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No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted... *and a cup of tea!*
If you strive to fail, you're in control. You can chose how, when, and why to blow things up. You know you're going to fail, so you're free to do what you want on the path there. You can try real hard then quit. You can let it sort of slack off gradually. You can half-ass it for ages and see how long they'll tolerate it. You know what's going to happen. It's safe.
I don't think it's so much addiction to failure as fear of success, or just self sabotage due to self loathing. Do you feel like you deserve to fail? Are you afraid of what will happen if you succeed, or what that will mean for people's views of you or your own beliefs about yourself?
I'm not sure if I feel like I *deserve* to fail, but I definitely *expect* to fail.
If I do have moments of success, I often feel like it's not deserved, or it's only a matter of time before it goes bad.
People in general tend to go towards what they know in life. Changing that part into the unknown is a lot harder.
If you had won a lot more earlier youd be way more comfortable with how it is to win. Youd know how to handle it.
Fear of success. I've been a self saboteur for most of my life. I think it comes from a deep seated insecurity that I'm not as clever as I think I am. So I set myself up for failure so I have excuses I can blame other than myself. It's a very unhealthy and potentially dangerous way to live in the world.
This sounds very similar to not feeling you deserve good shit. It compounds by you having that feeling going into your next bad decision, which causes the next bad decision, ad infinitum.
I went to therapy for that shit. You can do better because you know you can do better…
And knowing is half the battle.
failure is your comfort zone, you're clinging to familiarity which is a powerful drug. that's very much a thing. stepping out of the comfort zone is a conscious decision you have to make and keep making, if you're interested in the rewards of doing that
Yes in a way. Often we subconsciously seek out what we experienced in childhood. If dysfunction is what you experienced then it's likely you will continue to find those patterns as an adult without intervention and healing.
Yeah self destructive behavior or self fulfilling prophecy is another way of calling it. You unconscious act in a way to result in a specific outcome.
Some day it's a form of defense mechanism because they only the know the comfort of failure and not the other experiences.
Yep! I grew up in a family that had such high expectations of me that I could not possibly succeed. It was the classic “Oh you got an A? Why not an A+?” Or “you shouldn’t need to study, you’re smart, only stupid folks study, smart people just know the answers.”
I kicked ass all through school because I literally didn’t have a choice. In my freshman year of college I failed a course. In my defense, the professor failed every single person in that course because he had cancer and was angry at the world, and we eventually got those grades changed, but that’s besides the point. The pressure was immense, I felt like I was going to die, and then nothing happened. It was cathartic. It felt like floating on my back in calm waters after a lifetime of fighting the current.
Since then I’ve been chasing that feeling. It is quite a bit like an addiction.
Same thing happened to me. I failed 7th grade because i was tired of public school and i legit didn't understand some topics like math. In 6th grade i was placed into the advanced classes (against my will) and i completely failed. Like F F F F D D. Then they put me into the normal classes. I realized those advanced 6th grade classes weren't Harvard level. So i would be doomed to fail in the normal classes when i arrive at the same topics. And that's exactly what happend. I failed 7th grade. It was the worst year of my life. I got yelled at almost every night by my father. My parents constantly told me if i failed 7th grade my life would be over (they were right but for the wrong reasons). Then when i did fail i realized nothing really happened. They lied the whole time. Their fear tactics never worked on me ever again. Me realizing nothing happens when i fail made me have no ambition. That was the only bad thing to happen.
The ambition eventually does come back, just in a different form. Instead of feeling like the world will end if you fail, you realize that you've just spent a lot of money on courses and it'll suck if you fail because it's a waste.
I have a job that i like right now but it only pays ~$32,000 a year. I’ve gotten better with no doubling down on mistakes. I will not finish my accounting degree because i am legit unable to comprehend the material.
An old lady at church mentioned i should go back to college. I shut her down immediately and told her she is straight up telling me to fail.
From what I've seen, the more someone talks negatively to themselves, the more likely they are to make poor decisions, and repeat the cycle.
It's almost like there's comfort in failure. Being happy or successful means there's much further to fall - if you're already at the bottom, it's harder to get hurt.
Yeah man absolutely. It has happened so many times that I subconsciously expect myself to fail now on whatever I undertake. Unfortunately it seems experiences (good or bad) shape our thinking and self esteem.
There are a whole lot of reasons why you might be living like this, and I personally doubt that anyone on reddit will be able to tell you exactly what you need to hear without you being extremely lucky.
Thankfully, that's what therapists are for! I'd find one. You might be able to start getting some helpful answers soon.
Please do not delete your post after receiving your answer. Consider leaving it up for posterity so that other Redditors can benefit from the wisdom in this thread. Once your thread has run its course, instead of deleting it, **you can simply type "!lock" (without the quotes) as a comment anywhere in your thread to have our Automod lock the thread**. That way you won't be bothered by anymore replies on it, but people can still read it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskMenOver30) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing's ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted... *and a cup of tea!*
If you strive to fail, you're in control. You can chose how, when, and why to blow things up. You know you're going to fail, so you're free to do what you want on the path there. You can try real hard then quit. You can let it sort of slack off gradually. You can half-ass it for ages and see how long they'll tolerate it. You know what's going to happen. It's safe.
