Personal Space Invader

Boundaries, they are lost of me. I have never developed the skills to use them properly. I don't know how to set boundaries for myself. I don't know how to set boundaries for other people. Where to start, where to start? Let's start with boundaries with myself.

I want to be the best at everything. I am extremely prideful. I have an inner dialog, a mantra as it where: " I need to be the best at everything, or I am a total and complete looser." Of course I can't be the best at everything, so in effect I let myself down a lot. This mantra has lead me to be very successful in my educational career. I have managed to maintain a 3.51 GPA while taking far more units then I should. To me, in the past, an A was the only acceptable grade. B's were tolerable so long as the class was known to be extremely difficult, and C's.... well they sent me down to the depths of depression. Only recently have I accepted that lower grades are okay if the alternative is insanity. But it's not just school that my ultra competitive side rears its ugly face. It is in every aspect of my life. I have to be the nicest. I have to be the smartest. I have to be the most dependable. I have to be the prettiest. I have to be the funniest. I have to be the most contemplative. The list goes on and on. I have fantasies of people giving me public praise spewing all the wonderful things I have done. Then I become sad that it rarely actually happens. Praise is a drug. I love it and I can never get enough. I don't know how to be content. I don't know how to do my personal best with out bringing out the mental whips. To me it is not my personal best until I have pushed myself past the point of comfort. No pain, no gain. This has lead me down the path of total burn out.

It is not difficult to see how I likely respond to others given what I have just said. It is either hot or cold. I an either all yes or all no. I don't know how to speak up for myself. I was taught that it was rude to say no. So my alternative is to become a total recluse. I don't like being around people. In fact, I hate it. The reason being, I always feel like I have to be the best person in their life at that moment. That is a lot of pressure, so it is usually much easier for me to avoid people all together because I hate that feeling of needed to please. I know it is unhealthy. But I don't know how to change it. So I avoid it. Yeah, yeah, I know that is co-dependence. But it is the ONLY way that I know how to see the world. My mother is a co-dependent, and she passed on the thought process to me through her constant example. Ah yes, I have mommy issues too. But if I begin to talk about that I would be opening a Pandora's box, and frankly I just don't want to go there right now. (<-- Look there is a boundary) My goal is to just lay everything about me on the table and sort through it. And I need a book. I don't know what that book might be, but I need it.

Namaste