When perfect isn’t good enough

What’s the most appalling expression you have heard people say about someone dealing with a misery of some kind?

“Others have it worse.”

It’s a long walk trying to describe the exhaustion of living in a world that never feels ‘right’. I am trying to reach out for the stars but instead am paralyzed by violent monsters with “Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder” – OCPD taking the lead and the companionship it carries in the form of frightening anxiety attacks. My life feels like a prison governed by an invisible, relentless journal of rules, symmetry and “shoulds.”

If I don’t perform a task to an impossible standard of perfection, my brain registers it as a moral failure. This isn’t about being flawless, but about an overwhelming severity that makes the simplest of days feel like navigating a minefield of possible mistakes.

This constant friction has birthed in me a “great depression.” I am tired of my own mind and feel like my own harshest jailer. I wake up already mourning the energy I’ll spend trying to control the uncontrollable and when I inevitably fail, a dreadful anxiety takes over. I want you to know that I am not choosing to be this way, this difficult, but if I relax my grip over it all, my brain tells me everything you have built until now will shatter.

The most agonizing part of it all is the cycle of trying to get out. It feels like I am at war with my own instincts. Every time I try to change the routine to save myself from insanity, the internal backlash is violent. I constantly am on the couch about it (my way of saying still figuring it out). I am not fully into the negative or the positive aspect of it all, keeping myself hanging all along.

For once, I just want to enjoy a meal without worrying about the cleaning and placement of the dishes afterwards or checking every single room in my home almost fifty times to make sure everything is at a 90 degree angle. But this monster (OCPD) stands in the way as a brick wall, never budging. Most of my days are about grieving for the person I could be if I wasn’t so busy trying to be perfect. I am alone in this struggle wanting things to be just good enough for me to continue living a normal life. It seems everything else is already set but my mind tells me otherwise. All this makes me wonder if I have forgotten how to exist in the quiet. I crave a moment of stillness, yet when it arrives I find myself thinking about a million others things I would rather be doing. It’s like I don’t know how to live without a crisis. It’s ironic how my soul, accustomed to anxiety and uneasiness thinks that tranquility is a trap and often gets uncomfortable as soon as it starts to feel comfortable. At times it feels like I am outside my own body telling myself to stop doing all this or else you’ll lose your mind at any moment.

It’s so strange and paradoxical, isn’t it? To desperately chase a peace that actually horrifies you. Stuck in this loop, I am just trying to survive the noise in and around me. I am learning that my existence doesn’t need to be perfect in order to be meaningful. I am still deeply human, finding ways to surmount the humongous wall of hopelessness.

Regardless of all this I walk, eat, talk, work, smile and lend a helping hand. I do it all because I have realized if I don’t show up for my life, nobody else will. No matter how heavy the weight feels, I know I have a part to play that belongs only to me. I am slowly learning that I am so much more than these dark worthless thoughts that keep telling me otherwise. I am here right now and it is not without a purpose which to me is the simple act of being kind to myself and others in a world that is already cruel enough.

If this vaguely feels like you, you are not alone in the dark. I understand the weight of a mind that never sleeps and the pursuit to outrun your own expectations. Most of the time it feels like the monster will never leave and it’s a struggle for life. But in the small spaces you get, please remember to take a breath and be a little kinder to yourself than you have been yesterday. You and I, we are valuable simply for being our own imperfect selves, not for the completion of a checklist at the end of the day.

A little poem, maybe?

The little voices in your head

Speak to you as your only companion

Misery or peace?

Heaven or hell?

My home is yet unknown

My address changes daily

I do different things everyday

And nothing in a lifetime

But oh!

There is light in the shadows

A second of benevolence

A forever of gratification

Hamna Munir, Participant GKSC Bootcamp