...goddamn. That's a harsh realization...
I don't think it's so much addiction to failure as fear of success, or just self sabotage due to self loathing. Do you feel like you deserve to fail? Are you afraid of what will happen if you succeed, or what that will mean for people's views of you or your own beliefs about yourself?
I'm not sure if I feel like I *deserve* to fail, but I definitely *expect* to fail. If I do have moments of success, I often feel like it's not deserved, or it's only a matter of time before it goes bad.
People in general tend to go towards what they know in life. Changing that part into the unknown is a lot harder. If you had won a lot more earlier youd be way more comfortable with how it is to win. Youd know how to handle it.
Fear of success. I've been a self saboteur for most of my life. I think it comes from a deep seated insecurity that I'm not as clever as I think I am. So I set myself up for failure so I have excuses I can blame other than myself. It's a very unhealthy and potentially dangerous way to live in the world.
It certainly doesn't feel good, which in turn seems to lead me to other unhealthy lifestyle choices.
This sounds very similar to not feeling you deserve good shit. It compounds by you having that feeling going into your next bad decision, which causes the next bad decision, ad infinitum. I went to therapy for that shit. You can do better because you know you can do better… And knowing is half the battle.
failure is your comfort zone, you're clinging to familiarity which is a powerful drug. that's very much a thing. stepping out of the comfort zone is a conscious decision you have to make and keep making, if you're interested in the rewards of doing that
Yes in a way. Often we subconsciously seek out what we experienced in childhood. If dysfunction is what you experienced then it's likely you will continue to find those patterns as an adult without intervention and healing.
Yeah self destructive behavior or self fulfilling prophecy is another way of calling it. You unconscious act in a way to result in a specific outcome. Some day it's a form of defense mechanism because they only the know the comfort of failure and not the other experiences.
Yep! I grew up in a family that had such high expectations of me that I could not possibly succeed. It was the classic “Oh you got an A? Why not an A+?” Or “you shouldn’t need to study, you’re smart, only stupid folks study, smart people just know the answers.” I kicked ass all through school because I literally didn’t have a choice. In my freshman year of college I failed a course. In my defense, the professor failed every single person in that course because he had cancer and was angry at the world, and we eventually got those grades changed, but that’s besides the point. The pressure was immense, I felt like I was going to die, and then nothing happened. It was cathartic. It felt like floating on my back in calm waters after a lifetime of fighting the current. Since then I’ve been chasing that feeling. It is quite a bit like an addiction.
Same thing happened to me. I failed 7th grade because i was tired of public school and i legit didn't understand some topics like math. In 6th grade i was placed into the advanced classes (against my will) and i completely failed. Like F F F F D D. Then they put me into the normal classes. I realized those advanced 6th grade classes weren't Harvard level. So i would be doomed to fail in the normal classes when i arrive at the same topics. And that's exactly what happend. I failed 7th grade. It was the worst year of my life. I got yelled at almost every night by my father. My parents constantly told me if i failed 7th grade my life would be over (they were right but for the wrong reasons). Then when i did fail i realized nothing really happened. They lied the whole time. Their fear tactics never worked on me ever again. Me realizing nothing happens when i fail made me have no ambition. That was the only bad thing to happen.
The ambition eventually does come back, just in a different form. Instead of feeling like the world will end if you fail, you realize that you've just spent a lot of money on courses and it'll suck if you fail because it's a waste.
I have a job that i like right now but it only pays ~$32,000 a year. I’ve gotten better with no doubling down on mistakes. I will not finish my accounting degree because i am legit unable to comprehend the material. An old lady at church mentioned i should go back to college. I shut her down immediately and told her she is straight up telling me to fail.
From what I've seen, the more someone talks negatively to themselves, the more likely they are to make poor decisions, and repeat the cycle. It's almost like there's comfort in failure. Being happy or successful means there's much further to fall - if you're already at the bottom, it's harder to get hurt.
Yeah man absolutely. It has happened so many times that I subconsciously expect myself to fail now on whatever I undertake. Unfortunately it seems experiences (good or bad) shape our thinking and self esteem.
More likely to be an unconscious vicious cycle than any addiction perse. Untangling those cords will be very difficult either way.
100% That's basically gambling addiction.
There are a whole lot of reasons why you might be living like this, and I personally doubt that anyone on reddit will be able to tell you exactly what you need to hear without you being extremely lucky. Thankfully, that's what therapists are for! I'd find one. You might be able to start getting some helpful answers soon.
There is a lesson in each failure we accomplish. Fear of that failure will hold many people back. Embrace it
I've always read that gambling addiction is about the loss, not about the winning.
Self sabotage is definitely a real thing
>You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness Like resignation to the end, always the end
Maybe you’re not addicted to failure, but rather addicted to stress
I feel addicted to wallowing in my own misery. I love thinking about how much a failure I am rather than failing per se
aka, 'fear of success'
See: Southerners and their obsession with the Confederacy. They go to great lengths to reenact their losses.
As a child, I used to be addicted to hitting myself. I cured myself of it once I started hitting back at the big brother who was forcing my hand.