okay, I think I figured out what I wanted to say here

a thread with some real raw shit about perfectionism, shame, anxiety, guilt, never being able to do anything, social anxiety, and more (0/ https://twitter.com/joe_no_privacy/status/1246935571240370176

basically, for years I've felt anxious and guilty about not doing enough, but I only realized last week that I've also felt anxious and guilty about *everything*

or rather, I realized there's a *part* of me that feels this way. I've taken to calling this part The Parasite (1/

last week, I realized I judge everything I do against this impossible standard of perfection

I'd constantly ask myself if I was doing the best thing, doing it the best way, if it was going to produce something of value (2/ https://twitter.com/joe_no_privacy/status/1243915110436851712

over the weekend, I really started to unpack this and I realized it's more than just those questions

I realized that, no matter what I do, no matter how I do it, The Parasite wants me to feel bad about it (3/

if I think of something I haven't done, The Parasite guilts me for not doing it

if I try to do it, it shames me for even bothering

and if I actually start? (4/

if I actually start the thing, The Parasite tells me I'm doing it the wrong way, that I should be doing something more important, that I'm not going to do a good enough job to make it worthwhile. it makes me feel anxious for even trying (5/

then, if I try to do something else, it makes me feel anxious and guilty about not finishing the first thing!

this happens with everything. school, work, chores, things I do for fun. it's strangled nearly every project I've ever tried to do for myself (6/

pretty much the only time the Parasite shuts up is when I have an urgent task with a clear deadline at work

only when I have a clear mandate from someone else and a clear timeframe to do it in can I fully justify what I'm doing (7/

and for years, I didn't see it for what it was. I took my feelings at face value and told myself I wasn't productive enough, focused enough, effective enough

I kept trying to fix it with productivity systems, organization, little tricks and hacks in my routine (8/

I thought if I just found the right method, the right thinking strategy, I could "get myself" to do everything and be good. but no matter what I tried, it didn't work

I'd get a little burst for a while, but then I'd backslide and start struggling and feeling shitty again (9/

what I realized over the last week is that I was focusing on the wrong problem

the reason I could never focus is the damn parasite telling me I was working on the wrong thing

the reason I could never get organized is the parasite saying I was doing it wrong (10/

but I never realized that, so I tried to forge ahead and figure out how to fix it, to do the "right" thing that would be good enough

spoiler: nothing was ever good enough (11/

what I see now is that this has been totally debilitating. I've been so stuck by these feelings that I couldn't do *anything*

so I turned to avoidance. I couldn't make myself happy with anything I did, so I'd find something noisy to drown out the bad feelings in my head (12/

I could never get much done past my morning routine. I'd assuage the guilt and fear for a bit by doing something consistently, but even during that, I'd constantly feel stressed about how I was doing things (13/

I would always just get exhausted at a certain point. I'd burn out after as little as a couple hours of work and spend the rest of the day just losing myself in Twitter or Reddit or something to just dull the constant aching sense of failure (14/

looking back now, this has basically stolen a huge chunk of the last decade of my life

it's held me back in school and work, strangled every ambition and project, crushed everything I've tried to do for fun or pleasure. it's been horrible (15/

the good news is this: now that I see it for what it is, I realized I don't have to listen

ironically, by actually paying very close attention to these thoughts and feelings, I've figured out that they're full of shit and I can tune them out (16/

when The Parasite strikes, it starts out with this feeling of tension, a buzzing in my head and this sinking in my chest

sometimes it talks, but more often than not it's subverbal, just this deep sense of discomfort that I now see is mostly anxiety and shame (17/

lately I've been dragging words out of the feelings, forcing it to say the things it always insinuated before, and now I see how pointless they are and how frequently they pop up (18/

just as I'm writing this, it keeps guilting me

if I force those feelings into words, they sound like, "why are you writing this? are you even going to post it? what a waste of time"

like writing something for myself and deciding not to post it would be a waste (19/

what I've realized is that the Parasite always insists I have to be able to show something to someone else and prove it was worth it. I have to have permission to do something. I can't just do it because I feel like it or enjoy it (20/

what I'm trying to learn now is that *I can give myself permission to enjoy things*

I can do things for fun, or to express myself, or because I just want to do them, without needing some deeper purpose to prove they're really worth doing (21/

realizing this has been huge!

just understanding that there's this part of me that's never happy and probably never will be, and that I don't have to give into it has been life-changing (22/

I've noticed that it strikes in all kinds of ways. looking at the clock seems to be a trigger. I just saw it's almost 9:30 now and got this wave of anxiety, like I've wasted the whole day by writing this (23/

it loves to attack in social situations too. just like with tasks, it makes me feel guilty about not talking to people, anxious that I'm talking to them wrong when I do, and makes me feel too ashamed to talk to people I haven't in a while (24/

right now it's totally hammering me, telling me it was stupid to post this thread, that nobody will care or that I'll shame myself by admitting this stuff (25/

but the thing is, now that I now what it is and started learning to recognize it and handle ti, I've already been doing so much better

I took yesterday and today off work, and I think I've done more for myself over this long weekend than I've done in the last six months (26/

for the first time in my life, I totally outlined and drafted out a work of fiction from end to end. I wrote a ton of code for fun. I've been able to just chat with people and catch myself getting stressed (27/

so there is a path to dealing with this. it starts with awareness and from there it leads to recognizing that you don't have to do what your shame tells you, that you don't have to feed it by playing its game (28/