stop beating myself up

At. All.

This will be a work in progress for years, if not forever…

Although not a lot of things have changed, the future looks a lot brighter lately. I’ve made some progress in important areas and I’ve made some good decisions about where I want to go from here. Just trying to take it step by step. I think one of the most important things now is: knowing what to do if things go bad again. When I feel more prepared, it might not get that far, because I feel more secure.

Yesterday I had a long talk with someone about where I stand at the moment, study-wise. It was a very non-emotional talk, I just explained everything I had been doing, and what I should or could be doing now, and what obstacles there were in the road. It felt like looking at all this from a distance and that helped. It’s not all that bad and scary. I think I might need to write some of this conversation’s conclusions down somewhere.

It’s hard to say if I’ve made progress on this goal or not… It’s so much easier to be nice to yourself when you’ve accomplished things. Things are definitely looking up since this past week, but I can feel that I’m still very critical on myself. For instance, I’ve done a lot of work on my thesis, and a little voice in the back of my mind keeps calculating the average work I have done, and what that means for the total progress, and how much that means I have to do today to keep the same average, etc etc… Hard to switch it off. I try to laugh at it, that helps a bit.

I’m in therapy now, and this has turned out to be the most important thing I had to work on. Fortunately after a few months I can see some progress! I haven’t been so hard on myself all the time any more, and can see more humour in mistakes I make. Things aren’t okay yet, but this helps a lot.

It took some time, because I had to figure out which doctor I have first (I’m not ill often enough apparently :)).

After worrying about it for day, I called her this morning and she was really sweet on the phone. No need to come by the office to tell my story again, I can just pick up the insurance note some time this week.

After some heavy and tearful conservations and decisions this weekend, I went to see one of the student counsellors this morning. I told her my story, and the main problem was (no surprise there) my negative and irrational thinking. She advised cognitive behavioural therapy. This has been said by several friends in the past, but it was the first professional opinion I got. She gave me some numbers of therapists in the neighbourhood, and I have to email her when I’ve made an appointment. First I have to get a note from my doctor, so that’s the next step.

I think I’m finally making progress on this Very Important goal. I’ve made some heavy decisions lately that would have resulted in negative thinking and beating myself up etcetera, but instead I’m seeing the positive side of things most of the time. I’m more relaxed about pretty much everything and this makes a lot of areas of my life go much smoother. Good stuff! I’m trying to hold on to this feeling, this wave of positivity. It’s even contagious according to some housemates: good stuff is happening to a lot of people around me at the moment :)

During the past year, and especially the last few months, I’ve been talking to several people about my current perfectionism issues. Mostly these conversations are caused by friendly folk sincerely asking How Are You… Tonight I had another conversation like that. Although it does bring some temporary relief in a way, I wonder if it helps. It feels like I’m repeating the same conversation, and it’s not getting me anywhere. The girl I talked to tonight asked if I went to a psychologist, and I wonder if that wouldn’t just be the same thing: the same conversation over and over… I need action, not talking…

If the beating myself up was literal, I’d be black and blue by now. I’m being extremely hard on myself at the moment, have been all month, and it’s not getting better, even though I know that this is not the way. Bad place to be, but I can’t seem to find a way out of it.