Posted by Questionmark on April 7, 2006, at 2:11:58
In reply to Re: Medications for excessive chronic Perfectionis » Questionmark, posted by yxibow on March 16, 2006, at 2:46:07
Ah, g*d! See, i really want to reply to all of these posts but i don't know if i should because that would take too much time but i really really want to.. and... that was supposed to be an obvious example of how i'm even being overly perfectionistic with this thread and post, but i don't think it was necessarily that obvious-- and that's irritating too cuz, no i must shut up.
Okay, first, gardenergirl wrote:
"I know someone who found some relief from Luvox. OCPD is rough, though. It can be pretty entrenched. Good luck!"
Yes, it is rough. And yes, it can be ridiculously entrenched. Thank you for the good luck.RetiredYoung wrote:
"Zyprexa. (10mg/day for me). It has made me so apathetic that I'm thinking of reducing my dosage."
Yeah, see, that is what i definitely Don't want. i'd rather deal with my perfectionism than antipsychotic-induced apathy and deadness.
And Racer wrote the following:
> >"I'm not a perfectionist, but since I play one in real life, I can tell you that ain't no drug ever done all that much for it directly, but most of those that reduce my anxiety and treat my depression will help a lot, indirectly. The problem I get is that I go from one extreme to the other: perfectionistic, to totally apathetic and amotivated. And even when I'm apathetic and amotivated, I can still get a goose into perfectionism. {sigh}
> >"What's helped much more is therapy, and right now I'm carrying around a little notebook in which I note down any perfectionism that I'm aware of, and anything I'm aware of doing to counter it. It's obviously more labor intensive than a pill, and it's not fixing the problem, just helping me be more aware of it, but I kinda feel as though it helps. (Although I'm not doing it perfectly -- ARGH! lol)
> >"Adequate sleep, healthy diet, and the more sedating ADs that I've taken have helped, though. I am trying to think -- maybe the combo of Effexor and Prozac was most helpful? Can't quite remember, but I think it was...
> >"Sorry I can't help more. But therapy really has helped more than anything else -- mostly because it has me asking myself, 'Why is this so important? Why do I need to be perfect in this?'
> >"Good luck."Yeah, no medication has ever significantly helped me with my perfectionism either-- other than maybe some of those that just turned me into an unfeeling, worthless zombie to some extent, which, again, is much worse than even dealing with the full-fledged perfectionism because at least in the latter case i'm alive (sort of). BUUuut, i still have the hope-- though not the expectation-- that there is some med(s) out there that can take away the perfectionism at least enough so i could naturally be okay with what is "good enough," so to speak (er, something).
i did have therapy for awhile (about a year) in which most of it was focused on this problem, and i believe my psychologist was really good (sincere, smart, knowledgable, etc.), but unfortunately it did not seem to have helped much. i have to admit that i unfortunately did not put much of his advice into practice very often, however.
The notebook thing you mentioned is interesting. i kind of cringe a bit to think about that though since it would be so, as you said "labor intensive," and time-consuming. And god knows that time is something i have very little of (not really because i'm all that busy, but because i use up so d*mn much of it with overly perfectionistic behavior-- for lack of a more accurate phrase ultimately). But maybe it would be more helpful than i would guess. i'd like to try it. i'm gonna try to try it.
Thank you very much for your input... and everyone else as well-- thank you.{ SO Sorry for how long this was and i'm sorry it took me so long to reply. i've been planning on it for awhile now but never got around (story of my life). i hope you all might still get around to reading it though. }
poster:Questionmark
thread:619669
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060403/msgs/629957.html