My brain is doing that periodic thing that it does which is to torment me with things that happened long ago about which I can do nothing. And then dwelling on those things until I cannot think about anything productive.
HOW do you stop that? I am not even talking about middle-of-the-night perseveration, although that has been happening too. I am talking about straight up driving home from taking Carla to school and then BAM, “Remember when you did this totally awful and stupid thing? No, but do you REALLY remember it? Let’s go through every moment in excruciating detail.”
There WAS a stupid thing I did, last fall, and I’d managed to forget about it. Until my brain slapped me with the memory.
It was one of those horrible errors that is totally preventable and has an actual cost to it. Like forgetting to return a pair of shoes that don’t fit before the 30-day return period ends. Or backing your car into the garage wall. Or leaving your car windows open all night during a rainstorm. Things that could have been prevented had you been slightly less lazy or more proactive. I can feel my face heating up with residual shame. Such a waste! A preventable waste of money! And not a SMALL amount of money, either. We were so fortunate to be able to pay for my mistake, and my husband was extremely kind about it even though he would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS make that kind of mistake. Why? Why did I let that happen? And why am I thinking about it NOW?
I would say that it’s because I just did another stupid money-wasting thing (My phone has been disconnecting from our wi-fi, and I didn’t notice, and I have just willy nilly been watching Instagram videos and scrolling through apps and downloading – good gourd – a ONE POINT NINE GIGABYTE package of bird sounds from Merlin Bird ID, all while connected to the cellular network. We do not have unlimited data, and in fact only use about 5-6 GB of data per month among the three of us, and I have used NINE GIGABYTES, all by myself, in five days. And we have 25 days left in the month before our data resets. And yet, we can buy more data, a GB at a time, but each GB costs $15 which is not nothing!) but I have been torturing myself with the earlier money-wasting thing for weeks now. So who knows.
Anyway, it’s good for internal piling on: I am the worst, stupidest person, totally oblivious to important things. I am costing our family money for NO REASON. No one else would make such a dumb mistake! I can see that I’m not connected to wifi just by looking at the top of the phone, and I am on my stupid phone all the damn time! I am a drain on our finances and worthless to boot!
It’s not even just things I DID, it’s all sorts of things, like how I was going through old yearbooks a few summers ago, and discovered that this boy I’d had a crush on for years had written something filthy in my sixth grade annual. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but I can imagine all the other middle school boys giggling about it. And WHY did he write such a thing? We were friends! I may have had a crush on him, but there was never anything but friendship between us. And I was friends with him for YEARS after he scrawled that crude suggestion in my yearbook.
Should I throw out my yearbook? Scratch out those awful words with permanent marker? Re-evaluate all my relationships?
Why am I thinking about this? I didn’t even find the yearbook recently; it was AT LEAST two years ago, if not more.
Or the other day, I was out for a lovely walk in the snow and instead of enjoying the feeling of snowflakes kissing my cheeks and the sound of my boots crunching in the snow, I started thinking about another awful boy, this one in high school, who once mentioned he’d seen me outside my music teacher’s house after my lesson, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, waiting for a parent to pick me up. He told me I looked like a hooker. A HOOKER. We were in high school. Why would his mind go there? And why would he TELL me such a thing? And why am I furious about it NOW, a million years after the fact?
Why are schoolage boys so awful? Not all of them – not yours, surely. But enough of them to make a difference. Will Carla have to deal with boys like this? Will they write grotesque things in her yearbook? How am I going to protect her heart from being infected by terrible people? I have no idea how to protect her or prepare her. I really have no business being a mother if I can’t help her understand that there are people who are mean and hurtful for no reason… but without crushing her spirit.
And then there are more examples of me being a terrible person and parent. Like how last summer, there was a mortifying incident involving another mom and her kids of the sort that makes me a) wonder how, when a child knows The Rules and has shown that they know them and can follow them, they can occasionally not just forget The Rules but flaunt them? And b) how am I possibly equipped to be a parent if I can’t convey the importance of The Rules and how they are meant to be followed always, not just on a whim? I’ve been going over and over that event (which turned out fine! everyone is fine!) and coming up with The Exact Perfect Thing that I should have said or did at the time, instead of saying and doing what I did say and do, which was nothing is except standing in gape-mouthed mortification and letting the other mother take the disciplinary lead. How is this helping anyone, to go over and over it?
