Something is wrong with me

This evening, I was packing up to go home. A senpai at work suddenly texted me a long message about what happened at our badminton session. That I was playing too aggressively, that I hit someone and didn’t apologize, that my attitude was terrible, and that this wasn’t the first time. And an overwhelming emotion rose up immediately.

Here’s the full story. Recently I’ve been thinking about being more of myself. Showing people who I am, letting the filter down. Playing at full strength. In badminton, that means playing competitively, not casually. And in the process, I hit the shuttle hard into a colleague’s face. It hurt her.

At the time, everyone gathered around her to check if she was okay. I did the normal thing on the court, raised my hand to say sorry. But beyond that, nothing. I thought about going up to her, but what would I say? “Are you okay?” when she’s clearly not? It felt fake. I didn’t know how to show concern in a way that didn’t feel like performing. And honestly, if it were me getting hit, I’d just take care of myself and move on. So I assumed she’d do the same. She didn’t. Most people don’t. But I didn’t know that then. So instead of doing something that felt hollow, I did nothing. And then the thought kicked in, “I’m a bad guy, I should just leave.” So I packed up. From the outside, it looked like I didn’t care at all.

Later that evening, I got the message. And that feeling hit me.

I’ve felt it before. The same feeling when I’m afraid of making mistakes. When I was insulted. When I failed. It’s always the same line running through my head. “Something is wrong with you.”

Not “you made a mistake.” Not “you could’ve handled that better.” Straight to “something is wrong with you.” And it freezes you. You can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything, because your brain is convinced that any action will only make it worse. So you shut down. And the cruel part is, from the outside, shutting down looks exactly like not caring. There’s this idea in psychology. The thing you fear most, and the actions you take to avoid it, end up creating exactly what you were afraid of.

For the response to my senpai, I wasn’t sure. Should I match the energy of his long message, explain my side, tell him what I was going through? I asked a chatbot and decided to keep it dead simple. Just apologize.

This reminded me of my internship. I made a teamwork mistake. At the time, I was thinking about the structure, that I didn’t know the whole process, the testing, the documentation, the teamwork flow. But to the CEO, the only thing he saw was “this guy doesn’t acknowledge his mistake.” Explaining my reasoning was pointless. People would never care about the hidden part, nor do they have the time. They see the surface.

I read a story about Zidane. 2006 World Cup final. He headbutted Materazzi after being provoked. The whole world saw the headbutt. Nobody heard what was said. The retaliation gets punished, not the provocation. The guy who snaps visibly pays, the one who whispers gets away with it.

And I wondered. Will someone ever sit down and ask “what happened?” instead of just saying “you suck for doing that”? Someone who sees the freeze and thinks “that’s not like him” instead of “what an asshole.”

It’s hard to find such a person. And honestly, even I don’t know how to be that person for someone else. If someone makes a mistake, I normally don’t blame them much. But at the same time, I don’t know how to gracefully sit with someone through theirs, the way I wish people would sit with mine. So I can’t really expect it from others.

But then what? I don’t know. That cruel voice will still be there. I’ll still freeze up next time probably. The idea is, keep walking forward as always.