Day 15: Let it go already!

I'm finally dealing with it. My second to last schema. It;s been haunting me, and I've been avoiding it, but tonight I'm going to talk about the Unrelenting Standard/ Hypercriticalness schema. Remember, Unrelenting Standards or Hypercriticalness refers to the belief that whatever you do is not good enough, that you must always strive harder. The motivation for this belief is the desire to meet extremely high internal demands for competence, usually to avoid internal criticism. People with this schema show impairments in important life areas, such as health, pleasure or self esteem. Usually these people's parent were never satisfied and gave their children love that was conditional on outstanding achievement.

Oh boy does this schema hit a chord with me. Maybe that's why I've struggled so hard to finally write about it and work through the issues surrounding it. I have exceptionally high standards for myself, and hold others to the same, which if they were actually able to meet, then it would mean the second Coming had occurred and we were all finally perfect. I'm so bad that I give myself a nervous breakdown over the state of the house. The laundry overwhelms me to the point of tears. The dishes overwhelm me into hysterics. My living room overwhelms me to where I'm hiding in my room under the covers crying. I can't start small, and so it is insurmountable. That's my black and white thinking problem., I can't even start to find a solution to a problem if I can't see an end to it at the end of the tunnel. It's taken months of therapy for me to slowly come to terms with the fact that this is not a black or white area of life. There is grey here. My house doesn't need to be absolutely spotless, but the cockroaches don't need to feel at home either..

And of course I'm my own worst critic. I've complained that I don't know enough people. I think if I could get a feel for what other people's houses looked like, I might be more okay with mine because I could gauge how close to the middle ground mine was. But since I have only Martha Stewart magazines and TV houses to go off of, I constantly think my house is falling entirely too short in how it should look. 

I could laugh this off as a horrid quirk of mine, but it extends to other aspects of my life as well that have more far reaching consequences. I have such high expectations for my children, and I don't know if they're reasonable (read: healthy) or not. My therapist has really worked with me on trying to see my children as they are, and not as mini adults, but it's taken a lot of time to even try to see some slight improvement in this area. Let's take my son for example. He's 3. And he makes Max from Where the Wild Things Are  look positively tame. I've been at my wits end more than a time or two because he just doesn't listen; He's run out in to a parking lot and roads more than once. He's gotten lost at the store more frequently than I'd like to admit. He's been disciplined so many times I'm ashamed to give a number there. I was convinced he's ADHD because of how wild he is, but I finally broke down and took a Positive Discipline class, which focuses on the Love and Logic curriculum, which other things added in. Between that class and therapy, our relationship has really started to improve.  Another thing I do to try and help my relationship with my son is to watch other mums who have sons that are my little boy's age. I watch what these boys do, how the parents react, and what they let go and what they don't. 

So that's just one example of where being hypercriticical is probably providing years of income for a therapist some years down the road from now. And then there's my oldest. She is the most amazing, sweetest, kindest, lovable, responsible, snarkiest, brattiest, empathetic, wondrous 12 year old you will ever meet. I read Laura Ingalls Wilder as a child, and again as a young adult and was very impressed by all that the Ingalls children did and were responsible for. I made the decision that my children were going to have real responsibilities and chores like that because I wanted them to grow up with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and lack of entitlement in their world. So my 12 year old is responsible for tending her younger siblings when need be, and has been responsible for them since she was 10, she is responsible for her own laundry, and she has the garbage and dishes are her two chores she does regularly, with mowing the lawn and other chores added in as needed. I hope I'm doing well by her and not creating a terrible monster who will need years of therapy by the time she's an adult.

So those are a few examples of how the unrelenting standards schema affects me. If you relate to it, what does it do to you? Do you see any of yourself in this schema? As usual, let me know in the comments! 

Day 2: What the hell is a schema?

What is a schema? Have you ever even heard of them?

A schema, or life trap, is an unconditional assumption about ourselves and others that develop in childhood and become self perpetuating over time and remain throughout our life. It affects our thoughts, feelings and behaviours and how we interact with others and the world. When these are triggered by an event, a situation, a memory, a person, a thought etc. we respond in ineffective and unhealthy ways. Schemas have a significant influence on how our identities are formed and are more resistant to change than even our 'core beliefs' are.

When I was inpatient, I had to take a test to determine what my top 3 schemas were. I had 6 that were very close in number, so I use my top 6. My top six schemas are

• Mistrust/Abuse
• Defectiveness/Shame
• Social Isolation/Alienation
• Self-Sacrifice
• Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness
• Insufficient Self-Control.Self-Discipline 

So what do these all mean, now that I've just thrown a bunch of random words at you?

Let's start with Mistrust/Abuse. This schema refers to the expectation that others will intentionally take advantage in some way. People with this schema expect others to hurt, cheat or put them down. They often think in terms of attacking first or getting revenge afterwards, In childhood, these people were often abused or treated unfairly by parents, siblings, or peers.

Defectiveness/shame refers to the belief that one is inherently flawed and that if others get close, they will realize this and withdraw from the relationship, This feeling of being flawed and inadequate often leads to a strong sense of shame. Generally parents were very critical of their children and made them feel as if they were not worthy of being loved.

Social Isolation/Alienation refers to the belief that one is isolated from the world, different from other people, and/or not part of any community. This belief is usually caused by early experiences in which children see that either they, or their families, are different from other people.

People with the Self-Sacrifice schema sacrifice their ow needs to the point of excess in order to help others. When these people pay attention to their own needs, they often feel guilty. To avoid this guilt, they put others' needs ahead of their own. Often people who self sacrifice gain a feeling of increased self-esteem or a sense of meaning from helping others. In childhood the person may have been made to feel overly responsible for the well being of one or both parents.

Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness refers to the belief that whatever you do is not good enough, that you must always strive harder. The motivation for this belief is the desire to meet extremely high internal demands for competence, usually to avoid internal criticism. People with this schema show impairments in important life areas, such as health, pleasure or self esteem. Usually these people's parent were never satisfied and gave their children love that was conditional on outstanding achievement.

The Insufficient Self Control/Self-Discipline refers to the inability to tolerate any frustration in reaching one's goals, as well as an inability to restrain expression of one's impulses or feelings. When lack of self-control is extreme, criminal or addictive behavior may rule your life. Parents who did not model self control, or who did not adequately discipline their children, may predispose them to have this schema as adults.

There are several other schemas, including:

• Negativity/Pessimism, 
• Punitiveness, 
• Entitlement/Grandiosity, 
• Approval Seeking/Recognition-Seeking, 
• Emotional Inhibition, 
• Subjugation, 
• Failure, 
• Enmeshment/ Undeveloped Self, 
• Vulnerability to Harm and Illness, 
• Dependence/Incompetence, 
• Abandonment/Instability, and 
• Emotional Deprivation.

So now what? I've told you what my deepest, most secret issues are, and even explained them a bit. Now we're going to delve in them more as this week goes on. I plan on taking each one of the six, and going into deeper detail  for every day this week. This has been a therapy assignment that my therapist has been ragging on me to do, so I'm killing two birds with one stone here. If there is interest, as my final piece in schemas, I'll do a post about those other schemas that don't affect me.

I hope I've not bored you too much through this post, but I'm excited to delve deeper into the various sschemas I have here, and I hope you'll join me as I do a little self therapy :)

Based on these definitions I've provided, and the titles of the other schemas, do you have any guess on what yours may be? Let me know in the comments below!