Admitting I am Wrong

I question everything. I hate being wrong, and I can admit it even when I don't want to, reluctantly that is.

I'm not a bad person, though I can be persistent when I think I am right about something. Eventually, I will admit that I am wrong, but I can be very stubborn and over-analytical.

I don't mean to be as black and white as people often say I am. The problem is that admitting I am wrong has led to me being shamed and bullied for making mistakes, and admitting I am right when others have been proven to be wrong, has led to the same problem.

It isn't that I think I am right all of the time.

I get things wrong, just like every human on this planet.

I am a very honest person, but I won't say straight away if I am wrong. However, I won't deny it either,

but;

I will hesitate before admitting it, even if it is minor; because admitting I am wrong to people in my past, always led me to being abused and my children got hurt during that period.

One true example I can give:

In the early 90s, a boyfriend sent me to the shop for milk, and he did not tell me what type of milk he wanted. I had to guess, and I did not have a telephone back then, so I assumed he wanted semi-skimmed, because that was all I had seen him use.

However, when I got back he hit me, then called me all the names under the sun, telling me that I should have bought whole milk instead.

Incidents like these weren't just one-offs.

On another occasion, I tried helping a friend out with baby clothes, and I bought her a blue baby-grow. I was trying to surprise her, so I didn't tell her what I was buying. She accepted it with grace, but her boyfriend pinned me to the wall because of it.

I want to say that my friend was safe, she left him that day, and now she is happily married to a wonderful man with three beautiful daughters.

As I said before, I over-analyse everything.

A friend recently surprised me, but he told me online. However, I have become very wary of scammers online, and as my friend has never done things in this way before, I decided to check it out, panicking that someone may have hacked his account, and the surprise turned out to be real.

I had a hard time apologising to that friend.

I felt ashamed of myself for many months afterwards, but I felt anxious about telling him that I was wrong. When I finally found the courage to tell him, he was very understanding, though not many were when it came to this situation.

Not many of my friends understand how scammers work, and some don't know they exist because they have never come across them.

I understand, not because I have ever been scammed; but because I come across it a lot on the web, and I have often helped others avoid being scammed by sharing my knowledge with them.

It's something you can be proud of, if you can admit you are wrong straight away, but please remember that a highly anxious person who has been through a lot of trauma like myself, may have a very difficult time with it.

It isn't that we are being funny. We have been repeatedly hurt for being honest, and admitting mistakes, no matter how minor. That causes us to panic, because we are always questioning whether admitting those mistakes will get us hurt again.

All we are asking for, is your patience.