Little Faith

It’s amazing what little faith I have in myself. I doubt myself constantly. From the big to the little. For example, last night I went out. Got home late. It was snowing. I put the car in the garage. Went inside the house. Got ready for bed. Crawled into bed. Laid there for about 30 seconds and started wondering if I closed the garage door. I was so certain of my failure in closing the door that I got up out of bed, peeked out the front door, barefoot in a tanktop and shorts, in the snow and strained to see if the door was closed.

Of course it was. It would be harder for me to forget to close the door.

But I do this all the time.

Every time it is my responsibility to do something like that, I doubt that I actually did it. Even if it’s just being the last one to bed at night and locking the front door. Or being the last one to leave the house and making sure the stove is turned off – even if I haven’t used it!

Geez. OCD much? Right?

It’s like I am so certain that I’ve failed that I just assume that I’ve done something wrong even if the opportunity to do something wrong isn’t there. This applies to work, too. If something goes wrong at work, I’m always certain that I must have had something to do with it. I am constantly double-checking my work to make sure I haven’t made a mistake. I’ve been known to offer up myself to blame for something even if there is no way I could have done it.

So, after it was confirmed that I did indeed close the garage door, I laid in bed thinking about all of this and trying to trace back to why I assume that I’m always in the wrong.

My family has always been very supportive of me. I certainly did not grow up in the most typical of environments. I grew up with a single father who did not find education to be the most important thing. It’s not that he didn’t think it was important to be smart, but he really just thought of high school as something you got through so you could get a job and start earning your keep. There was not a lot of pushing me to excel. But, at the same time, it’s not like he ever told me that I was terrible at things. He treated me like I was the princess who could do no wrong. So I don’t think it stems from there.

Teachers were always encouraging.

Siblings may have teased, but they never made me feel too terrible.

This all seems to have started in adulthood. And I just have no idea what brought this on. My OCD tendencies have really exploded over the last couple of years. I’ve always been ridiculously superstitious. I have rituals I have to do at night because if I don’t I fear everything will go horribly wrong in life. (yep, I know. I’m crazy).

But this assumption that I’ve probably screwed up is not really an OCD thing. It’s totally a self-confidence thing, I know.

And it’s very very annoying.

And all this talk about little faith has put the song “Little Faith” by The National in my head.