How to come to terms with being a failure?

[ForsakenDial]

I have intellectual disabilities. I am ugly. I have physical deformities. I found my first boyfriend, but he will leave me eventually. I can't succeed in school, work, or interaction. I exist to be abused. I thought if I worked hard enough maybe things will get better. I know better now. How do I accept that even children have more intelligence than I do? The majority of the population is born perfect. And I cam out like this. Some of us were never met to live.

 

[Jorms_McGander]

For the sake of existence, redefine success. I don't believe in any overarching meaning to this but what can you do? You write pretty well here and that suggests that you learned how to, and for somebody with intellectual disabilities you probably taught yourself how to learn how to learn before you even got to the material.

So where's the bar? I'm just suggesting that you compare yourself only to yourself while you are on Earth. In some perspectives, you are strong and quite worthy of respect from yourself and others. Only one of us on Earth is the smartest and I'm not that one either--wherever we are we probably have to accept that we're not the best at anything we could possibly think of.

I think it's tragic that our society does such a fucking awful job with different abilities. Like if you're not average you can fuck off and suffer for it. I don't wanna take their perspectives with judging terms but just differences, makes people uncomfortable and society inflicts that discomfort on people in unconscious ways both personal and structural, no wonder it feels like you're being asked not to exist because that's what society is telling you a lot of the time.

Anyway take it as it is, that you can try to see yourself as someone worthy, despite being in a world which doesn't always value you and which doesn't seem capable of providing a life worth living, it doesn't mean to say that you should be forced not to ever see it even if you choose to die. I value dying in peace and I hope that all of us find at least self-acceptance on our path. If society must inflict itself on people, I think it would be lovely if people choose to reject the tragedy of its own making. Let the normies mourn and be sad.

 

[OCDsufferer]

A failure can only be defined by external factors, because a human isn't born believing one thing is an achievement whilst the other is a failure. That is all taught. Which means that none of what you say if we remove it from the context you are putting it in is true.

You mention intellectual disabilities, I have them too, that does not make you a failure, having a setback sucks but only because society wasn't made for people like us, not because what we have is something inherently bad. Have you ever gone up stairs, saw no ramp and realized a person on a wheelchair could not go up? Is that a failure on the wheelchair users part or societys?

You mention being ugly and having physical deformities. What do you define as ugly? Whatever you thought just now as a definition for ugly was soemthing ingrained onto you by growing up under a capitalist patriarchal society. Ugliness is subjective, or it should be, unfortunately most people are sheep and do not realize how their definition of ugly or attractive is not theirs. An example would be how in Japan Yaeba is considered cute whilst in the USA if your teeth looked like that you would be called ugly. All this to say you aren't ugly and your physical deformities don't make you so but I know loving ourselves is hard. Tho, you don't have to, practice body neutrality. We all have a body we have to live with. Why are you letting other people control it?

About boyfriends, why base wether you are a failure or not on the fact that you have a partner? Yet again you are just parroting patriarchal ideas. And who says he will leave you? And if he does what's stopping you from getting another? None of this is indicative of failure in any way shape or form.

Succeed in school well, I'm sure you know what I'll say, also no an indicative of failure. If you are in the USA you know they want to end standardize testing because it's not a good indicative of anything. And yet, I bet you would think yourself a failure for failing on a standard test. As it stands school doesn't work for everyone. Their methods of teaching aren't for everyone (even if Montessori adepts will tell you their method works on everyone). A lot of people fail in school, and yet they go on with their lives because it does not matter. Not for while school is the mess that it is.

 

[ForsakenDial]

I need time to reflect on the points you two have explained. It is a new perspective. Intellectually I understand they are correct. I need to tame my emotions so I can fully process what has been said. Thank you. Both of you. This has met a lot to me.

 

[xinino]

I lost motives; in the past, even if I failed, I often regained strength and usually achieved what I wanted. "It wasn't really my desires I was an idiot who thought that if I followed what society wanted me to be, then I would be happy." Now I don't see the purpose of creating a family, working, and especially living for a long age. For now, I have experienced motives and interest toward the underworld, aka "loser place," but it is irrational to engage with it at the moment.

 

[damyon]

I agree with @Jorms_McGander here.


Comparing yourself to others is like setting a timer instead of a stopwatch.
You did not manage to meet the time limit - You lose. You are potentially setting yourself up for disappointment.
With a stopwatch, you can focus on your own progress and growth. There is no failure.


Should you use either? Up to you.

 

[eatantz]

I relate to every word you've written [besides the bf part] and its the main reason I'm suicidal. I don't fit into this world and living in this ugly body with a dead brain is torture. I tried chasing beauty and intelligence but i struggle to understand basic concepts, i can barely hold conversation in general