The most immediate problem I have at the moment is... I need to finish my Thesis. I'm running out of time.
I love to research, write, analyze, speculate, etc. That's not it the problem, normally I would enjoy this so much. I'm a perfectionist, I love to go back an edit. But the last years I just haven't been able to. And I'm running out of time.
I often freeze, in terror. My body tenses and hurts. I just can't. I get tachycardia and my chest hurts, my hands shake. So... I engage in any other activity I can to avoid this. Anything. But ideally something that takes time and keeps my mind focused and fully occupied. For example, a good long open-world videogame. It can turn into addictive behaviour. I obsess, I draw pleasure from it. I make lists and I enjoy so much exploring every little pixel and side quest.
I feel pathetic because I never freeze with anything else. I fight my way through even when I've felt terrified for my life, even in those dangerous situations in my past I'm quick to react and survive. But this? It's just a paper, it's just words! No?
I know that part of it is because I feel I can't speak my mind freely, I can't use my words naturally, my own voice feels muffled. I need to force it into a rigid format, as academic and logical as possible. Poetic or abstract is not appreciated. It's not creative writing, it's high academic language. Constraint by titles, citations, page numbers, etc. I feel I ignore too much, that no one will take me seriously because I'm no expert, no matter how wise or insightful I can prove to be.
I've been wondering about this so much. Part of the problem may be the critic and corrections that I receive. I feel I'm so wrong whenever I see even the smallest one. "Oh, how did I not see that? How did I not think about that? What does my supervisor thinks of me?"
The earliest traumatic memory that I could link to this is of my mother supervising when I was learning to write. You now, the first exercises, O I O I, O X O X, etc. She grabbed the paper when I was done, judged it, and then ripped it in front of me, telling me that is was fecal matter, and made me start over from the beginning until I did it as perfect as possible. She repeated this I don't know how many times. Made me fill pages and pages. And it wasn't only this time, she did this with every homework for several years, until I acted out because I wanted to do it on my own.
That would explain why I feel like it's futile to try, or why I dread the corrections would just keep coming back forever.
But the thing is... how the Hell do I get over all that in time? How can I deal with this? I need to finish my proposal ASAP. I'm close to finishing but I freeze badly, any techniques I can try? Talking myself out of it hasn't done much...