'I Failed Miserably and Now I'm So Ashamed I Can't See Straight!'

Hi Polly. Excuse my brevity, I could write extensively about how much your writing has helped me over the years. You talk a lot about forgiving yourself. I understand this in theory, but I’m having a hard time putting it into practice. I was a star student, went to an Ivy League school, then got into a top graduate program at a corporation that should have set me up for life. No one was worried about me. I can’t quite put a finger on where things went wrong, but they did. A combination of mental health struggles, housing instability and relationship issues compounded and I started messing up at work. A lot. I forgot that even if you don’t enjoy your work or convince yourself that it’s acceptable to tap out, it isn’t. People rely on you, things have consequences, your reputation will be affected. Now I am out the other side. Somewhat. I can see on the one hand that my struggles were real. I was suicidal, I convinced myself trying hard at a job that gave nothing back was for losers. But of course this was a vicious cycle. And a small voice tells me I wasn’t really struggling, that I am lazy and incompetent and I blame other people for my own laziness and incompetence. I am very fearful about my future, and I also feel it was all my fault, and I deserve to be unhappy. Other people go through much worse than I did and they get up and go in everyday, or they take the advice of their therapist and they stop working. I can’t really tell what is real. I don’t know if I am an awful, lazy person who deserves nothing but failure, or if I am someone who struggled and handled it badly and deserves a second-chance and forgiveness. It’s hard when some people who’ve worked with you and know you think you are great, and others hate your guts. I’m not sure that is normal? So I must be a bad person. And how do I live knowing some people think badly of me? The current situation is this: I’ve bombed down the ladder through a lot of jobs some people would kill for. I think I burned out, but is that just another excuse for being a lazy, entitled bitch? I have friends, a good relationship with my parents and partner. So I’m not a total psycho. But I fear that the good view they have of me is fake, and I am awful. I want redemption and the chance at a new career, one I think I’d be good at. But will I ever shake the guilt of the last few years? Or the reputational damage that I’m not even sure is real or just in my head... or it’s real for some people, but does that matter in the grand scheme? And is it deserved? I have no sense of reality, but maybe that’s a way of avoiding responsibility for the fact that I fucked up. But did I? Or was I struggling in a difficult job at a hard time without much support? And so it goes. I want another chance but I’m not sure I deserve it. The guilt and — more selfishly — the fear that it’s too late for redemption is heavy. I know you can’t tell me if I deserve to fail or not. Maybe you can just help me figure it out? My therapist and friends tell me it’s not my fault, but they would say that. I have been lazy, entitled, and difficult. But I was struggling. I’m not sure that excuses anything. It’s probably just my personality. So I will learn my lessons and repent. But how do I get my head straight and believe I deserve another chance when other people just... don’t act like this? Thank you, Polly. The Worst Dear The Worst, People struggle and fall apart and fail for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with how lovable or hard working or ethical or reasonable they are. We all mess up things that we think we want regularly, simply because we’re conflicted or confused or overwhelmed. When you’ve been navigating educational settings for most of your life and suddenly you’re working in an office and you don’t understand how it works and you feel overwhelmed and anxious and depressed but everyone around you just keeps getting their jobs done? That’s not easy at all. And let’s get real. You were suicidal. Take that seriously. Laziness has nothing to do with feeling suicidal. When you express that sentiment, what you tell me is that you blame yourself for everything you feel. EVERYTHING. All feelings. I used to do that. It’s no way to live. You have to learn to feel emotions without blaming yourself for them. It will take time to get there, but you’ll get there eventually. Be patient. Just know that this is the most important part of your work. You have to grant yourself the RIGHT to feel what you feel, first and foremost. To be clear, it’s absolutely normal to veer off your chosen path and question everything. We don’t have enough conversations about how normal that is. It’s normal to wonder why you work where you work, or wonder why you’re married, or wonder why you chose the life you did. It’s absolutely common to feel conflicted. We all get confused and restless and bored and depressed. We all second-guess the path we’re on. It’s natural. When you HATE YOURSELF for feeling conflicted, that causes big problems in your life. You avoid work. You avoid other people. You trick yourself into thinking that you can hide from reality. These are common reactions. The solution is not to beat yourself for all of this. The solution is to admit the truth: You just aren’t sure what you want right now and you aren’t sure how to get through this bad time. THAT IS NORMAL. Be patient and accept that you just don’t know. Sit with uncertainty and try to tolerate it. Beating yourself up for being lazy or entitled doesn’t serve any function. We are all lazy and entitled about different things. You can be living in a van down by the river and still be lazy about some stuff and entitled about other stuff. People get used to certain kinds of safety and reassurances and then, when those things shift or disappear, they freak out. This is true for everyone alive. We all feel unexpectedly vulnerable, or reticent, or stubbornly unable to change, or full of anger, at different times in our lives. We all veer off the road for reasons we can’t understand. I have surprised myself with my capacity to work hard at times in life, and I’ve also surprised myself with my petty resentments and rigid resolutions not to move an inch out of my way. I have been expansive and open for long stretches and then retreated into long periods of wanting to hunker down and eat grilled cheese sandwiches and talk shit about everything that’s fucked about the world. I have become flinty and negative for long stretches. I have felt alienated and despondent and unmotivated for months at a time. One of the hardest things about being a human is that you always, always, always hope that you’ll simply land in a place where things are just EASY. One day, it will all be extremely relaxing and fun. You’ll set up smooth, relaxing circumstances for yourself and then life will be fucking awesome. That’s not how it is. I woke up this morning and I felt overwhelmed. Last week was so good. I wrote a lot and I also got out of the house and did a bunch of fun stuff. But this morning, all I could think about were hassles and inconveniences and all of this pain-in-the-ass work I have to get done. Everything on my immediate schedule sounded like an enormous fucking drag. If I wrote down the things that sounded like a drag, you would very likely laugh in my face and call me lazy and entitled. You’d say to me, “These things sound fun and interesting. What the fuck is wrong with you?” But if you wrote down the things you hated at your job, I might have the same reaction. I might say, “This is an ideal job for someone your age. Your boss sounds cool. Your work sounds exciting and fascinating. What the hell is going on with you?” Only one person needs to enjoy your work: YOU. Only one person needs to feel like your life makes sense. Other people’s reactions and opinions are irrelevant. There is no objective view of what is lazy and entitled, no matter how many idiots on the internet want to yell this at other peopl…