Thoughts
To quickly recap some of my issues:
1. I know my problems are smaller than other people's; so I feel like it should be easy for me to deal with them.
2. I fault myself for having problems. Any problem (that was avoidable) also carries with it the weight of knowing that I wasn't good enough to avoid it.
3. I take criticism personally. Like 2, criticizing something I've made is both a criticism of the thing and a criticism of me, either that I haven't fixed it already or else that I wasn't smart enough to know that was a problem. (If I ask for criticism, I mean it. The biggest problem is when you criticize something I think is good. )
4. I'm a perfectionist. 1 problem is 1 problem too many.
As an example, I enjoy climbing. I bought climbing shoes, then scheduled myself to go climbing.
When the time came, I couldn't find my climbing shoes. ('I don't have my climbing shoes' is the first problem). Then I fault myself for losing them ('I lost my climbing shoes' is the second problem). I now feel the need to fix both of these problems, first finding the shoes and second ensuring I never lose the shoes again. Since I'm a perfectionist, I can't go climbing without my shoes. And I now have a systemic problem ('I lose things'). Combing that problem with my perfectionism means that (if I can't fix the systematic problem) I should never go climbing again (because I can't guarantee I won't lose the climbing gear). But wait, my brain can apply 2) to the systemic problem as well. I never should have bought the shoes in the first place. If I knew I was going to lose them, buying them would be a bad idea. And we can keep going. I should never buy anything again. I shouldn't go climbing. etc.
My brain does this all the fricking time. I hate it.
(I wrote this last night at the same time as everything else but didn't post it.)