Oh, lord, and there was that other time? With this same mom? When I saw her kid on the sidewalk, by himself, two blocks from home. I was in my car and stopped and asked him if he was okay and if his mom knew where he was, and he said yes and yes. So we kept driving. I pulled up my phone so I call his mother but before I could do so, we saw her on the sidewalk. She was frantic with worry, because she’d lost him. I was able to tell her where he was, but I keep kicking myself for not STAYING WITH HIM and calling her. I could have just stayed right there in my car! But I didn’t! I kept driving! Why? Why did I do that? It all worked out okay, but WHY DID I DO THAT?
You see? It’s not enough that my brain torment me with one thing. It’s got to get right in there with hit after hit after hit. Why can’t it just leave the past in the past and focus on doing the best job possible NOW?
life of a doctor's wife 
Awwww, Suzanne. These kind of mind-worms are the absolute worst. It’s hard to leave these things in the past! If I was there with you right now I would pour us a nice little drink and get us a nice little snacky and we could talk about other things. Well, it’s 5:30 in the morning so maybe not a nice little drink. A tea?
One of my sons watched youtube videos on the way to my parents’ place – a two hour drive – (this was many years ago!) and you can imagine what that did to our also-not-unlimited data.
In December I tasked my son with smashing the hard drives for our old phones and defunct laptops, and I didn’t even think to tell him to do it outside because it was minus 30, and he ended up accidentally smashing a hole in the tile floor in the downstairs bathroom. It is not fixable. We are going to be listing the house next month. It’s not a huge thing but WHY DIDN’T I THINK THIS THROUGH.
Anyway, I hope your brain turns off of this rabbit hole and starts going on to all the ways you are AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, AND A FABULOUS MOTHER AND WOMAN. xoxoxoxo
I SO relate. I currently have on a good simmer: two financial mortifications, two social mortifications, and one work mortification.
I had a boy in high school write on MANY pages of my yearbook (“cont. on page 14”-style), including many gross words and circling the 69 on page 69 and scribbling over his own face. We were friends and had what I truly believe was a nice sweet mutual crush! Why did he do that?? I also still remember a cruel little rhyme the boys in my middle school put together to contrast one girl (“fat”) with me (“flat”). We were FRIENDS! We played KICKBALL AT RECESS! I had tender little crushes on each of them in turn! And their idea was to write mean poetry about our physical “””flaws”””!! Why ARE boys?? Why ARE they??
We have similar brains and it’s exhausting! My husband will say something like “Just don’t worry about it” as if I actually COULD stop worrying about it and I’m just choosing not to. Hello? I’d love to not worry about it!! And I do think boys raised when we were growing up tended to show their affection by being mean? I don’t really see it now with my own kids, so hopefully they realize being kind is the way to attract someone.
Ohhhh yes, I have an incident like that. It returns and returns many times throughout the year for me. Involved a college professor I thought I was close with, because I babysat his kids. I said something to him that I thought was going to come out in a joking, ribbing-him way, and it did not. It came out as a judgmental insult. And he was taken aback, and protested, and I immediately wished it would go back into my stupid, stupid mouth. I praaaaayyyyyy he has long forgotten it, but I never will, I guess. He’s someone I still admire very much and he is in my social media feel A LOT which doesn’t help. He’s kind to me in comments, etc., but still.
Ugh, pre-teen and teen boys. Once in 8th grade, a boy with whom I was friends called me, to talk about the boy I had a crush on. Unbeknownst to me, the crush was ALSO ON THE LINE!!! I found out after I clicked to hang up, and immediately let go to call my BFF… and heard the two boys still talking/laughing. Mortified barely begins to describe it. The only saving grace was that the crush and I did end up dating one summer during college (and he was not that great, lol). But still.
As the parent of 2 teen boys, I think on the whole they are better than they were when we were kids if only because the whole CULTURE is better with gender and what you can actually SAY to girls and to each other. So you can cross the yearbook worry off your list, I think. Also, at our schools at least, signing yearbooks is much less of a thing because schools are so much more aware of who can buy one and who can’t, so there’s less TIME to have your yearbooks at school. Also, listen. Care work is valuable. You are NOT a drain– don’t sweat the data; easy come easy go, etc. (I am a Very Wasteful Person who really never did learn to appreciate the value of a dollar I am afraid, so maybe don’t take my money advice LOL)
Oh I feel you on this!
