Welcome! I'm Erica Douglass. I sold my successful business at age 26. Now, I'm committed to teaching you how to build an inspired, successful business. I also encourage you to think differently about investing, real estate, and negotiation.
To ensure you receive all of my success tips, make sure to subscribe to erica.biz!
Two months later…
It’s been a little over two months since I wrote my last real blog entry, “It just doesn’t feel quite right…”
Where did I disappear to in those two months? Let’s just say I took an emotional hiatus. Yep, I put up a big ol’ wall, just like I had as far back as when I was 13 years old. As you read in my blog, I resolved not to think about those things any more. In fact, I resolved to just not think about anything emotional for a while. After all, I knew my company could function better when I worked like a machine (and worked my butt off) than when I was an emotional mess. So I said “Fuck this” and put up a wall.
Simpli did really well in those two months. We met our revenue goals for 2005. We completed a datacenter move. The datacenter move was complete hell, but Russ and I pulled through with little to no sleep for 5 days and pulled it off. It was good that we got it finished.
I went to NYC in November, to LA (for IBI Dec. 5th-12th), and to Miami for New Years. I met S in NYC, who is definitely the person most like me in this world. I don’t think I’ll ever meet someone more like me. It’s crazy to know how someone will react even before they say anything, but S and I are like that. This makes us great friends, but also likely to drive each other crazy on a regular basis. 
We talk every day. I told him I didn’t want a relationship because we’d end up killing each other. I think we both know this and this is part of what helps us be such close friends…that we know we have that boundary there where we can walk away at any time and take some time for ourselves without suffocating each other. It is pretty cool to know someone who is the opposite-sex version of you. I guess I always wondered what I would turn out like as a guy. Well, now I know I’d probably turn out like S. Which is not at all bad. In fact, he’s a pretty cool guy! But I suppose I have a biased opinion, being that we are nearly identical in our thought patterns.
S and I spent New Years together in Miami, too. No, I don’t have any pictures, mostly because I had this gross eye infection that made me look kinda crazy. (Google image search for “sty” if you want to see what I had. Yuck!)
I did post pictures of NYC on Flickr, but none of me and S. Sorry. Neither of us are photogenic.
Back to the wall. I had a lot of fun in the past couple months, but unfortunately it didn’t solve the nagging feeling I had. I successfully kept the wall up until last weekend, when I saw R for the first time in 2 months. Within an hour of seeing him again I felt the wall come crashing down and I was crying.
You see, for the past couple months I have ignored the gnawing feeling. I distanced myself emotionally from everyone. I did this all because, deep down inside, I have a huge fear. That is the fear that something about me makes me inherently unlovable.
I don’t mean unlovable as a friend. I have lots of friends who love me, and I know my family loves me. But I feel that there’s something that makes me unable to have a long-term relationship with anyone. I have some idea of what it is — that I’m a real perfectionist and I don’t think anyone, including me, lives up to my standards. But I can’t seem to let this go long enough to enjoy a relationship. It’s like a compulsion — whenever someone lets me down, I don’t deal well with it. I get angry. I yell, I scream, and I distance myself from that person. A lot of times, the distance is permanent. Other times, like with R, my feelings are too strong to make it a permanent distance, and I reach out again, only to inevitably be disappointed and hurt again.
R is particularly frustrating because there are so few personality clashes there, and a lot of things I really like about him. (Okay, love. I’ll say love.) He and I get along really well. I know I’ve said that before, but there’s something in my heart that doesn’t want to let him go, because he actually makes me really happy when we’re together. It’s when we’re not together that the nightmares kick in and I constantly worry that I’m not good enough for him or that he’ll find someone else who fulfills all of his needs. And the fact is that he probably will. He probably will, and then I’ll be left to look through the window just like I do now with FG, and see how happy he is and wonder what it is about my personality that forbids me from finding this happiness with another person.
I admit it. You have it in writing now…I have such a perfectionist trait that I break out in physical symptoms, like itching, when people don’t meet my expectations, which are set so ridiculously high that no one can meet them 100% of the time…not even me. And yet I don’t know how to stop it. I see the devastation it wreaks when I demand so much of people. I’ve watched people break down in front of me because they can’t meet my expectations. And yet I can’t seem to control this, this thing that runs my life, that makes me so hugely successful but at the same time is slowly killing me. The drive and the passion that I have for succeeding come from this, or (in my perspective) are enhanced by it. But it’s also crippled me; it makes me constantly worry that Simpli will fail, or that I will run out of money, or that I’m in debt. And it runs my interactions with other people, to the point where people don’t want to be around me because I can’t stop being driven. I can’t relax.
