Taking Care Of Others Is OK, But Sometimes Taking Care Of Them Means Letting Go

I'm controlling. I know that. I've mentioned I love being a mom to people and taking care of them. The problem is that I don't always know where to draw the line. How do you know when you're helping and when you're being controlling?

I don't have a lot of friends, but the ones that I do have, I want to protect and make sure everything goes right for them. But I don't always do it in the best way. Usually, I end up trying to do everything for them or I get agitated really quickly. Seeing them doing things that cause them harm or hinders their lives bothers me. I usually don't see just the problem at hand, but project what is going to go wrong in the future as well.

Being organized doesn't just make sense to me because having order makes things feel more peaceful, it also means in the future people won't misplace things that they need, which could end up being important. Making sure that lights off isn't just me wanting things a certain way, it's to prevent bills from increasing, which will prove more of a financial burden on others.

Even at work, I have a high standard for my work and I want things to go as perfect as possible. I'm a bit of a try-hard, over-achiever at times. But I also hold everyone else to those standards and end up stressing others, even though I don't mean it to be that way. I'm thinking about end product instead of each person's most efficient way to work. I'm one track at times and I worry constantly. I can probably be mistaken for having OCD, but I don't. OCD, like this other article by Rachael Allyn, is actually a serious mental disorder that isn't just small things or having a preference for things in a certain way. Which is why for me, it's more of a matter of just slowing down.

I usually react equally to all types of things going wrong, whether it's a dish not in place or fucking up at work. Actually, in bigger problems, I'm usually calmer than I am on a daily basis. I find it's easier to deal with big problems. It's the small things that I can't deal with right because they're within my grasp. They're so easy or so small so they shouldn't be hard to do. But sometimes they're so small that they fall through the crack. And falling through the crack means loss. And that means a loss of control. And the downward spiral into thinking if I ever have control over anything.

I don't have the answer how to fix it yet. I don't know how to not be as intense as I am about everything without completely stopping caring about everything. I need to find a balance, but that means giving up control. Giving up control and trusting others. Maybe it's my lack of trust. Or maybe it's just my fear that I'm not doing enough. For now, I have to figure out how to stop stressing out the people around me. Which means pulling back and letting things happen.