Growing up, a mistake was always a catastrophe. Stains on your clothes? Careless and unappreciative. A tear or rip? Irresponsible and inexcusable. A lost item? Thoughtless and unforgiveable. And this was not a calm judgement. No, this was a screaming, yelling and cursing tirade. I literally remember my mother raging at me over spilled milk.
This wasn’t because we were incredibly poor – even though we were. Or because we had a strict budget – which we definitely did not, because my mother had no concept of how managing money worked. It was simply because my mother was, to use the proper term, batshit crazy.
Growing up like that led to all sorts of complex psychological issues. Not the least of which is the fact that to this day, I berate myself over any sort of mistake that wastes or ruins anything. I remember being absolutely hysterical in college because I had spilled a bottle of eye-makeup remover. It was so ingrained in me that a mistake or a misstep was actually a crisis – and wastefulness was a crime. I still have to talk myself out of obsessing over the nail polish that got spilled on a new pair of shoes, or the glass I broke or the necklace I lost. Of course, where the line between my childhood misraising and my GAD and OCD meet is ever tenuous and uncertain. I strongly suspect, however, that I know which one came first. After all, I have clear memories stretching back to toddlerhood.
I used to think I just had an unusually good memory, but as I began researching and reading on my various monsters, it occurred to me that the truth was that I was experiencing extreme emotions from an early age – the kind that enhance attention and perception while triggering stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin which entrench memories. I sometimes think my entire childhood was one big long train of stressful events that irrevocably fixed painful emotional experiences in my psyche.
Interestingly, an actual injury was never a big deal. You were using your sister as a soccer ball and kicked her into an air conditioning unit, cracking her head open and now she has to go to the hospital for stiches? All in good fun. You swung a golf club into your sister’s head and caused a bloody lump? An understandable mistake. Jumped barefoot into a pile of dirt at a construction site where you were playing and cut your foot on glass? Kids will be kids! Almost drowned your sister holding her down in the pool? Clearly, she’s overreacting.
Life was a series of catastrophes – except when real danger or damage was introduced, and then it was swept under the rug. My sense of what was actually a disaster vs what was really no big deal was pretty confused for a very long time. And even as I slowly realized what more “normal” responses and attitudes were, the fact that I had to fight for every penny I ever had left me ultra-concerned with making things last and not wasting even an ounce of anything. Those habits remain, even if I have learned to laugh off the spills, losses and breaks. And I do take physical injury or risk – both mine and others’ – a bit more seriously than my parent ever did.
There is, however, an upside. When a real calamity strikes, I am able to remain calm and focused under pressure. After all, practice makes perfect.
