My obsession with control started with each new rejection, each new thing I’d convinced myself I’d get into even before the application process came around. My therapist diagnosed me with anxiety a year and a half ago and she suggested medication as an option, but I’ve always been scared of changing myself or losing those things that make me me.

I grew up with a Doctor Who quote: “the good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.” Apparently, I didn’t listen well enough. The successes in my life made my rejections seem even more dire and awful.

Life is a constant cycle of successes and failures, a list that can go on forever. And with each rejection, I’ve recognized the power that outside influences hold over me. I can only control myself. 

***

Control manifests itself in all of the parts that make up me. Self-control gives me the ability to study for any test and revise every application. Even emotion is an instrument I can control. The summer of 2018, during a musical theatre audition, I started crying mid-song in frustration because I was not able to hit certain notes. Rather than receiving a look of pity from the judges after I had finished, I was congratulated on my “emotional vulnerability,” almost as if they preferred this emotional showcase over a perfect string of notes.

At the beginning of quarantine, a period where time for self-reflection was abundant, I realized that just as the mind and emotions could be controlled, so too could the physical body.

I began a new workout regimen, the kind I had been putting off because I thought it was too time-consuming. But by then, the media was concerned with discussing how our bodies would be affected by the lockdown and gyms closing, so I resolved to leave quarantine “better” than I started it. I cleaned out my pantry because I thought my body was something that needed to be perfected as well—an object to be controlled in the pursuit of conventional attractiveness.  

I initially tried to convince myself that this wasn’t problematic. I rationalized that this orthorexic behavior was fine, responsible even. I told myself that it was good to finally stick to a workout schedule and not push it off day after day. But as I looked for more imperfections within myself, I began to wonder when this never-ending process of “self-improvement” would end. Was there ever going to be an improvement that landed me across the finish line, reaching an ultimate goal? When would I finally be satisfied?

My downtime wasn’t free of this obsession with control either. The fall after quarantine, as I started my sophomore year, I stopped watching so many of the things I used to. My last year as a teenager was fading from my grasp, and it started to feel like I was wasting my life whenever I watched TV. So I switched to books, only watching the occasional movie recommended to me by professors whose artistic judgments I trusted, or those that were in French, in order to achieve the French fluency I need to study abroad.

Over winter break I was forced to come to terms with my excessive behavior when I started to seriously consider changing myself in an unnatural way. Early January, I went to a consultation with a plastic surgeon to talk about getting a nose job. I think there is an inherent human dislike when we hear about plastic surgery because, sometimes, these requests come from outside sources: men wanting their wives or girlfriends to get breast implants and certain producers or agents telling actresses they should go under the knife to appear more attractive to film audiences.

But, my request for a consultation came straight from me. I was the one who disliked my appearance. I was the one who asked my mother to please get me a consultation. Of course, any kind of beauty standard is derived from somewhere, but, unlike my past rejections, the person judging me was me. There was no peer pressure from any friends, except for a brief, meant-to-be-funny question from my high school friend who asked if I would get a “cutesy nose.”

The one deciding—the one still deciding—is me.

The question of “when will this never-ending process of self-improvement finally end?” arises again. And for the longest time, the answer was that it simply never would.

So here is where I am right now; I don’t have an “I’ve conquered this” story because I haven’t. Here is not the best conclusion, but a true statement: I am someone who is never satisfied, but I am aware of this and I am getting help. I started going back to my therapist, and my obsession with control is the main subject, learning how I can enjoy the things I achieve instead of plunging into the next opportunity for perfection. I am learning to say “No.” I am learning to say “I could do this if I wanted to, but I choose not to.”

I am learning that it is okay to not be great at everything. I am learning about enjoying something as a hobby, rather than viewing it as a resume builder. I feel a lot more at peace knowing that the opportunities I chase and the activities I pursue are things I truly care about and enjoy putting the work into.

By Sophia George

Indecisive hopeless romantic attempting to navigate the intersection of Arts and politics