Inertia - SCN
Jul. 26th, 2003 05:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlA quote from the January 1st entry in Sark's Living Juicy:
"[P]rocrastination is rooted in over-functioning and low self esteem...Procrastinators are also tremendous perfectionists and relentless rehearsers. They rehearse over and over in their mind how they're going to do it perfectly- then when they do nothing- it doesn't disturb their perfect vision!"
I see a lot of myself in that paragraph. I spend an enormous amount of time in my head. I plan and fantasize, imagining how I will look and what I will wear should I ever go back to Crossroads to confront my childhood tormentors. I think of how I would like my body to look, how I want my career to shape up, how I will totally rock my next job interview and get offered a job I will love doing. I see myself in movies, on television, at book signings, I see myself doing everything I've ever wanted to do. In my head everything is perfect.
That's why I like it there, because it is completely void of any messiness. That's the one thing I truly cannot stomach about life, how messy it is. I don't like chaos. I like to know what's coming. I like routine and order. Surprises frighten me because they don't allow me to prepare for them.
Preparation is so important to me because I'm deathly afraid of doing things wrong. I guess that makes me a perfectionist, huh? If I can't do something perfectly I'd rather not do it at all. That's the kind of thinking that led to so many failed classes in college, but those failures never bothered me because I was able to prepare myself for them. Emotionally I knew what to expect, I knew I couldn't be perfect so rather than get a half assed grade I just decided to flunk all together. Why exert yourself if you can't give it your all or if your all isn't enough?
I try to figure out where my perfectionism and fear of the unknown come from, and as is typical in my particular case, I can trace it back to my mother. My Mom was a nightmare while I was growing up. I'm sorry to say it but it's true. She was so...unpredictable. Though she was never what I'd call happy, sometimes she was pleasant, and even kind. But other times she could just fly off the handle over the tiniest thing. I remember getting smacked for simply spilling orange juice.
That in and of itself wasn't so awful, what sucked was her inconsistency. Sometimes she would smack me for spilling things, other times she would say "oh don't worry it's okay." I never knew what behaviors were acceptable and which ones were not, I had to stay on my toes all the time. And while years later she would tell me that when I went nuts in high school she felt like she had to walk on eggs shells whenever I was around, she has yet to realize that I was walking on egg shells for her long before.
It was her inconsistency and unpredictability that made me afraid to do things unless I could do them perfectly. Never knowing if my behavior was acceptable or not, I needed proof ahead of time that whatever I was doing would not incure any wrath. If I couldn't have that guarentee I was paralyzed.
So I grew up shy and unable to speak for fear that anything I said would be ridiculed. I never wanted to do my homework because I was afraid of getting things wrong. I was afraid to make friends because they might not like me. My inaction is inherently tied to my low self esteem which is inherently tied to my mother's treatment of me as a child. It's all very Freudian.
I'm writiing about all this because I hope that by doing so I'll be able to understand, and eventually change it. Sark is right. Those of us with low self-esteem are notoriously perfectionistic. And the paralysis that comes from not being perfect leads to procrastination of things we want to and should do.
"[P]rocrastination is rooted in over-functioning and low self esteem...Procrastinators are also tremendous perfectionists and relentless rehearsers. They rehearse over and over in their mind how they're going to do it perfectly- then when they do nothing- it doesn't disturb their perfect vision!"
I see a lot of myself in that paragraph. I spend an enormous amount of time in my head. I plan and fantasize, imagining how I will look and what I will wear should I ever go back to Crossroads to confront my childhood tormentors. I think of how I would like my body to look, how I want my career to shape up, how I will totally rock my next job interview and get offered a job I will love doing. I see myself in movies, on television, at book signings, I see myself doing everything I've ever wanted to do. In my head everything is perfect.
That's why I like it there, because it is completely void of any messiness. That's the one thing I truly cannot stomach about life, how messy it is. I don't like chaos. I like to know what's coming. I like routine and order. Surprises frighten me because they don't allow me to prepare for them.
Preparation is so important to me because I'm deathly afraid of doing things wrong. I guess that makes me a perfectionist, huh? If I can't do something perfectly I'd rather not do it at all. That's the kind of thinking that led to so many failed classes in college, but those failures never bothered me because I was able to prepare myself for them. Emotionally I knew what to expect, I knew I couldn't be perfect so rather than get a half assed grade I just decided to flunk all together. Why exert yourself if you can't give it your all or if your all isn't enough?
I try to figure out where my perfectionism and fear of the unknown come from, and as is typical in my particular case, I can trace it back to my mother. My Mom was a nightmare while I was growing up. I'm sorry to say it but it's true. She was so...unpredictable. Though she was never what I'd call happy, sometimes she was pleasant, and even kind. But other times she could just fly off the handle over the tiniest thing. I remember getting smacked for simply spilling orange juice.
That in and of itself wasn't so awful, what sucked was her inconsistency. Sometimes she would smack me for spilling things, other times she would say "oh don't worry it's okay." I never knew what behaviors were acceptable and which ones were not, I had to stay on my toes all the time. And while years later she would tell me that when I went nuts in high school she felt like she had to walk on eggs shells whenever I was around, she has yet to realize that I was walking on egg shells for her long before.
It was her inconsistency and unpredictability that made me afraid to do things unless I could do them perfectly. Never knowing if my behavior was acceptable or not, I needed proof ahead of time that whatever I was doing would not incure any wrath. If I couldn't have that guarentee I was paralyzed.
So I grew up shy and unable to speak for fear that anything I said would be ridiculed. I never wanted to do my homework because I was afraid of getting things wrong. I was afraid to make friends because they might not like me. My inaction is inherently tied to my low self esteem which is inherently tied to my mother's treatment of me as a child. It's all very Freudian.
I'm writiing about all this because I hope that by doing so I'll be able to understand, and eventually change it. Sark is right. Those of us with low self-esteem are notoriously perfectionistic. And the paralysis that comes from not being perfect leads to procrastination of things we want to and should do.
