When Thoughts Collide.

Self-critical, demeaning, && one’s own worst enemy.

When the thing that allows you to succeed, is the very thing that cripples you. Cripples you from going after your true dreams, cripples you from pursuing certain projects, relationships, or goals all in fear that you can’t do it with 100 percent perfection. 

The absolute deathly fear of failure.

It leaves you feeling empty inside, never satiated with life. Never happy in the moment, and always two or three steps ahead; already filled with worry for the immediate future.

I’ve always known that I was somewhat anal, organized, && perpetually obsessed with succeeding. As of late, it has really begun to rear its ugly head-showing me how big my problem has become. Or perhaps it has always been there-and the present circumstances are the perfect recipe for perfectionism to blossom; in the worst way possible. 

It’s almost as if it has a life of it’s own; to the point that I get mad at it for what it does and how it acts. 

The worst part is that being this way doesn’t allow me to be creative. Because to be creative means working with the idea that things don’t have to be perfect. And my mind just doesn’t work that way. I could sit with a piece of paper for an hour just trying to draw a straight line. Erasing and redrawing, over and over. 

I keep telling myself that it will end with this degree. That once I’m done with my master’s, nursing school will all just be about learning the information, not making the grade. But who am I kidding? If I’m learning the information like I should be (I mean, as a nurse I will be dealing with people’s lives here and that’s not something to be taken lightly) then I will most certainly be making A’s anyway right? ……Right?

I think that when I was younger I was unsure of what these thoughts and feelings meant, and as I got older I was able to compartmentalize them and understand that they have a name for it. As I get older though, I am beginning to realize that it may not be something that I can ignore. 

There are times when I am literally paralyzed and cannot begin work on anything because the fear of failure is so innate that I can’t lose grip with it.

Last semester, I took a grad level psychology class for a nursing prerequisite-before this my psychology background consisted of Psych 100 from freshman year of undergrad. Basically, I knew there was this guy named Freud, and that was where my knowledge ended.

Needless to say, I came to know my professor quite well and visited him often to be sure to succeed in the class because I was helpless. I didn’t even know where to begin. Being a grad level psych professor….I’m sure right away he began to see my “problem.”

By the end of the semester, he and I had a nice long chat; you can imagine a developmental psych professor sitting down with you and discussing your perfectionistic tendencies. As I tried to explain the “techniques” I use to get hold of my “problem” he told me those techniques only fueled the fire and made things worse. Being a psych prof, of course he had a video about perfectionists on tap, and had me watch it. WOW. All I can say is that he nailed it.

I am the definition of a perfectionist. And this will be the death of me yet.

I feel like even if I stood right in front of you, you wouldn’t see me.

I wonder if you ever saw me.