TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
Just when I was thinking I was making progress, it turns out I was walking in circles.
Mistakes I thought I had already learned from, bad habits I thought I had broken, all right back and staring me in the face like they had never left.
needless to say, I'm frustrated and depressed.
hugs appreciated.
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A bunch
Of hugs heading your way. Hope it helps.
Hugs, Dot.
Don’t be too down, woman. Our world is a globe; of COURSE we walk in circles!
— Emma
Spirals
-hugs- Don't think of it as circles, but as spirals. Yes you may feel you're back around to where you were, but that's not exactly so. You've realized the similarities, but also focus on the differences which are harder to see. I bet that radius has grown away from where you started at the middle, and with that constant effort (which I know is so hard!) eventually the spiral becomes more a tangent to somewhere else entirely. <3
You left out the part about ...
... you >being human<.
---
I call it "losing the magic".
Usually when I'm learning a new skill. I get it right twice - yeah me!
Skip a day.
It's like I never heard of {skill}.
Third try, I'm worse at it than on my first-ever try ...
---
One time at work ..."Can you give us a program build?"
Deer in headlights. "A what?"
They gave me some prompts ... oh. Yeah. that thing the company sent me from Chicago to ~Seattle Washington, to do for a >customer<. Yeah. That thing. Ok, no problem.
---
Another time, a sticky social issue in my club. {Long story omitted} "Bleep it! Just when I thought I was getting somewhere - Splat! I'm face down in the muck."
>Forty years< later, I still mess up. Including on this very site ...
=== ===
We're human, not perfect AI robots.
-
When we are under stress or pressure - it the situation scares us - it's pretty certain we will revert to our old ways that worked (OK, they worked badly) We won't try the new better ways - the ones where we are less practiced, the ones where we are less sure.
-
Long ago, in a computer class, the teacher handed us an exercise (These were on paper, tabletop only). First question was "What the heck are doing, and why?" - "You're assembling my folds-up-for-transport two-seater airplane. If I gave you a computer problem, you'd use your old computer skills, not the skills I'm teaching you."
When the next exercise was a complicated lobster recipe, there were no questions ... Except for one on internal details of lobster anatomy. (Eew! People >eat< that ?!?) Remember, this was a >computer< class. Teacher 'derailed' us enough to use new skills on a new task, and so we didn't revert to old skills.
Me? I can't have the radio on, not even music, if I'm cooking a new recipe.
--- ---
Now for the "the usual".
Deep breaths, tea & biscuits, and important:
Do not 'should' all over yourself (I should know this ... I should do better ... I should ... I should ...) ...
Do not blame yourself for being human.
You "know-in-your-head" the new skills - that's how you know you didn't use them.
It's loonies to Timbits that ... {Memo to self. A Yank should never try to translate dated US slang into Canadian...} ...
Any how, I'm gonna bet something distracted you, or maybe scared you, or 'overloaded' you, when things went splat in the muck.
=== === ===
I don't think habits "get broken", like a clay pot smashed into useless bits. Old habits get pushed aside by new ones; and they may come back if triggered. I've heard recovering alcoholics are told never go into bars - too many thing to trigger their old and bad "have a drink" habit....
I can get to my Dr's office by habit.
I can get to my electronics store by habit.
One morning, I was not simply not paying enough attention. I parked, looked at the electronics store ... *phone* "Doc, I'm gonna be late ..."
===
Oh.
Yeah.
Those things.
Yep. Plenty-o-hugs floating about in the Aether, "Free to a good home".
Coupla-three Really Good things -
= You >noticed< that you messed up. And I bet you pretty much stopped when you noticed.
--- Yay Dorothy!
== How many people don't & won't notice, and will carry on blithely messing up themselves and others?
= Yeah, you collected a boatload of "bad feels". Sad & Sorry ...
== Tuck them away in a "sealed off" container [1] labeled "Don't do 'X'. Us "bad feels" will pour out and whack you twice as bad."
--- When you have the bad feels 'secured', where they're not hurting you --- Yay Dorothy!
= You came and told us, so you can vent, we can (if in person), just sit and hug, and go "uh-huh" and "yeah, it sucks", and pass the tissues, and make the tea and whatever... [2]
--- Yay Dorothy, for asking us to help "patch you up".
= You asked for hugs.
--- Yay Dorothy for taking care of your self, and asking for what you want.
(And me? I'm thrilled to deliver hugs, even if only via The Aether.)
=== ===
[1] I've got some parts of two marriages tucked away in P4 Containment Level places in my head. The label reads "Do not date, do not marry." I like women (& myself) too much to 'do that' again.
[2] Sorry. I don't naturally do the "let the friend/girlfriend/Wife just vent" thing. Not hardly at all.Took first Wife >years< to get me (poorly) trained, and she finally had to flat-out start with "Just let me vent. Don't go all guy-style Problem Solving on me."