It’s out of control and I need help. I don’t know what kind of help I need. I’m not really into the whole medication thing. But I know that I need to learn how to relax, and I know that I really love people who can help me relax, like FG and R. But I also know I drive those people away with my perfectionism. I need to figure this out, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do. This drive may make me really rich (it looks like I’ll be an official millionaire before the end of the year), but it doesn’t make me happy… and happy is what I need more than anything else right now.
Like this entry? Subscribe to this blog and receive an email update whenever a new post appears on the site! No spam, and I won't give your email address to any other company.
Email This Post To A Friend
Bookmark in Del.icio.us
|
Technorati
|
Digg This!
|
Review on StumbleUpon
Previous post in this category: Wario Ware goes DOWN!
8 Responses to “Two months later…”
Leave a Reply
Don’t forget that some people won’t find strain caused by your perfectionism–your true friends.
Please don’t forget that you have many people who will listen to your thoughts and concerns with an open mind.
Don’t hesitate to ask any of them. It will help you more than you could ever imagine.
Impressive entry. Hits home with me, and I suspect other “geek” types. My little adventure is getting out of the whole computer business altogether. I think the exact and controlling nature of the computer business encourages that sort of mindset. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Oh, and three cheers for meeting someone while travelling. I’m scheduling some business travel for this year and while I’m certainly not planning on meeting anyone, which is a recipe for disappointment, I am adding extra days here and there so that I’ll have the opportunity. Atlanta during the Atlanta Jazz festival for one, when I could have gone to other cities for the business meeting I’m attending.
I am curious how well you get along with your employee(s) with your controlling nature. Do you just pay them especially well so they can’t complain, or are you gifted with managerial skills?
well, ganbatte at being happy, and remember that ultimately happiness is just a state of mind and a way of thinking. being able to focus and work hard with simpli is a great acheivment that shows your abilities, so we know you can set your mind to a task and acheive results. so maybe it’s time you took being happy with a guy seriously, none of this fantasy prince charming riding in on a white horse to save you from the dragon BS. Instead finding a way to spend time with another human being and being able to interact with them, and allow them every opporunity to feel good being with you while you enjoy every opportunity for feeling good they give to you.
i almost make that sound simple, don’t I? Alas sometimes the simplest tasks are the most frustratingly hard, because they aren’t complicated or confusing, but we Want them to be. we Need them to be harder than they really are. just to drive us crazy.
[...] nk to SlashChick.com » Two months later…”>
And slashchick said: I have such a perfectionist trait that I break out in physical symptoms, like itching, when people don’t [...]
I’ve been looking at your post for the past 4 days, and I’m still not sure what to say to you about your query. About the only advice I figured out that I go give and make sense (as much as advice can be from a complete stranger) is to be patience. Trying to rush something that can’t be rushed only makes it worse. It seems you really need to find an off switch in your life, as you seem to go through the cycle of working your ass off, and then crashing and burning for a month or two.
As in all things in life, maintaining balance is key. I do hope you eventually find what you’re looking for. (Or, to be more appropriate, whom you’re looking for.)
Johnny
p.s. Did you ever find that third person to help with Simpli?
Hello,
I just made it here thought your +5 post in slashdot about the training guy. You were mostly talking about household, houskeeping, kids and house/wife roles. It caught my attention and I came here to further reading.
After I went extensibily thought your website and your company website, I must say I find you to be a really remarkable woman! I even saw pics of you in flickr (everything is there if one knows how to find it) I will only say I wish I lived in your city!
I think you have gained a reader today, your blog has made it directly to my top blogs list.
Enought about presentation and enought licking (I shall recall here Mr. Wolf famous quote on Pulp Fiction)
About this particular post, just one thing:
You are trying to be less perfectionist in order to be a better person, but is not that the same as to say that you want to be better, or more perfect? really caught you!
Trying not to be a perfectionist is a futile exercise, for which this road leads to the very same start point.
I wont give you any advice on the matter, since I cant see myself doing so to such a remarkable woman.
Read ya later! :- )
“I don’t mean unlovable as a friend. I have lots of friends who love me, and I know my family loves me. But I feel that there’s something that makes me unable to have a long-term relationship with anyone. I have some idea of what it is — that I’m a real perfectionist and I don’t think anyone, including me, lives up to my standards.”
I have a similar problem. I hold myself to a far higher standard than I do everyone else. People think I am really great at things but at the same time I am annoyed with myself for not being as good as feel I should be. If I could see myself as other people do I’d be happier.
Well, I was wondering how your IBI experience went in December? Before you went, you wanted to know what others’ experiences were and now I’m going in March and am curious as well…As far as the personal stuff - we all have it and deep down we all feel at some point that maybe we don’t deserve to be loved. Just face your fears and open yourself up…advice I’m trying to listen to as well!