I almost canceled my therapy appointment yesterday, given how awful I was feeling. But since it’s a telehealth visit, I decided to give it a try. I made it through the whole session, though we actually ended about 5 minutes early when we are usually cutting off right on the dot. My stomach was not liking me yesterday!
Anyway, we did touch on a root cause for most (if not all) of my anxiety. Perfectionism. Did this come as a surprise? No, not at all. I’ve always had a problem with perfectionism. My mom likes to tell a story about when I was in 2nd grade and I could never finish the timed tests in math. When the teachers would try to talk to me about it, I would start to cry. They thought this meant that I was frustrated by the math and bumped me down a level. When my mom came in for a conference and looked at the papers she saw that every answer I gave was correct, I just wasn’t finishing. Then she noticed that my printing was identical to the typed numbers of the worksheet. I was so worried about my handwriting that I wasn’t getting through the math fast enough. Once I was told I didn’t need to worry about my handwriting, I was able to finish all of those timed tests without issue. The crying? Well that’s because I thought I was disappointing my teacher and I hated disappointing people. So yeah, I might have some perfectionism in me.
I talked about how I get overwhelmed by all of the tasks that need to be completed and then end up avoiding instead. For example, we had someone coming to measure our windows so they can be built (install in February). I knew for a week that they were coming and that I needed to clean my desk/sewing area so they would be able to get to the window. I told myself I should just do a few minutes a day and it would be easy. But I didn’t do it. I kept putting it off. Until the day the guy was supposed to arrive and I had to get it all done at once. Yes, it got done, but it was a lot more work at once than if I’d just taken care of it a little at a time.
I’m terrible about avoiding anything I’m worried I won’t do well. Like cleaning. Or calling businesses. I still need to call someone about getting rid of the mold in our kitchen. But I’m afraid of not knowing the right questions to ask and then possibly choosing someone that will screw us over and we’ll be out thousands of dollars and have no kitchen. Yes, I realize I’m catastrophizing, but I can’t seem to help it.
I also feel like all of the responsibility of getting anything done is on me. My husband says he’ll help, but it seems that he will only help when I tell him specifically what I need him to do. And several months ago when I asked him to talk to the company I thought I’d found he sighed like it was an inconvenience and he didn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. Then when they told him they couldn’t do anything until we had it inspected he gave me the information and it became my problem again. He didn’t take initiative and find someone to do the inspection, that was me. My counselor suggested that I sit down with him and actually assign tasks to each of us, but even the thought of that overwhelms me.
I may have mentioned months ago that I received a notice back in June that the company I use to monitor my INR (it’s a blood thinner measurement) is no longer covered by my insurance. I spent the next two months trying to find someone in network to switch my care with no success. I was SUPER overwhelmed by this. Eventually, the insurance company assigned a case manager to help me solve the issue. Here we are more than a month later and she hasn’t gotten any farther than I have! On the one hand, that’s frustrating, but on the other hand, at least I know it’s not just me! I told my counselor that it has been such a relief to have the case manager handling things because I don’t have to stress about making the phone calls and getting the answers. It’s still getting done, but it’s not all on me. I said that I wished I could have a case manager for my house!
My counselor recommended two books. The Gifts of Imperfection and The Four Agreements. I ordered both from Amazon and they should be here today. I’m really not sure how to get rid of my perfectionism, but hopefully the books will help. I will let you know.
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