onion_knight

Mental health issues too often remain untreated among high-achievers who are able to maintain a surface appearance of holding it together. It's a good trend that nowadays we feel able to talk more openly about struggles like this.

I see myself in this article but for me, the word that was the key to find resources to get better was the broader acronym RNT, "Repetitive negative thoughts". Perfectionism themes are one common type of thought for me, but I also have several other categories that don't fit in that frame. Two resources I found particularly useful:

* https://www.amazon.com/Negative-Thoughts-Workbook-Repetitive... "The Negative Thoughts Workbook" A practical self-help book with chapters to work through each common category of negative thought

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672052/ "Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought" A survey in the clinical literature which I found particularly helpful for identifying the subset of negative thoughts which has been actually helping me. This helped me ease up on the majority of unhelpful thoughts with greater confidence that I'm still preserving the small subset of my thought pattern which has helped me succeed.