Wow, Tupp. I hear/feel what's troubling you.
I think perfectionism does trigger recurrent anxiety.
I used to have full-tilt panic attacks, and a lot of it
spun out from anxious ruminations. So much that
I didn't/couldn't/hadn't done in the impeccable ways
I could IMAGINE it.
It was as though just because I could imagine an
ideal, I had trouble settling back into the real, including
my imperfect self.
I've told this tale here before (bear with me) but this
was also before I had the big lightbulb
of the venturing into an actual visualization exercise and for
the first and only time, had an inner, loving, deeply compassionate
encounter with the lost, sad little girl inside me. I actually bent
over and looked into her face. Saw and recognized my own eyes,
"her" eyelashes, child-soft skin, babylike hair. And, the sadness
in her eyes and the dignity and seriousness of her expression.
With equal seriousness and enormous tenderness I said to her,
"I am so sorry I wasn't there to protect you, and I am so sorry
for how sad you are feeling. I want you to know that I will never
leave you alone again, and I will always be with you." "She"
nodded and reached up and put her arms around my neck. In this
deep, deep imagining state...almost similar to when I was once
hypnotized I literally felt, very subtly but real, the sudden weight
of her arms on my shoulders.
That moment was so powerful to me that it forever changed my
relationship with myself.
I forget, and have to get back on track with it still, which is okay.
But when my anxious perfectionistic thinking kicks in, taking a few
moments to intentionally remember that experience, eases it.
All that babble to say, there's an inner little (((((Tupp))) who might
need somebody to speak to her that compassionately. To let her
know what children already know. Perfection is a weird adult thing,
and she doesn't have to pay attention to it. Or whatever else you
might want to tell her.
For me there was no elaborate ritual. Just a quiet sunny afternoon
when I sat in a comfy position and asked myself, let's go deep inside
and conjure up my inner child. And reassure her. And then that's
how it played out in my mind.
Hope that helps and of course you can date. Or not. The main thing
is to know that you can give yourself permission to do what is helping
you in your life:
1) Go to counseling.
2) Quit or change a counselor.
2) Speak up and tell a counselor: I find my anxiety surged when you
suggested I connect with my mother. So I'm concerned you don't have
a grasp of what I need. And, I felt distress at how quickly you moved
to recommend medication. I need a more thoughtful approach to that.
3) Try a date. You are allowed to experiment. One at a time. It doesn't
have to be a new identity "I am now a person who is dating." It can just
be.."Huh. I think I feel like trying a date. I'll see how it goes."
4) Not date. Be a born-again spinster and embrace it. (Again, it's good
imo to sort out which of these things are about having a "proper narrative"
about yourself, as though you're designing an appealing character for the
culture or other people to approve of...as opposed to having a genuine
experience that you've chosen because of genuine interest in yourself.
As to being "addicted" to counseling...I remember once talking to the old
poet who ran my writing program about my fear of therapy, how it might
take something away from my creativity. He was in his late 70s. He said, "Oh
no! For me, it didn't damage my creativity, it released it! I still have
a fellow on Cathedral Street I go see when it's all too much."
So maybe just maybe, the "person who is addicted to counseling" is another
self-generated negative judgment? When you'd never judge somebody who
needed an insulin pump for making use of their medication for the rest of
their life or as long as their body needed it...why judge a person with anxiety who needs
a kind of "talking medicine" to keep their mind well? For as long as they need it?
Hope some of that makes sense or helps, I'm not sure it should!
Love and cheer to you,
Hops
