Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse, often see themselves as failures, and feel that if they try something new they will be doomed to fail. "I could never manage to do that" or "I am always getting things wrong", are thoughts that often go through the minds of people whom have been abused. Feeling like that may even be a reason for not attempting any recovery, or group work. Although recovery may appear to be achievable for other people, to the victim of childhood sexual abuse who sees himself as a failure, it would seam an impossible task beyond his ability. Without a lot of encouragement he will either give up, or even not try in the first place.

The reality of life is that no one is prefect, and everyone makes mistakes at times. In many new situations, it is possible to learn more from a mistake, than by getting things right first time.

Part of the reason that some survivors of childhood sexual abuse see themselves as failures, is the victims way of seeing things as black and white, right or wrong. Another reason is one of perception, an ability distorted by the abuse. Feeling he is a failure, any slight mistake, any imperfection, only goes to prove to himself that which he already knows about himself. A child will often try different ways to avoid the abuse, or at least to reduce it to a minimum, if he can. However, no matter what the child tries it will almost always not be enough against an older, more cunning adult. The child thus learns from an early age that to be safe, he must be perfect in what he tries. The abuser will, however, through usually wining, teach the victim that he can only fail. This leads to the need for perfectionism, and a downward spiral of self esteem.

There are several ways that this perfectionism can work depending on the situation. All can reinforce the self opinion as a failure. The examples that I will use will be from my own recent past.

One aspect of being a perfectionist means that although you can do some things very well, the fact that you can not do them perfectly denies you of a sense of achievement and pride. It goes back to the fact that nearly good enough is not safe enough. Last year I sat an exam, as part of a computer maintenance course. My exam result in the written section was 95% . The fact that I had got 5% incorrect meant to me that I could not trust the 95% that I had got correct, as I could not be sure which part that was. Most people would feel a great sense of achievement with an exam result like that, but not I. The fact that during the course I missed several lessons, due to ill health, only went to prove to me that the 95% result was a fluke, not that I am good with electronics. The next highest mark in the class of 17 was 84% , by someone who had been working on computers for several years. Also last year, I raised sowed seeds, grew them into plants, and planted my small garden out with over 300 plants, all home grown. Several people commented to me how impressive the display looked. I took their comments as them only being polite. All I could see was that there were a couple of plants that could of been better placed, and that the geraniums would of looked better had they all been red in colour, therefore I had failed.

Some things I could only manage to do reasonably well, and knowing that I would never be able to do them perfectly, I never tried to improve. An example of this is playing snooker. In fact I have never played the game often enough to be anything other than below average, and if I were to play the game more frequently, I would no doubt improve quite substantially, though never as well as I would like. Knowing that I will always be disappointed in my ability, it has seamed pointless to improve.

In yet other things, I have known that I could only succeed on a very low level. Feeling that I was doomed to fail I would often give up. Decorating the house is one example that springs to mind. I would sometimes push myself to try, but on spotting an imperfection I would give up in despair, having fulfilled my belief of myself as a failure. 

Being a perfectionist is always going to be self defeating in the end, as it is impossible to be perfect. It is also a fact that sometimes it is possible to make no mistakes at all and yet still not succeed at what you are trying to do.

Whilst it is not within human nature to be perfect, it is part of human nature to want to improve on yourself. Part of recovery is to accept that it is possible to improve on how things are now, and even though those things will still not be perfect, the improvement will probably, never-the-less, be worth the effort.

This year I have again sown some plant seeds, and will hopefully learn from last years slight mistakes. If not, my garden will still have more flowers in it than those around me. I have started to redecorate, and even with imperfections, the result will still be an improvement on how it was. I have start-ed to write this book on a word processor, and any slight errors can soon be corrected. Things do improve once you start to see them for what they are.

As I said at the start of this section, the other reason that survivors of childhood sexual abuse can see themselves as a failure is one of perception. An isolated child who has been sexually abused, feeling different to other children, is bound to grow up with a distorted perception of the world. Lets look at a simple example:-

Someone goes to take a driving test, they make one slight error and fail the test. Later that day, they go for a walk, and all they can notice is a lot of people driving home from work, people who have passed their driving tests when he failed, and with every car that passes him he feels more of a failure. What will never pass through his mind is that many of those drivers will of failed their test first time. Some drivers will be on the road, even though they may of been disqualified because they can not drive to legal standards. Some drivers may of not even of past their test at all, and may not even be in their own cars. No, the person who sees himself as a failure will see non of that.

I like to play chess sometimes, but before I started on my recovery, in a game of chess I could only win or loose, succeed or fail. Now when I play chess I can come first, draw or come second. Coming second is far better than failing.

If you often find yourself thinking "I wish that I could do that like (name of your choice) does," then you are giving your-self the wrong message, one that will only reinforce your negative self image. Next time that you find yourself thinking that way, change the thought around into a question. Two questions that I would recommend are:-

• " What is there to stop me doing that ? "

• "What do I need to learn, or change, to enable me to do that ? "

Once you start to think in that way you will find that you will stand a better chance of changing, in the way that you would desire to change. Think the right way and there are always possibilities.