Error Is a Luxury Few Saudis Can Afford

In many societies, mistakes are treated as lessons. In Saudi Arabia, they are often treated as moral failures — a view that still shapes mental health discourse in the Saudi Arabia  today.

For those who grow up in Saudi Arabia, the idea of making a mistake — especially a social one — is not simply about getting something wrong. It’s a breach of duty, a betrayal of upbringing, and, in some cases, an insult to family, tribe, or even nation.

“A mistake wasn’t mine alone,” explains Maha A., 57, a soft-spoken psychologist based in Jeddah, her hands folded tightly in her lap. “It belonged to my family, my district, and my country. I wasn’t just wrong — I had brought shame upon us all.”

This is no exaggeration. In a culture where reputation carries generational weight, and the collective often outweighs the individual, the fear of error becomes more than personal anxiety — it becomes a kind of social armor. To crack is to expose everyone. And so, many Saudis grow up not just avoiding failure, but internalizing the idea that failure is intolerable — a mindset rooted in cultural expectations and social psychology in Saudi Arabia.

The roots of this mindset run deep. Honor-based social codes, rigid expectations around gender and family roles, and the enduring power of the concept of ʿayb — shame — create a psychological architecture where even private missteps feel dangerously public.

For Maha, her “mistake” was falling in love with a German man.
“If you loved me,” her father told her when she confessed, “you wouldn’t have even thought of this. I would never do this to my father.”

The pain wasn’t handled as a conversation or a disagreement. It was cast as betrayal. To step outside the expected script isn’t just to disappoint — it’s to injure the entire family system. And doing so publicly only deepens the wound.

But what is perhaps most striking isn’t just that mistakes are condemned — it’s that pain itself is discouraged. Sadness, grief, doubt… these too are seen as signals that something shameful has occurred — a reflection of the stigma surrounding emotional expression in Saudi society.

“Pain is not allowed because it shows that something went wrong,” Maha tells me now, her voice softening. “But no one ever thought that pain could be a process. Like exercise for the soul. When I lose my passport, the pain isn’t just shame — it’s the feeling I have to sit with, absorb, and eventually let pass. It’s not only there to teach me to never lose it again; it’s there to remind me I’m human. That moving through pain is part of becoming whole.”

In Saudi Arabia, psychological pain is rarely embraced as part of growth. The discomfort of error isn’t seen as a tool for resilience — it’s seen as proof of failure.
“We don’t grow up with a healthy sense of self,” Maha says. “We grow up with a performance of confidence… fake confidence. It’s not based on who I am or what I’ve learned, but on how I am perceived. That’s why criticism feels unbearable — it doesn’t feel like feedback. It feels like exposure.”

Dr. Reem Al-Harbi, a clinical psychologist in Jeddah, describes it as a fragile emotional scaffolding: “When love and acceptance are conditional on perfection, mistakes feel like rejection. Over time, people learn to avoid risk, not out of caution, but out of fear of disconnection.” This pattern — especially among Saudi youth — highlights the growing need for mental health support in conservative societies.

Across the Atlantic, U.S.-based psychologist Dr. Emily Stone offers a strikingly different analogy: “Emotional resilience is like muscle — it doesn’t come from avoiding strain, but from working through it. If you never let yourself lift the emotional weight, you stay fragile.” In Saudi Arabia, however, that strain is often seen not as strength, but as a threat.

Children watch adults handle mistakes not with accountability, but with silence, avoidance, or escalation. As a result, responsibility becomes slippery.
“If I lost my passport, the biggest pain wasn’t the paperwork or missing my trip,” Maha reflects. “It was the drama around my father having to fix it for me. The mistake wasn’t about what happened — it was about what it meant to everyone else.” The shame was collective — a hallmark of Arab family dynamics.

The ripple effects stretch into adulthood. Emotional suppression, limited tolerance for disagreement, and fear of vulnerability often seep into marriages, friendships, workplaces. Confidence becomes something performed, easily cracked by criticism, rarely grounded in real achievement.

And yet, there are signs of quiet change. According to the Saudi Ministry of Health, usage of mental health support platforms increased fivefold between 2020 and 2023 [(Link 1)]. A growing number of young Saudis are seeking out therapy, breaking inherited silences, and reinterpreting pain — not as something to erase or deny, but as something to move through, feel, and ultimately grow from [(Link 2)]. [(Link 3)]

Still, the social script is hard to rewrite. The old equation — mistake equals shame — lingers beneath the surface, reinforced by older generations and institutions wary of emotional openness.

What would happen if Saudi society allowed more room for imperfection? If emotional pain were treated as insight, not error? If self-worth were built from the inside out, not imposed from the outside in?

Growth needs mistakes. But it also needs safety — the kind that whispers: you can get it wrong and still belong. Whether that kind of safety takes root, or merely becomes another costume in the performance of modernity, may depend less on how Saudis appear — and more on what they are finally allowed to feel.

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