The Imperfect Perfectionist

Bipolar is a weird thing because it does such things to my mind. It makes me able to be completely rational when things are REALLY not going well for me but I literally feel like I'm losing my mind when little things that most people would brush right past happen to me. This week I withdrew from my school semester because I had a few problems with my knee that put me the hospital several weeks ago and once it started spiraling I just couldn't regain my footing. I took this in stride as a small setback in what has been a bumpy road, at best, in my schooling.  I have, up until this point, been able to barely hang on each semester without my grades suffering. I don't feel the unbearable shame that I often feel with another failure in life. But, I had something happen at work where they highlighted your name if you made an unnamed error. When my name was highlighted I was on the verge of tears at work and cried for hours when I got home. To say that I was inconsolable  would be an understatement. How can one bad day at work send me over the edge so far but losing a semester of school is acceptable?!?! I think about it and I even wonder wtf is wrong with me. Then I realize that bipolar is what wrong with. Bipolar is illogical, relentless, and it needs me to alwayd know that it's there.  Bipolar is always going to call the shots in my life. I have always had difficulty with public criticism and having my name highlighted and to not know the error was so overwhelming.  I spent the next few days truly second guessing my worth as an employee. Maybe the difference with these two things is my school didn't make me feel like I was failing but I did feel like I was failing as an employee. One friend pointed out that I have always been a perfectionist so me not taking liking the feeling of failing was probably hard for me. But I still go back to wondering why a could easily explain away a big problem but simply could not handle the little one.  I guess I need to control the bipolar to be the most stable and maybe it's controlling me a bit right now.  Maybe I took the school thing in stride because I could think that it's okay because I'm great at my job. This knocked me down a few pegs because no matter how great any of us are we can always be better. No one is perfect so while I strive to be perfect, I'm not because no one is. So as much as I HATE when people tell me to pick myself up and dust myself off I think that's what I need to do.  I need to accept my roll as an imperfect perfectionist. This too shall pass and I have conquered much worse and thrived.  I will thrive through this and more once the dust clears.

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