Keith Reed
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I have always considered myself terrible at drawing. This was something that I knew to be true, and I accepted it. It was not until less than a year ago when I proved myself wrong. I took my first drawing class, and I went into it with an open mind. My old process when drawing was to look at someone else’s work and find the faults in mine. I started the class with the mindset “whatever happens, happens,” and I got surprising results because I was interested in the material. I cannot say the same for classes that I am not interested in. 

A 2010 New York Times article perfectly describes this action as “self-defeating personality disorder.” I am not diagnosing myself with this disorder, it just helps explain the feelings that I and possibly others, experience. Self-defeating behavior is one of the most puzzling and hard-to-change behaviors. There has been a whole category added to describe the self-defeating patients to a version of the manual that American Psychiatric Association puts out frequently.

This is strange, because one can look into any set of characteristics relating to a disorder and find commonality with it. The behaviors associated with this disorder paint a better picture of the experience. Starting any task and thinking of the ways in which you can fail will subsequently lead to failure. That is simple logic, and this is a behavior that is hard to be changed. It is ingrained in us from childhood that anything worth having takes work. That is a difficult concept to grasp when a class or activity does not pertain to your interests. This could explain some of the trepidation that I had when it comes to doing assignments for general-education classes.    

Masochism is a word that comes up when searching this topic. At first, I felt like it was a stretch, but its definition soon fits with the behaviors. Masochism is a pleasure in being subjected to humiliation or pain. Whenever I get/got bad grades, I would be sad about them, but then I grew to laugh at them. This is a strange thought, because I knew the amount of work that was put into the assignments and what the result was going to be. It is crazy to think that I and many others continue to subject ourselves to this pain.

This is strange way to think about procrastination and self-defeating behavior, but it makes sense. Everyone is on a journey of self-discovery, and we all are at different stages in the process; that can be seen in work. Now that I am aware of my actions, I can work on changing them for the better. It is bad to think that I am realizing the weight of my actions this late in my college career. Given that, it is never too late to change a habit that you do not like.