Especially with your “why did I keep driving??” situation. My ex was so, so quick on his feet and always instantly knew the right thing to say and right thing to do in situations like that. Me on the other hand! I would say a mediocre thing and instantly come up with, like, the 3rd best thing to do. Then 5 minutes after the situation was over or about to wind down, I would realize the right thing to say, right thing to do. I still get so frustrated, moping and ruminating about why doesn’t my brain work faster?? I hate meetings with fast-thinking executives for this reason, I never come off well 🙂
Oh nuts. Sorry your mind refuses to give you a break. That is so frustrating.
I have done or said my fair share of knucklehead things and I have a CRAZY good memory. I try to assure myself that no one but me would remember these things.
I KNEW I was buying the kids flights to go to Ireland and yet I hesitated and the prices went up. It was hard to let myself off the hook, because I am frugal and I felt all my usual careful measures were now null. Really though? I had to move on. There are bigger things than dollars. Life can be truly challenging and knowing you are usually good with money or caring and kind socially and a wonderful mother should overshadow your occasional shortcomings/mistakes.
We all make mistakes. You are not alone. Powering forward is the right path/ best medicine.
I could see myself making that phone mistake quite easily. It’s the sort of thing I rarely pay attention to.
So many people with yearbook stories… What’s up with that? I had a couple male (boy)friends write surprising and hurtful things in my high school yearbooks, too. Nothing vulgar but just mean and not the sort of thing I’d like other people I gave the book to sign to see.
I wish I had answers or even suggestions, but all I have is the assurance that you are not alone. Recently my brain started replaying an incident from the distant past, and it was so frustrating: yes, I did the wrong thing there! And there is nothing I can do about it now! There is no lesson to be learned, so please, just forget it. Would that it were so easy.
I relate to this so much. My brain does this sort of thing, too. All the doubt and the worry from way back when shows up, uninvited, and takes me down some sad paths of despair. As for: Should I throw out my yearbook? Yes. I did that years ago, never regretted it.
Gah. Our brains are so counterproductive sometimes! I commiserate and hope you can find space to be gentle on yourself! I heard some NPR program about memory and how people with really good memories, like photographic memories, struggle more with regret and dealing with bad memories than the rest of us. I guess its not so bad to have a fuzzier, rose-colored memory that I seem to be settling into in middle age.
I think, as women particularly, we are harder on ourselves and about our mistakes. Ninety-nine percent of the time whatever we are chewing over never even made a blip on the other persons radar. But I get it – because my brain does the exact same thing.
Cut yourself some slack – yes, our brains continually bring up things we’d rather forget. But that’s when we need to switch the internal narrative (I know…pot calling the kettle black here) and remind ourselves of the things we’ve done that we are proud of and validated us (something like, I don’t know, fixing a leak comes to mind…).
As for the yearbook – well, kids do stupid things. But what that boy did shouldn’t haunt you; it should haunt him since it was his action. And bonus (I guess?), odds are Carla won’t have to deal with that. I don’t think anyone signed ANY of my son’s yearbooks. And, I think the only reason he has yearbooks at all is because they were included in the cost of his tuition. Yearbooks, class rings, and a bunch of other things that were staples when we were in high school just don’t seem to appeal to “the kids” anymore.
Yes, yes, absolutely yes, constantly. Also, love the use of the word ‘perseverating’ – the last time I used it my friend said she’d never heard it before and was now a little turned on. Lately it’s been things I did that certainly messed up my kids and what kind of monster would etc. etc. My kids are fine! By all signs, they adore me! Why on earth, why? I hear you on the money thing too, especially since I earn so very little compared to my husband. I hope this typing out of these things buys you a little peace. Because we are not perfect, and should not expect perfection of ourselves, and surely no one else does either.
So many ghosts so little time…there’s just no rhyme or reason to when they come back. I’m starting to realize how much of my “now” that I’m losing to the past. I’m not sure that I have the solution but at least I can see the problem.
Well. This was timely, because last night I was awake in the middle of the night, and my brain started going through all the ways I’ve behaved badly in my life. I have some
doozies! This isn’t meant as an excuse, more of an explanation, but when I was younger I was very insecure and unhappy, and insecure, unhappy people do mean things. LIKE. Freshman year of college, I found my roommate so annoying that I was mean to her until she decided to move out. She wasn’t a bad person, she just had her quirks (as we all do.). I literally still cringe when I think of that. That’s just one example of a long list of embarrassing, foolish, and terrible things I did. I guess my punishment is to be haunted by them forever (or at least periodically, in the middle of the night.) Yes, why do our brains do this to us??? It’s interesting (and horrible) that once we start with these thoughts, it just snowballs out of control. I hope you’re feeling better today.
