Thread by @joe_no_privacy, okay, I think I figured out what I wanted to say herea [...]

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">https://twitter.com/joe_no_pr...

https://twitter.com/joe_no_privacy/status/1246935571240370176

basically, for years I& #39;ve felt anxious and guilty about not doing enough, but I only realized last week that I& #39;ve also felt anxious and guilty about *everything*

or rather, I realized there& #39;s a *part* of me that feels this way. I& #39;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& #39;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">https://twitter.com/joe_no_pr...

https://twitter.com/joe_no_privacy/status/1243915110436851712

over the weekend, I really started to unpack this and I realized it& #39;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& #39;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& #39;m doing it the wrong way, that I should be doing something more important, that I& #39;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& #39;s strangled nearly every project I& #39;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& #39;m doing (7/

and for years, I didn& #39;t see it for what it was. I took my feelings at face value and told myself I wasn& #39;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& #39;t work

I& #39;d get a little burst for a while, but then I& #39;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& #39;ve been so stuck by these feelings that I couldn& #39;t do *anything*

so I turned to avoidance. I couldn& #39;t make myself happy with anything I did, so I& #39;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& #39;d assuage the guilt and fear for a bit by doing something consistently, but even during that, I& #39;d constantly feel stressed about how I was doing things (13/

I would always just get exhausted at a certain point. I& #39;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& #39;s held me back in school and work, strangled every ambition and project, crushed everything I& #39;ve tried to do for fun or pleasure. it& #39;s been horrible (15/

the good news is this: now that I see it for what it is, I realized I don& #39;t have to listen

ironically, by actually paying very close attention to these thoughts and feelings, I& #39;ve figured out that they& #39;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& #39;s subverbal, just this deep sense of discomfort that I now see is mostly anxiety and shame (17/

lately I& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t just do it because I feel like it or enjoy it (20/

what I& #39;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& #39;re really worth doing (21/

realizing this has been huge!

just understanding that there& #39;s this part of me that& #39;s never happy and probably never will be, and that I don& #39;t have to give into it has been life-changing (22/

I& #39;ve noticed that it strikes in all kinds of ways. looking at the clock seems to be a trigger. I just saw it& #39;s almost 9:30 now and got this wave of anxiety, like I& #39;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& #39;m talking to them wrong when I do, and makes me feel too ashamed to talk to people I haven& #39;t in a while (24/

right now it& #39;s totally hammering me, telling me it was stupid to post this thread, that nobody will care or that I& #39;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& #39;ve already been doing so much better

I took yesterday and today off work, and I think I& #39;ve done more for myself over this long weekend than I& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t have to do what your shame tells you, that you don& #39;t have to feed it by playing its game (28/

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