Frustrated

During my short time since discovering my INTP nature I've come to realize that there really is a duality to being me. There's the "me" that I identify with and act from and then there's the "other me" that is emotional, pushy, and kept under a tight leash lest he get out and do something embarrassing or hurt someone's feelings (or worse).

What's frustrating is that the other me has a lot more control over my life than I realized. It's like someone else is there sabotaging me. On the other hand, that someone also seems to have a pretty good handle on certain aspects of my life and I can't seem to hear what he's trying to tell me.

Right now I am absolutely full of anxiety. That other guy is screaming bloody murder at me and I keep telling him to shut the hell up. It is not a constructive conversation. Honestly, I just want to cry and I am not a person who cries.

So what's going on?

I am completely burned out emotionally and there's not much left for me to work on. A lot of it comes from the constant physical pain I've been in for the last couple of weeks. A lot of it is from the massive workload I have been under. I just did a brain sweep and it's a pretty extensive list of a lot of important things. Other pieces include my messed-up medications. Others just the frustrations I can see in other people as they try to deal with me. Other parts are the loss of quiet times in my life recently. Burnout thy name is INTP. :-/

Pain
The physical pain is an enormous drain on me. It's absolutely relentless. In short, my back has four bad discs and a couple times a year those bulged discs will begin to pinch a nerve or two. Soon my muscles try to compensate and I get muscle spasms. This can last just a day or two, but sometimes it will last for months. When it gets really bad I have to go in for cortisone injections in my spine - which is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. I've noticed over the years that a lot of the problems are related to the weather. As a storm rolls in the barometric pressure drops and I think those discs bulge ever so little more starting the cascade of problems all over again. This spring we've had one storm after another roll in and it's beaten me down.

I keep trying to work through it, but the thing is, this kind of pain can be extremely sharp and so it can't be ignored or even suppressed. At times I think it's getting better then the next day a storm rolls in or I move the wrong way and I'm right back to where I began. The only relief I get is through drugs or by laying flat on the floor or in my orthopedic bed. Neither place is conducive to doing any real work.

Finally, spinal pain seems to send my endocrine system on overload. My body is flooded with hormones and I get mood swings. As an INTP though I tend to ignore my mood and emotions and so they build up. It's exhausting.

Work
As for work, I seem to be caught in the desire to do things "right" or not do them at all. I am terrified of making mistakes that will hurt other people or be the wrong move and waste time. So I spend huge amounts of time just trying to make things "just right". Then nothing gets done. Then it piles up even higher. Then I worry about that.

In Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book he points out that there needs to be a P/PC balance in life. The P is production and the PC is production capability. In essence what he is saying is that you have to have a balance between actually doing work and improving how you work. You have to have both, but it has to be in balance. It's kind of like the old "work smarter, not harder" adage, except that he points out that you still have to work.

In my case I get perpetually stuck in the PC arena. I want to keep building ever more perfect systems of doing things rather than just getting things done that can be done. It's paralysis by analysis.

Maybe some of it is just my default way of handling things. If I am stressed then I want to fix the problem and the underlying cause. So I focus on that underlying cause more and more hoping that once I nail it down the rest will just follow.

I don't have any answers right now. I just know that I feel like running away...