This is me!
I have two deeply impactful/embarrassing moments (one from my teens and one from my wedding – the dress that wouldn’t fit which I recently discussed here!).
For years the teen experience haunted me; now I can laugh about it, but at the time it literally changed my personality and was so ridiculously small in retrospect. I was at an amusement park on a self-operated bumper boat ride and could not get back to the main gate at the end of the ride. There was a huge crowd of people on shore yelling at me trying to describe how to get the boat to stop spinning in circles. ALL EYES were on me and eventually, a disgruntled worker had to make his way out to help. It was a horrible moment and I felt mortified by that experience for years.
And my wedding dress that didn’t fit – every time I think about it (thankfully a lot less than I used to) my heart hurts. All these years later. Why didn’t I try it on the night before my wedding to sort out the kinks of how to lace it properly? Why did I buy that dress? Why did I insist on having it rest so high? I STILL wrestle with these questions and regrets well over a decade later.
I do think that it’s okay to still be upset by those experiences. It WAS traumatic and I can’t expect to suddenly (or maybe ever?!) be okay with it. That has really helped me “move on” in a way. This memory hurts. I can’t change the past and that sucks. But I used to spend a lot of time berating myself for not being able to just “let it go”. Somehow accepting that it was hard allows me to better move forward. When I remember my wedding dress, it makes me very sad, but that’s okay. It was a sad experience. But I have an awesome marriage and that was the end goal of getting married – not having a perfect wedding dress (or so I tell myself to lessen the blow that that non-perfect wedding dress!)
Oh, I hear this. I find myself replaying a conversation I had with my mother when I was sixteen and wondering if I could just go back and redo it. Anxiety is a bitch.
I know this feeling so well! It’s something I worked on when I’ve been in therapy because I am very good at perseverating. And it is not good for me!
I actually did get rid of all of my year books. I don’t have many happy memories of high school though and knew I’d never want to take another trip down memory lane… I am not a very sentimental person though. But I would hate to re-read what people potentially wrote in my year book!!
Oh Suzanne. I can RELATE. A few weeks ago, I was driving on a two-lane street and the car in front of me was driving really, really slow so I pulled into the next lane to get around them, and then had to FLOOR my accelerator because the car in the other lane was coming faster than I thought, and whipped into the right lane with not much time to spare. I FELT SO STUPID. I was like, “WHY was it so important to get around this person? How much time did this really save you?” UGH. I tried to keep telling myself that at least it was a lesson without dire consequences and now I know not to do that anymore.
And expensive lessons? Oh I gotchu. I forgot to cancel my last therapy appointment within the 48-hour window so I had to pay the cancellation fee and I am still SO MAD AT MYSELF for that.
It can be the most exhausting thing to be ‘in our head’.
As far as crappy boys in school, there always will be. Crappy girls too. I always explained to my girls that kids act that way because they are ‘hurt’ or just plain stupid to how their words affect others.
There are more good people than bad, so let’s go with that notion.
We all do the stupid things that cost us money, but you can.not.beat.yourself.up. What’s done is done.
I hope today finds you to be in a better place.
I so hear this! Brains are so annoying. I hope yours lightens up soon. It’s helpful for me to read someone else’s mental gymnastics as opposed to just enduring my own all the time. Brains are so annoying.
So many ghosts so little time…there’s just no rhyme or reason to when they come back. I’m starting to realize how much of my “now” that I’m losing to the past. I’m not sure that I have the solution but at least I can see the problem.
As I am sure you’ve realized by now, wow, we all go there. And particularly in the middle of the night. I hate that our brains do this to us – and always wonder what prompts it, exactly? Is it our state of mind at the time? Some interaction or exchange that we subconsciously associated with the Horrific Memory? Who knows, but man, I still hate hate hate thinking about some interactions I had in middle school. Sigh. Hope you’re remembering that you’re an awesome person by now. ❤
It’s been a post from a month ago. I truly hope this awful episode of mind games is behind you. I guess some days are just hard. And then all those irritating and awful things come up. It like your brain wants us to feel bad.
I have no cure. I have those days too. And I also have events I go over and over and feel all the feelings and being mad at the involved people and at myself for not letting it go. It sucks.
I hope you know that we all do stupid things. That we all have terrible days. That we all question ourself.