[THREAD] I just want to take a moment to talk about perfectionism and controlling our environment when we are feeling. It is very common to engage in those behaviours when our mental health is not doing well. Why do we do that? Is it helpful?
Mental health often manifests itself in disorganized emotions, thoughts and a feeling that we are no longer in control of ourselves. We fear the next panic attack, we don’t know what will happen and we start to expect the worst. One way that we cope with it is through control.
We start to control every aspect of our environment, whether it is food, how our space looks and we want everything done perfectly. This helps give us that sense of control that we lose when our mental health is not well. However, that can also be detrimental.
One reason why it can be harmful is because these behaviours can become obsessive and make us vulnerable to experiencing symptoms of OCD. Another way that it can be harmful is because of the energy we spend on these tasks. They can start to encompass a lot of our day.
That means that other areas of our life can suffer such as self-care, work, social time. The perfectionism that we try to accomplish is also harmful because it is stress inducing. We start to doubt everything we do and fear it is not perfect yet.
This can lead to tasks taking longer to accomplish, procrastinating because we know that even small tasks require a lot of energy and time to finish them. Our work and relationships can suffer because we start to miss deadlines and don’t spend time with our loved ones.
The sense of control brings a temporary relief that helps us control the chaos momentarily. The main thing we can do is treat the underlying issues that are causing that so we no longer need to engage in those behaviours. Working on accepting uncertainty in therapy is important.
Externalizing is even more important in these situations. These perfectionist behaviours are a direct result of the anxiety and depression we feel. The more we externalize it, the less impact it will have on us, the less we will feel compelled to engage in controlling behaviours.
It is very important to realize why we do these behaviours. We are often not aware that they are linked to our mental health. We start to internalize it as “this is who I am” rather than externalize it as “this is because of my mental health”.
This is not part of who we are. Of course, some of us are more conscientious than others, but generally, perfectionism and a need to control our environment are a response to our deteriorating mental health. If you notice these behaviours in yourself, please go to therapy.
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