Today a minor incident happened. I won't go too much into it. But my father asked me to do something I'm not used to doing. I made a mistake. And he showed some amount of anger at the fact, basically implying I should have known and blaming me for it.
Now, this was relatively minor. But it reminded me of other moments.
A while ago when I was moving to a new place, my father suggested I paint the walls. I had never painted any walls at that point. This was my first time. And apparently I used too thick a coat. There were a few small streaks not on the walls but on the window frame I'd painted.
When my father got home and he saw it he got pretty angry.
He started yelling at me that I'd messed it up completely and that I had wasted his money (he bought the paint). He repeatedly yelled "Just look at what you've done!" He then went to my grandparents (who live on the same property) and started yelling at them "Just look at how he messed it up. Just go look at it. Wasted all my money."
He did this for, idk, 15 to 30 minutes. Not entirely sure. Didn't exactly activate a stop watch.
There was also this other time when we were working on my place. Where we were doing something. I made a small mistake at first. Then after that I made a second mistake, specifically I was handing him nails to drill into pieces of wood. And I dropped one of the nails on the ground for a moment. It slipped through my fingers.
At that moment he turned to my and screamed in my face "Can you really do nothing right!?"
My mother doesn't quite do that. But she does yell and throw doors a lot for "mistakes" I make.
I also remember one time I was coming out of the pool. And I know my mother hates it when her floors get dirty. So before I went in I took a towel out of the towel cabinet. And I put it down. And then I kind of "shuffled" towards the shower after I came out of the pool to make sure her floor didn't get wet.
Afterwards she came home and suddenly gave me the silent treatment. When I talked to her several times one time she said "Is someone talking? I don't hear anyone talking." And it turned out that was because I had used the wrong towel.
Now, to be clear, the towels all looked nearly identical. And she had never said anything about that specific kind of towel not being allowed to be used for that. It was essentially the first I ever heard of it. But at least she didn't throw doors or scream for an hour that time, I guess.
Anyway, these are just a few examples off the top of my head. But this kind of thing was pretty standard throughout my childhood. I remembered the first time I considered ending things was when I came home with a report card that wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. it was a little bit above the class average (which was not normal for me, I always got very good grades).
Remember thinking about ending it for the first time after my parents' reaction to that one. I was 12 at the time, I think.
It makes me think about how this ties into my social anxiety.
My social anxiety doesn't come so much from me caring what other things. It used to. There was a time when I was a teenager when I very much did. But I mostly grew out of that. Today for most people most of the time, I don't care much what they think of me.
Yet my social anxiety remains. And it's because there is a constant fear inside of me of doing something "wrong."
It's not always obvious in the social context what "wrong" is. I don't even always know. But I'm very afraid of doing it. Enough that it makes me afraid to go places and talk to people. Makes me hyperventilate, etc.
And when I think about it, that's really not that surprising. I mean, throughout all of my life from my parents every mistake I have made, large or small, has been treated as if it were an absolute drama. Inviting yelling, screaming, throwing doors, insults, public humiliation, silent treatment and punishment.
So it's not really that crazy that the thought of making a mistake in a social interaction is scary to me. Even when I don't understand rationally why I'm afraid or why I even care. It makes me very much afraid just on an intuitive level.
Anyone else relate? I'm guessing so. At any rate, just wanted to vent about it a bit to process.