Okay, so I'll start this off by saying, I'm not asking what might be wrong with me, but whether a therapist might actually help fix my problems.

**TL;DR: My mom says she thinks I need a therapist because I'm a perfectionist, and its actually a problem and crippling my mental health.  I am unsure of whether a therapist can help me.**  ***Can a therapist actually help me?***

Alright... context time!!!

Alright, so I'm a young female.  I'm in High School and my school is pretty stressful. Not that other schools aren't stressful, but the curriculum at my school is supposed to be extra-challenging.  Now, for my entire life, I've been somewhat of a perfectionist.  When I was younger, I didn't notice it so much.  It was more of a "I just have to get this right" kind of thing.  I'd spend hours making it look perfect, and I was fine.  I'd start my homework at about 3PM and go to 5PM on it, and be done for the night.  Pretty normal I think.

Anyway, I got to High School, and the workload obviously increased.  Except, I'm still a perfectionist on every. single. assignment.  Now, I know, it sounds stupid.  I don't need to be perfect, because perfect is unattainable.  But for some reason, in my head I kind of see it like "Well if its not as close to perfect as possible, then you haven't tried your best".  And until I see it as "perfect" I won't submit, and instead fix it and get it to that point.  Now, I get home from school a little later, so I work from 4PM-6PM on homework.  And then I work from 7PM-1AM to finish all of my homework.  Some nights have gone to 3AM, leaving me with 3 hours to sleep and recharge.  I have clubs about two days a week, so that takes up some time.  However, I still can't get everything done, so for the most part, I spend my entire weekend working too (with the exception of meal times, driving practice - about 2 hours, and church).  While I have done a couple social events (school dance, clubs, and a couple of family events), outside of that, I haven't done any of my personal pastimes since Spring Break, and before that was Winter Break, and before that, October. I know I'm not the only one at my school, but I also know I'm still in a minority. So in short, I've been working nonstop since September with small exceptions.  I recognize this is unhealthy, and so do my parents.  

My mother has started to bring up on a couple of occasions getting me a therapist.  She thinks it might help me.  However, with the summer approaching, I'm a little nervous its not going to help.  Plus, even in the school year, I'm not sure how a therapist can help me be okay with "turning in imperfect work" when I'll never feel like I tried hard enough.  My mother says that even so, while i'm technically managing it right now, she's worried it'll get worse in college.  She isn't going to force me into therapy (at least I don't think) but I think she wants me to.  Anyway, my question is, will therapy actually be able to help me, or is this something that would be better to sort out on my own?