Our Right to Imperfection

I believe we all have the right to make mistakes. Not just that we have made mistakes and will make them again, but that we have the right to make them. We have the right to not be perfect.

It’s a common abusive tactic (as I’ve seen via my DV advocacy work) to blame victims for their abuse by pointing out their mistakes as the reason for that abuse. I’ve spoken with lots of survivors who take ownership of what isn’t theirs (like responsibility for the abuse) because they’ve internalized this idea that mistakes warrant punishment, and that they’re only true, legitimate victims if they’re perfect and faultless. They talk about how they started an argument, stirred up drama, cheated, or fucked up something important – as if any of that was justification for violence.

Abusers demand perfection from their victims, but at the same time, they secretly want failure – because the mistakes are what give them justification (in their minds) for their abusive behavior. Their victim’s imperfections are a way to maintain power and control.

And one of the reasons this works so well as an abusive tactic is because of the ways our culture demands perfection from victims of abuse and violence (especially if the victim has a marginalized identity) – and demands perfection in general and punishes and shames mistakes, failures, and imperfections, rather than engaging them in a meaningful, productive, and life-affirming way.

We can take responsibility for our mistakes and do a deep accounting of behavior we regret without making that mean something about our worthiness and deservedness; we can apologize, change, and move forward without punishing ourselves, submitting to another’s authority, or subjecting ourselves to harm.

Our mistakes ask things of us and invite us into processes of reconciliation, learning, and growing, but our mistakes never strip us of our human sovereignty and should never be used as justification for harm or abuse.

When I remember I have the right to make mistakes, I feel freer to try, risk, and live big. I feel more grace toward myself and others, and more understanding and compassion around what we’re all trying to do and become in messy and imperfect circumstances.

Freedom and Adulthood

As a young, not-yet-adult person, I often heard some version of this refrain from the grown-ups in my life: “you better enjoy these years of freedom now before the bills, responsibilities, and stresses take over your life – because being an adult is *super* hard.”

And they weren’t wrong about this.

As it stands, I have to go to work to make money to purchase the basics and essentials of my survival (as most of us do in capitalism). I have to fix things, do tasks, file taxes, make calls, and solve problems (not the fun kind). There are also the difficult feelings, scary circumstances, and collective sufferings to deal with at the same time.

But adult life is not the grim reality I imagined.

Because what I didn’t understand then is that I would be in possession of a vast and glorious freedom – along with the raw materials (time, energy, possibility) to shape this life how I wanted, even with some less-than-ideal pieces in the mix.

Circumstantially, life is probably harder now than it was then. But here is the key difference: as a teen and young adult, there was a cacophony of voices crowding my spirit that did not belong to me. I believed what they told me and did not yet have the wisdom and perspective to see they were not helpful and not my own.

Growing up (still in process) has meant doing the work of finding my own voice and real self and making that my center.

This is why life has gotten better the deeper I traverse into adulthood: Because understanding this point has made me infinitely more free.

I have the freedom and self-possession to choose – to exercise my agency around how I think, what I believe, where I point the compass of my life, what I say yes or no to, and how I spend my discretionary time, energy, attention, and money. And this is so, so good.

I understand life now as a journey of deepening into the truth that my life and self belong entirely to me. And to me, that is freedom.