concept

of it, the phenomena of it, is so

important.

And one of the reasons why we can't

come to terms with it, because we have

some very arrogant conceptions of ourselves, i.e.

we consider ourselves to have reached the pinnacle

and climax of greatness and success and intelligence

without having struggled through the process.

That's a bigger problem.

Not saying that the person putting this question

up is suffering from that.

Not at all.

Just putting a generalized statement out there for

something that we need to consider.

Right?

So that said, another thing we need to

be wary of is that this pattern is

symbolic of a depressive thought process.

There may be a possibility of a depression

behind this that is already developed or is

in the process of developing.

So I would recommend getting a more detailed

assessment and dealing with this situation as soon

as possible before it worsens, as you did

say towards the end, that it is worsening

day by day.

I would recommend getting professional help from whatever

I could tell from this little passage that

you sent.