I can't live up to my image of me.

November 1, 2009 4:48 PM

My guilt is getting a little out of control, but my issue is that I don't know whether or not it is justified. Looking for advice from those prone to worrying.

So, I worry about everything. I worry about my life, my career, my schooling, my roommate, my car, my psyche, my family, my friends, friends of my friends... Jeez. You name it, I could sit down and list a few concerns of my own.

It's getting sort of obnoxious. Hung over as I was today, I decided to stay in and do work on my couch all day. Nursing my headache and watching movies all day meant I didn't go outside at all. Not even once. This triggers feelings of "missing out"-- that I'm not really fully living life up to its potential if I'm spending whole days inside. I usually only do that when I am seriously, legitimately sick.

On a daily basis I feel guilt for my tv-consumption, eating habits, procrastination, recreational activities... I know I am a perfectionist, and I tend to overestimate my abilities within certain time frames and parameters. I know much of it is irrational, but just knowing that I shouldn't be worried does not prevent me from thinking about it and beating myself up about any number of things.

On a cognitive level I know that no one is perfect, and I shouldn't expect myself to be able to live up to my every expectation, especially considering that I think my goals are not always realistic.

If I am not 100% perfect in my interactions with everyone in my life, if I don't stick to my guns, if I let slide some bad habit I am attempting to curb, I will spend literally hours concerning myself with every aspect of the faulty aspect of my life. It is consuming, distracting and does not let me relax, like ever.

Anybody have experiences like this? Anybody ever convince their brains to relax? Thanks in advance.

posted by wild like kudzu to health & fitness (13 comments total)

hie thee to a therapy now. This ain't healthy, and may be easy to mitigate with analysis or medication.
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:00 PM on November 1

It sounds like you are another person who doesn't have enough on his mind and has to stay preoccupied with the self. Skip therapy, it will only make you more morbidly introspective. Find a long term project you care about and apply your brain to it.
posted by meadowlark lime at 5:03 PM on November 1 [4 favorites]

IANAD, but it sounds like you may have some sort of anxiety disorder. Please find a therapist, who will probably also refer you to a psychiatrist, and try what they suggest. Someone else might tell you to try breathing exercises & meditation, aromatherapy like lavender, exercising, listening to soothing sounds or music, and all of those are great suggestions worth trying. Shaping your environment intentionally can help reduce stress and tension, and facilitate relaxation, but really, it sounds like you are at a point where a professional who is familiar with all the nuances of anxiety will be the best way to address these issues. Best of luck.
posted by katemcd at 5:08 PM on November 1

Wow! This could be me talking. I bet you worry for hours or even days if you interacted with someone and thought you hurt their feelings or something, too. IANATherapist, but I have one, and here is what I have learned from her: I am a perfectionist who also suffers from an anxiety disorder that is pretty tough to control. I cannot stop worrying and being anxious about anything, but I am learning different tactics to be ok with that, and to take it down a notch. Mindfulness teaches us to learn to be aware of our internal processes, accept them, and then let them go. Way WAY easier said than done, but it's something. Look it up

First of all, breathing exercises are very important when things start getting REALLY nuts in my head. Taking long, slow inhales through my nose and then breathing slowwwwwwly out through my mouth helps slow down the heart and adrenaline, and also gives more O2 to the brain, which makes it easier to think and chill out. I will often put one hand on my diaphragm and pretend that I am filling a balloon down there with my breaths. Focusing on filling the balloon means I'm not focusing on all the other mumbo jumbo.

Secondly, it's important that I am OK with who I am, crazy anxiety and all. Understanding that 1) I am not alone in this 2) I am still a good person and 3) a little anxiety is useful helps me calm down a bit. Learning to accept this part of yourself is the first important thing; keeping it in check is the tougher part.

Exercising is key - I run, and running helps everything. I have a focused goal (finish / go to X spot and turn around and come back) and I accomplish it. The benefits are many: successfully completing a task, emptying my mind or even thinking about everything but it doesn't matter because I am accomplishing something, getting more oxygen to the brain and blood, physical fitness, etc.

THERAPY. Makes a big difference. Find someone who specializes in anxiety disorders. I meet with my therapist weekly, and she keeps me in check when I am going off the deep end with anxiety.

Hydration. Sounds silly, but our bodies need lots of fluid to keep everything working, including your brain. Drinking a lot of water actually helps you be more productive, work harder, and be more lucid in general. Plus it's just good for you.

Good luck!
posted by cachondeo45 at 5:11 PM on November 1 [9 favorites]

You are dealing with a problem of shame. Somebody over-installed it in your operating system. Since there is no uninstall for emotions, you have to get through it by learning to be ok with it going off and accepting it as something that you got too much of through no fault of your own. When it goes off, just relax, let yourself briefly feel it, and then let it drift away.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:37 PM on November 1 [3 favorites]

Maybe check out The Worry Cure? It might be useful in helping you understand the categories of things you do worry about, which can help you get to more core issues in terms of what fears are actually driving your worries. It's also helpful in getting you to understand the difference between productive and unproductive worry. For example, you may feel like worrying is the same as problem-solving, and problem-solving seems like a good thing, so... you keep worrying. But when you can see that worrying and problem-solving are almost always quite different things, it can be a very practical way of removing the appeal of worrying.

