As always, let’s start with the numbers … which are all screwed up because I opened my planner this morning to start tallying things up and realized that I never kept track of things in June.

More on that in a moment. But since I have tracking spreadsheets, I just went ahead and crossed off what I know I’ve completed, added new stuff, and here are the updated numbers of what is remaining.

Physical Comics: 105
Digital Comics: 464
Trades/Graphic Novels: 0
Books: 106
Movies: 180
TV Series: 63
TV Seasons Watched: 115
Podcast Episodes Remaining: 122

I was thinking about how this happened–forgetting to track my stuff, that is–and I realized that June had a fair amount of anxiety and chaos that came with it and when that happens, I … well, the best way I can think of phrasing it is “get sloppy.” It’s like something in the executive functioning part of my brain switches off and I just forget everything around me. Sometimes this is a blessing because it means I’m not overthinking every last thing; however, it’s often not good because it means indulging in habits without even considering the consequences. I don’t want to say it’s some sort of manic episode, but there have been times where I’ve just “zombie consumed”: eaten or spent money on a mini-bender and not realized what I’d done until I step on the scale or udpate my checkbook.

It’s kind of how I got here in the first place, isn’t it? When anxiety is driving the bus, restraint collapse often comes in and says, “Fuck it, let’s binge!” The result is having a bunch of stuff or feeling really full and then feeling really guilty for falling down on the job. Perfectionism also makes its voice known and chastizes me for what I did because I’m now behind where I had been. Then I have a panic attack or something.

Okay, maybe not, but I definitely am on edge sometimes because of all of this and this perfectionism is something I’ve recently talked about with my therapist. I’ve probably known that this was issue for much longer than I realized it, mainly because I was brought up in an environment where “being thorough”, “follow-through”, and “finishing things up” were emphasized. Not that these things aren’t good qualities in a person, but what wound up happening is that I had an overbearing sense of commitment to things (i.e., god forbid I quit something or drop a class) and felt ashamed when I left something unfinished or abandoned it altogether. I spent an enormous amount of energy trying not to become someone that people talked about in the negative; I had seen my father comment on how someone didn’t finish projects or cut corners or quit something for whatever reason or didn’t take a prescribed path and swore I was never going to be like that. And what should have given me a good work ethic made me an anxious mess who is often afraid or hesitant to start things if he knows he can’t finish them quickly and completely. Like I said over and over, I hate telling someone I’m starting a project because I live in fear of not finishing and then having to answer the question “Whatever happened to …?” It’s my second biggest fear after being asked to volunteer in front of a large audience at a theme park show.

Anyway, when I brought this up to my therapist and we explored it a little, she gave me some advice on managing the perfectionism, because it’s kind of a twisted version of an actually positive trait and that means I shouldn’t completely obliterate it from my personality. It just doesn’t need to be present in its current form, which makes me overly anxious where I tend to get very bent out of shape at small setbacks. Here’s what she said:

• Practice self-compassion
• Allow yourself to be impoerfect
• Ground yourself when anxiety comes up
• Remind yourself that you have the tools to handle your anxieties
• Pick an activity or hobby that isn’t goal-oriented
• Step away from attacks (from other people/situations) that make you feel anxious or imperfect

The last thing she said was that therapy can help beacuse it could help me notice when I’m being self-critical and become more self-compassionate. Out of all of these, the hardest things are: a) reminding myself that I have tools to deal with all of this and use them and b) practicing self-compassion. The tools get forgotten in the heat of the moment, especially since I’m trying not to be demonstrative in my need to take a break and calm down. When you’re raised in a “We don’t talk about this” environment, you desperately try to not be someone who draws attention to themselves with their issues. I hate being the reason that anyone needs to accommodate anyone because whenever that has happened in the past, someone has made a point to loudly point it out. No, I don’t like lobster; you can just serve me a chicken breast without announcing to everyone that I don’t like lobster. When it comes to self-compassion, I am so hesitant to like myself or even point out that I’m good at something because for every time I do that there has always been either an external or internal voice to call bullshit. I think I’m a good teacher? No, you’re not because you don’t engage in several of these pedagogical practices that amazing teachers of the year do. Am I a good writer? Well, I don’t have a bestseller, a Pulitzer, a shrine somewhere at the University of Iowa. Am I a good parent? For everything I do right, there are five things I do wrong.

So it is much easier to think that I suck than it is to think I’m good because thinking you suck and saying it out loud gets you out ahead of the people who are chomping at the bit to tell you that.

Okay, maybe I’m paranoid that there are people out there who are just waiting to treat me like shit? Well, the source of that is decades of friends who treated me like shit and then told me to take a joke.

ANYWAY … the key to this is to take a moment when you feel things starting to slip and see where you can reorient yourself. Yeah, I kind of took a hit on a few things in the last four to six weeks but if I acknowledge that and then get back to what I intended to do, I’m probably less likely to feel bad than if I beat myself up while spiraling some more.