control

My desire for control, which manifests as a perfectionism (a right way and a wrong way, binary thinking), is a way for me to cope with my anxiety. With anxiety, I feel out of control so I try to control little things like time. When I met with E yesterday, and she needed to go at 6, because of my anxiety, I felt the need to hold the time, to control the environment out of a fear of abandonment. My thinking was as follows: if I can control the situation, I can control the people, and they won’t leave me.

So… I watched the clock until 5:58 at which point I abruptly announced “ok it’s almost 6 you should probably go now.” I held the time, I was in control. She didn’t leave me, I told her to leave. In my mind, I believe in right and wrong. Like, you can weigh up the pros and cons and find the right answer, the perfect answer. But that’s an illusion. Instead of what’s best, I should be asking: what do I want? What’s right for me? This reminds me of college where I pursued other people’s dreams rather than asking myself what I really wanted out of that experience. So I majored in something that I thought had more gravitas and I now look back at those years with regret.

So what do I want out of today? I want to work a bit. Then I want to exercise. I want to run errands and clear my day for a full day of writing tomorrow somewhere nice. I want to set small goals that I can achieve. I will go for yoga.

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My desire for control, which manifests as a perfectionism (a right way and a wrong way, binary thinking), is a way for me to cope with my anxiety. With anxiety, I feel out of control so I try to control little things like time.

When I met with E yesterday, and she needed to go at 6, because of my anxiety, I felt the need to hold the time, to control the environment out of a fear of abandonment. My thinking was as follows: if I can control the situation, I can control the people, and they won’t leave me.

So… I watched the clock until 5:58 at which point I abruptly announced “ok it’s almost 6 you should probably go now.” I held the time, I was in control. She didn’t leave me, I told her to leave.

In my mind, I believe in right and wrong. Like, you can weigh up the pros and cons and find the right answer, the perfect answer. But that’s an illusion. Instead of what’s best, I should be asking: what do I want? What’s right for me?

This reminds me of college where I pursued other people’s dreams rather than asking myself what I really wanted out of that experience. So I majored in something that I thought had more gravitas and I now look back at those years with regret.

So what do I want out of today? I want to work a bit. Then I want to exercise. I want to run errands and clear my day for a full day of writing tomorrow somewhere nice. I want to set small goals that I can achieve.

I will go for yoga.

Back to The Serses Diaries