I Expect Perfection

Rather than celebrating the fact that I went out to lunch with my family yesterday, I continue to beat myself for being nervous and not being able to fully enjoy the experience. I talked to my mom about this in relation to my biological father and the divorce. She mentioned that the expectation was that I was perfect, so I was always “the good boy”. Even when I did make mistakes, I mean come on, we all make mistakes, my mom would shield me from any wrong doing. She said that my biological father would become very upset at every mistake that I made and not only me anyone for that matter. I guess the neighbor kids called him the Grinch because he would yell at them for walking on our lawn.

The problem with perfection is that none of us have this trait, we are all imperfect beings. The problem with perfection and recovery is that you tend to focus on the wrong things. Rather then seeing progress being made, we tend to focus on “what still is wrong”. This type of thinking keeps me trapped in this endless loop of thoughts creating fear, creating anxiety, creating thoughts.

I’m also coming up on my one year anniversary of when I first sought out the help of a psychologist and I keep asking myself why I’m not better yet, why do I still get nervous in public, why do I still fear disease?