I can't keep living this way, driving myself to the ground with perfectionism. Putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect, I can't breathe. Constant rigidity. I'm miserable day-to-day, striving for unattainable ideals of happiness and success. Peace and placidity evade me. How can I change everything I am? My very being. Everything that led me to this point - the "standards," the self-discipline, the restricting - threatens to take it all away as I melt into a profound paralysis. I hide behind these ideals terrified of failure, of falling short of greatness. I can't breathe, the walls are closing in, and I have to face how flawed I am. I want to be someone else, but I so desperately want to be the perfect version of me.
