i'm scared

i'm scared to fail. not just in school. in anything. i don't do things that i'm not good at. or at least half decent at. because when i mess up, it's really easy for me go off the deep end if you know what i mean. the other day someone told me that i needed to learn how to fail. because by learning what you can't do. helps you grow and expand into finding things you can do. and i really liked that... but. i feel like i'm too scared to try it out. to test the waters.

i didn't have to try in school when i was a kid. the teachers would say things, and i would remember. i didn't read directions (which sometimes got me into trouble) because i read similar ones before, and i knew what to do... those worksheets really bored me. they were all the same. but i remember when i would get things wrong, my mom would be so disappointed in me. if i wasn't a straight A student, i was somehow going to destroy the world. throw everything off balance. it was a lot of pressure. i learned when i was around 10 or 11 that my mom got horrible grades. failed almost everything. i was so mad at her. that was one of the major things that started our rift. because she put so much pressure on me (not that it made me do anything except feel guilty) and i didn't feel like she had the right to. not unless she had something under her belt.

i remember being punished a lot... i don't think i ever really understood why. it took me a while to be one of the good kids. but after i learned the ins and outs of the right and wrong. i was so scared to mess up. because good kids go to heaven. and bad kids burn in hell. and if you ever do anything wrong. ever. you're not going to have a chance. you're a demon child. and that's that. someone told me once that we sin constantly throughout the day. every night before i went to bed i would say my little prayer, "dear jesus, please forgive me of all my sins, and please help my legs not to hurt" (i had pretty horrendous growing pains sometimes. i said that prayer up into my high school days. some nights i would say that, and my legs would hurt so bad i would cry. and i would wonder why jesus didn't love me. there are nights i still have pain. but now i can take medication) after awhile someone else told me that you need to ask forgiveness for every single one of your sins. you need to be specific or else god isn't going to wipe your slate clean. and i was mortified because there were so many, there was no way i was going to be able to ask forgiveness for things i didn't know anything about.

it was around that time. i started giving up.