That bit really resonated with me. Having a fixed mindset in certain cases has allowed me to get away in some extreme challenges where a growth mindset surely would not have.
There are a whole class of issues, including PTSD, Anxiety, Depression (and related or semi-related stuff like perfectionism), that are not so much that the behavior or feeling is bad or wrong in any absolute sense - it’s just not useful or appropriate in the current environment and it is causing distress and life problems because of it. There are plenty of life circumstances where any of those states could be appropriate and would help the person. PTSD in the checkout line at the grocery store is clearly not one of them.
More nuanced research over time seems to be discovering it’s sometimes less about ‘smash the symptoms with a hammer forever’ (heavy medication) and sometimes it’s more about unblocking whatever is stuck that is stopping the person from learning and adjusting appropriately to what IS actually happening, and process whatever was going on before, so they can get out of the ‘stuck’ bad state.
This does include medication, among other things sometimes. Sometimes it’s also changing environment, removing bad influences/people, living support, etc.
Definitely not applicable to everyone. But applicable to a surprising number of cases.
It can come from something as simple as the family losing their income and having serious problems due to economic issues, to a parent dying, or a major childhood illness, death of a friend, etc.
Over preparing/over doing it to the point where most would call it ‘perfectionism’ has saved my ass many times, because it meant when I got put in a situation that turned out to be much harder or scarier than I had imagined or knew was possible, I actually had the bare minimum necessary there to pull it off or get out of the situation successfully.
Many, many people I have known over the years have not been so lucky.
Pretty sure it never hit a pathological point though, which something like OCD definitely is.
The way to turn it into a better coping skill is to evaluate where it is and is not helpful - it’s almost certainly has not always been wasted effort, though for folks in particularly bad places, maybe it has. CBT has a really useful ‘Worry Worksheet’ which can help walk people through and reality test things like this, which can help tease it apart.
Prioritizing self care is also key, as when it is a problem it’s usually because other important things aren’t getting addressed (like rest, or positive social interactions) because someone is hyper focusing on perfecting one specific thing, and necessarily unable to tackle the other things that are important to be functional. This leads to a spiral of less and less ability to be functional, which rightfully will trigger anxiety and the maladaptive behavior even more. Hopefully the person is able to snap out of it, or environmental/external factors stop it, but that doesn’t always happen.
If someone was in a situation where they ended up in a unexpectedly bad situation or emergency as a kid, this is probably one of the better ‘bad coping skill’ ways of handling it.
Other, even less helpful but common coping skills for that kind of trauma include:
- pretending that the problem is not or could never actually be a problem (delusion)
- avoiding any reminders of the problem (avoidance)
- attacking others as the cause of the problem, when they aren’t (deflection, finger pointing)
- making the problem someone else’s problem in a destructive way (usually using manipulation, gaslighting, abuse)
And many more.