Dear Amber Rose:

You wrote back in June 2018, in your first thread: “I… would class myself as a perfectionist“. Fast forward 3 years and five months to today, you wrote: “Last week, I spent 11 hours studying and making sure my essay was perfect... I joined a student forum that breeds my perfectionism”-

– Your perfectionist attitude and efforts are working against you, not for you, leading you to under-perform: “I had a job. Unfortunately, I turned up late and wasn’t responsible enough with my finances either… my grades were poor“.

This attitude is also is causing you obsessive thinking and has caused you to go to extremes: “I have been binge eating during my exams… I am starting to have weird obsessions with it and one minute I’m going raw vegan, the next I just want to eat fruits and vegetables” (June 2018).

You wrote in June 2018: “I’m also really negative most days”, and today: “I feel stuck in myself because I can’t accept who I am. I’m always so negative about myself all the time… I can’t help but not feel satisfied with my life though, and I’m always searching for something else“-

– You will need to (1) Stop thinking in extremes, in all-or-nothing: expecting to feel/ perform either 100% or zero%, (2) Stop trying to compensate for your perceived zero-worth by insisting on a 100% performance.

You will feel satisfied with yourself and with your life when you become okay with performing somewhere in between the zero you are scared of, and the hundred you long for. That something else that you need, seems to me- is a healthy medium in between the extremes. What do you think?

anita