Posted by Questionmark on April 10, 2006, at 0:55:02
In reply to Re: Medications for excessive chronic Perfectionis, posted by Laurie Beth on April 8, 2006, at 13:19:51
> Well, Questionmark and Racer, I'm right there with you. I have moved between excessive perfectionism, apathy/anhedonia, and - rarely - just the right balance. During my last pregnancy I felt great in this respect - productive, efficient, but not so hung up on the details that it made me incapable of action or ruined my pleasure in what I had accomplished. Then, a couple of months after the baby was born (and after a Zoloft increase at birth), I became so apathetic I could barely get out of bed.
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> Racer writes:
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> 'But therapy really has helped more than anything else -- mostly because it has me asking myself, 'Why is this so important? Why do I need to be perfect in this?"'
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> The thing for me, though, is that focusing on perfectionism doesn't necessary do anything to overcome it ... or if it does, it induces a more generalized apathy. For example, I found myself becoming perfectionistic about putting baby outfits together (oxytocin is known to induce obsessiveness, BTW, and I was/am nursing). I knew this was stupid, but all I could really do was tell myself, "this doesn't matter that much." But then I'd start thinking, none of it really matters that much. I mean, why do babies have to wear cute clothes anyway? What does it matter if their clothes are too big, or the pants are too short, or the outfits don't match, or whatever? A LOT of stuff in life isn't really crucial. With the exception of feeding the baby, virtually nothing I do in a typical day is "life or death." So then, with the help of high-dose SSRI, I start thinking "why bother?" about almost everything. Hence, apathy. Which, I agree, is worse than perfectionism.
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> So then again, it gets back to trying to find the balance. Which is not something that a platitude like "don't sweat the small stuff" can really help with.
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> All I know is that sometimes - rarely - I have been better able to find this balance, naturally, easily. Which leads me to think that something biological is going on. Like bipolar illness, but with a slightly different axis.
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> In retrospect, I think I've felt this way my whole life. Only then, in my late 30s, when I had my first baby, it became more stark and scary. Bipolar Perfectionism II becoming Bipolar Perfectionism I.
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> Amulsipride, huh? Is that the one that's not available in the US?
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> Anyway, it's nice to know that there are others out there who've experienced the same thing.
Yeah, i know what you mean about how focusing on perfectionism and trying to overcome it by awareness of it can create "a more generalized apathy," as you put it. Not all the time, but often. It's kind of the whole "all-or-nothing" mindset i suppose. Like why do something if it's not going to be done well enough (i.e., as close to perfect as possible)? And it's not that i think that consciously, but that's what it amounts to behaviorally.
And the end result is that i either waste too much time on a task trying to do it perfectly, or i'll procrastinate starting the task until negative consequences arise, or i avoid a task altogether.
i wish there was a way to be adequately aware of all the little excessively perfectionistic subbehaviors, so to speak (or the "trees"), and not be so compulsive with them, but to still complete all the main behaviors (or the "forests") to satisfaction.
Da**it, sorry. i'm rambling again.But yeah i agree, it is nice to know that there are others out there experiencing the same sort of things.
Post Script: i'm posting the name of a book i have about coping with perfectionism in Psycho-Babble Books.
poster:Questionmark
thread:619669
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060408/msgs/631272.html