It's funny that I'm even asking this question. As a high school student, I epitomized the sort of carefree, effortless confidence that *"everything will be okay"*, even as I was borderline-failing many of my courses. It hardly phased me. I just knew, felt, that everything would be fine in the end, even as I was on the verge of failing half my classes. 

Well, turns out, everything turned out fine. I didn't fail any of my classes. I graduated high school. Graduated college. And ended up in a job - a job related to my degree - that pays more than I ever thought I'd be making at my age - and more than all my peers. (I only mention this to illustrate the point that everything did - indeed - turn out fine). 

Except now I'm an incorrigible perfectionist at work. I have no idea where this started or why. In high school, I'd get interim reports halfway through the semester telling me I'm failing half my courses. And I'd just say, pfft, plenty of time to turn this around. It'll be fine. 

Now, despite the fact that I've never been reprimanded by a supervisor or even warned or seriously corrected, I put myself through so much stress and anxiety every day if I'm not measuring up to my idea of perfection. 

Perfection - in this case - is not just never making mistakes. It's not just never missing even a soft/informal deadline. It's never making mistakes, never missing a deadline, always submitting work to my supervisor before they have to ask me if it's ready, never turning down more work, never misunderstanding or misinterpreting a verbal or written request, never forgetting a single thing, I could go on. 

What's worse is you can see how impossible it is to achieve all these things. By striving to never submit anything past even an informal deadline, never asking for more time to work on something, never saying no to more work, I put myself in a huge bind. It's almost impossible to do more work and more work 100% correctly and 100% on time. 

Even small mistakes that my manager catches before I've distributed further is enough to catapult me into an hours long episode of self-hatred. 

I should note that my manager has never come to me to talk about my work performance. In fact, last time I solicited feedback from him, he *only* said positive things. 

Which is part of the problem too... compared to past managers, my current manager is not exactly verbal with feedback. Not the type to lavish a ton of praise - or criticism. Doesn't make a concerted effort to be particularly enthusiastic in most written correspondence. So when you're like me and your brain is on constant overdrive reading into things, I tend to convince myself that I'm a horrible employee, including the fact that my termination is imminent. 

I have enough money in my savings to pay for a year's worth of expenses, and I've thrown my resume at random opportunities on Indeed just to see what kind of response I'd get if I were ever terminated (the response was enthusiastic). 

Still, I carry this anxiety with me almost all day and all night. 

Sorry, for the long post. I think I just needed to vent more than anything. But let me know if anyone has any advice for tackling this kind of anxiety.