Perfectionism

I destroyed my chance for a good night's sleep last night again, but Jazz and I had a long talk through IM. It was a good talk, since she pointed out what's wrong with me and I listened. My perfectionism is killing me.

I suppose everyone reading this who knows me (I suspect the majority of my readers) is having a duh moment. The epiphany is all mine, though I suspect it's more a case of being so frightened for my mental health I was able to hear it for the first time, and hopefully be strong enough to reclaim my life.

It scares me how fast I can switch from enjoying myself to everyone's attacking me, I'll never get the project finished, and I'm a total failure. It happens quicker the more exhausted I am and since I'm almost always exhausted... why don't I just throw in a maltov cocktail into the mix?

Striving for a perfect product is a good thing of itself. But I'm like an alcoholic, I can't stop. My balance and sense of self-worth plummets in the onslaught of the relentless perfectionism. The weirdest thing is it never surfaces with the work itself. The project can be flowing wonderfully, right on schedule, and then something else makes me feel like I have screwed it up beyond recognition. And I take it out on other people. It's not a behavior pattern I'm happy with.

I don't really know how it developed. It's been a behavior pattern for so long, I can't remember a time when it didn't happen. There must have been a time where I was willing to give myself some slack. There must have been a point where I learned this stressed out, tantrum throwing, fighting back against attacks that don't exist way of relating to my friends. It's a testament to their character that they're still my friends.

Enough analysis, what steps am I taking to reclaim my life? Less Internet for one. The daily stuff--reading the comics, columns, and this blog--I'll do first think in the morning. Then it goes off. Email I'll get and I'll arrange time to chat with people. This starts next week. That will give me time to take care of my updates for both the tutorials newsletter and Alt. Biker Mice Site.

Cutting back on the sugar. As a carbohydrate-sensitive, all it does is make me fate and give me violent mood swings, probably fueling my addiction to perfectionism to the extreme it is now. Plus I'm looking really chubby around the middle and shedding that will make a load of difference.

Cutting back on the caffeine. I'm not drinking enough water, and the caffeine is keeping me from sleeping. Constant state of dehydration also effects my mental state. Hopefully, less caffeine will lead to my next change.

Getting more sleep. The alarm clock is changing back to 5 am. The exercise at 4:30 am is not working. Also I'll be going to bed at 9:30 pm. No more 11 pm nights. And this better help with the excessive tardies I got flagged with in my annual review.

Getting more exercise. Since 4:30 am isn't working (no matter how energetic I feel for the rest of the day I can only do it two days), I'm moving it to 6 pm when I get home. Hopefully that'll give my body enough time to slow down for sleep. But I have to do something about my level of physical fitness and the extra weight. Diabetes has done too much damage in my family. Besides, exercise is supposed to be a mood enhancer too.

This was supposed to go out early this morning, but apparently there was a brouhaha yesterday that I missed due to class and every time I thought I had a free second, it became meeting time. Now that this is finished, it is time for bill paying.

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