[Anonymous]

Having underwent CBT I have narrowed my problems down, among anxiety about anxiety, mild depression is , I think, perfectionism when it comes to reading things?

Basically whenever I read something, say a newspaper, or a wiki page, while I keep telling myself 'you don't have to know everything' and I do kinda believe that, I just HATE having a superficial knowledge of something, because then I just don't understand something?

It's weird, I say perfectionism, but at the same time it's simply a desire to know something/understand it properly. This was clearly the case in my A levels: I found revision guides far far too vague and waffly, alongside a neat mark scheme format. I always read way into the subjects , because If I didn't I simple didn't understand the content!

Other people on the other hand seem to grasp things with this apparent superficial knowledge....

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this mindset has branched out into reading everything.Now whenever I read a newspaper article and some subject is briefly/vaguely mentioned, I don't try to understand that, but once I skip that, I feel this sunken stomach feeling/anxiety as well . The more of an article I read with bits of info I don't fully understand, the worse it gets.

I'm really not sure how to deal with this issue? because I see something and , as per the CBT, I tell myself I don't need to understand everything.

This issue is 10x worse with humanities, say reading economic news where there's tonnes of things I know little about. Yet I see everyone around me happily reading the news, actually being relaxed and i'm the complete opposite.

This is making me really depressed because there's so many things I want to read about but I simply can't last long enough with getting depressed/anxious and frustrated....

help!

[~ Purple Rose ~]

To me it sounds like it could be a form of OCD, but obviously I'm not a doctor so that may be completely wrong. It sounds like it is affecting your life quite a bit, so it would be worth considering asking to see a therapist/counsellor again.