Catching yourself justifying your mistakes

[Pryras]

I'm not too proud to admit where I've been wrong and have no problem taking a knee and apologizing for it.

Although in recent months, I've seen myself justify every mistake I've made into "no, that's not wrong, I didn't do anything harmful" despite the effects it had and the damage it caused.

Hindsight is what keeps me in a constant loop of "I should've just stayed quiet" but then I think about my experience and start justifying it. Yes, I shared my experience because of your lack of response and the pain I was experiencing. Should I have done that? Probably not, but I was hurting and I don't have a group of friends to share it with offline like most do. I apologized and did my damage control so what is the problem?"


Finding the right in everything I do feels narcissistic to me, like I can't be wrong. I hate to admit it but here I am justifying my actions because I'm of how hurt I was. Maybe I'm just stubborn.

 

[Soul]

In my experience humans are capable of justifying anything we do. Sometimes it takes a little longer, but it's often immediate and lots of the time we don't even realize we're doing it. So: Bravo, @Pryas, for noticing.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

My thoughts...

It seems to me that the self-doubt and blame may be narcissistic projections that get you to do the work to reinforce narcissistic control when it's not around. I hear shame. I learned this from Breneé Brown: shame has two messages. This first is, "You're not good enough." You've been rising against that. So it follows up with, "How dare you? (Get yourself in line!)"

Edit: Breneé also said that empathy is the antidote to shame, and that the people who are okay with and empowered by their vulnerability are those who are comfortable with being imperfect and making mistakes. She said that we cannot have compassion for others until we have it for ourselves. In writing this comment, I was giving you my empathy and compassion.

 

[Pryras]

In my experience humans are capable of justifying anything we do. Sometimes it takes a little longer, but it's often immediate and lots of the time we don't even realize we're doing it. So: Bravo, @Pryas, for noticing.

I agree. It just hit me today the lengths I go to justify my mistakes. To where I seem like i just can't be at fault "because I was....[insert justification here]"
I don't make excuses per say but I always try explaining the WHYS and HOWS of my decisions/choices that make reasonable enough sense to me.

My thoughts...

It seems to me that the self-doubt and blame may be narcissistic projections that get you to do the work to reinforce narcissistic control when it's not around. I hear shame. I learned this from Breneé Brown: shame has two messages. This first is, "You're not good enough." You've been rising against that. So it follows up with, "How dare you? (Get yourself in line!)"

Edit: Breneé also said that empathy is the antidote to shame, and that the people who are okay with and empowered by their vulnerability are those who are comfortable with being imperfect and making mistakes. She said that we cannot have compassion for others until we have it for ourselves. In writing this comment, I was giving you my empathy and compassion.

Brené is my favourite, I love listening to her talks and I always valued her messages. Her point on vulnerability is something I've resonated with. It takes courage to put yourself out there and be okay with making mistakes. If not okay than at the very least accepting the fact it's apart of the growth process.

 

[Pryras]

Catching my own hypocrisy lately but I'm going to justify it (Lol) again below so bear with me.

I was thinking about how I can justify EVERYTHING I do no matter what and not extend the same level of understanding to my abuser. I could very easily justify everything he did and change my perception about the whole thing, but because I'm angry and hurt I refuse to give that to him. It's hypocritical for sure but I don't want to extend empathy and understanding to someone who's hurt me. Admittedly, I'm actively ignoring that voice in my head that's telling me to show understanding and give him the benefit of the doubt because I'm angry.

 

[Deleted member 17949]

I could probably compete in the Olympics for mental gymnastics ngl. Even though I'm pretty good at acknowledging my mistakes I generally refuse to admit them to others and will just avoid the problem, maybe throwing out a half-baked apology if I really have to. I've never been good at dealing with conflict so I am not very good at actually resolving issues with people that are caused by my mistakes. In all honesty, I have no intentions of changing this because that would mean accepting confrontation from people and I don't want that.