Also, I will share with you my own mantra whenever I start worrying too much: whatever happens, I can handle it. It's a good, positive, comforting "stopper" to the storytelling and catastrophizing that goes on in my head when I'm worrying too much, whether it's about my job or my family or the economy or whatever.
posted by scody at 6:12 PM on November 1

Our mind cannot physically jerk off, worry is as close as it can get.

With that in mind...

Walk to your refrigerator -- no, really, walk over there -- and open it up. Open up your cabinets, see what's in there. Food.

Now: Look at your arm, notice the sleeve that's on the shirt that's on your back. Clothing.

Next: Look up, right now. Look closely. Note that you've a roof over your head. Shelter.

Last: Open your wallet (checkbook, etc), see what's in there; I'd bet that you have means to purchase more of all of the three needs that humans have; Food, Clothing, Shelter.

The rest is gravy, a luxury.

Doing the above will get your head to where your feet are; worry is about the future, it's not about right now.

I use the above to help friends who call me locked in their head. Being good friends, they use it to help me, when I'm locked in my head. It really does work.

Our mind cannot physically jerk off, worry is as close as it can get.

Bonus points: Read Twains "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" It's funny as hell, it's about Twain dealing with his conscience one afternoon.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:19 PM on November 1 [5 favorites]

In the Feeling Good Handbook, he suggests if you're trying to quit (thinking, believing, telling yourself) something, you should list out the pros and cons, the costs and benefits of doing it. You can even rank them or add them up. Maybe the pros of constantly worrying are "I'll notice problems before they arise" and "People will know how conscientious I am," but the cons are "the sleep deprivation actually keeps me from doing my best," and "I'm too busy worrying to really listen to my friends. To me, it helped a lot to acknowledge the problems that arose from worrying too much or trying too hard.
posted by salvia at 7:46 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]

I agree that it sounds like anxiety, and that therapy is quite likely to help. I also agree that exercising will help. Both helped me. Pursue the help; you can let things go and enjoy the moment a lot more than you are now.

Also, make a point of looking around you and noticing what happens to people. A lot of people break the imagined rules you live by all the time. A lot of people are flawed, or make mistakes, or go overboard, or fall short. And still they live happy fulfilling lives. Bricks don't fall on their head. What's the point of life anyway? We're not racking up scores. No one is paying attention to how well you follow your rules other than you. And even if you followed them perfectly for the rest of your life, no one would care, or would reward you. Not even you - especially not you, since you wouldn't allow yourself to collect a reward; you'd be too busy trying to find something you did less than perfectly, which justifies your not deserving the reward anyway.

That's the cycle you're trying to break. Learning to let yourself let yourself breathe.

Good luck.
posted by Miko at 8:19 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]

Free floating guilt is associated with a number of psychiatric disorders.

Im seeing lots of "you should fix it yourself" in this thread. Don't let someone else's personal politics about modern psychiatry burden you. The simple fact is that you don't want this in your life, and there are professionals available who can help if you'd like.

This is not a veiled endorsement of medication either. We live in an increasingly stressful world, and you know what, your health insurance may just pay a person to talk with you about it.

Good luck and take care of yourself.
posted by muscat at 8:42 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]

I struggled with anxiety for a long time and this is the method that helped me rewire my brain. I'd use it to talk myself down from anxiety attacks and it eventually got to the point where they very rarely come up at all.

So, you're trapped in a loop of miserable, self-loathing, guilty thought. "I'll never get this finished, and I watch too much TV, and I'm going to get fired from my job because I suck, and I hate myself."

So ahead and write all that down instead of thinking it over and over. Vomit it onto a page, every dirty word you might call yourself and every irrational self-destructive thought.

OK, now this next step is important. Take a few deep breathes, wipe the tears out of your eyes, and go step by step through thinking about each thing you wrote down logically.



I'll never get this project finished...but I have been possibly setting my goals too highly because I am a perfectionist. I worked on it the other day and I am making progress.

I watch too much TV...but so does the rest of America. It doesn't make me a bad person. Maybe next week I'll stop by the library and pick up a book.

I'm going to get fired from my job. Well, actually, I do the work that is assigned to me as well as everyone else does. I might feel like everyone hates me, but they're probably just trying to get their work down and go home like I am. Most people are not crazy about their jobs, but I'm lucky to have a pretty good one, and I'm doing just fine. There's no real reason why I am getting fired.



Do this with the things you feel guilty about. Writing them down will help you get them out of your system, so you stop thinking them over and over again in a loop. Refuting them will help you think more rationally and calmly, and eventually when you start worrying you'll be able to tell yourself "That's not true, and you know it. Calm down, it's ok," on the spot.
posted by Juliet Banana at 5:11 AM on November 2 [1 favorite]

You mentioned being hung-over. I would highly recommend watching your alcohol intake. I have struggled for a long time with generalised anxiety disorder & dysthymia, and I found it much much more difficult to keep an even keel emotionally when alcohol was in the mix. Its effects (beyond the obvious pleasure of intoxication and the displeasure of hangover) are insidious. Even in small doses, it will fiddle with your chemistry. It will make it more difficult for you to stay focused on a project, and more likely that the anxiety horse you're riding will go galloping away out of control. In conjunction with everything else you're doing, I would recommend abstaining from alcohol and see if that has any noticeable benefit to you.
posted by chicxulub at 7:43 AM on November 2

You are having irrational thoughts and need to recognize them as so. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques could help you. When you have a thought, take a step back and question whether it's rational. Is it true you should spend every day outside? Isn't it important to take a break sometimes and enjoy yourself as well?
posted by xammerboy at 11:33 AM on November 2