Posting here again because I feel like processing/updating.
My physical health is better. New medication and some rest is working.
My mental health is still a shitshow. I did make progress in seeking a new therapist. I'm on the waiting list for some providers that will likely get in touch with me this week. @Malcat be proud. :)
I'm struggling with the concept of self imposed expectations/letting go/teamwork. For context, everyone on my team at work is SIGNIFICANTLY more experienced than I am. It's a small research based company and I have been here less than a year. We have several huge project deadlines coming up, and my health issues did impact my ability to complete all of my tasks.
But, several of my colleagues told me over the last week that I'm doing great, and they have been impressed by my contributions. So WHY am I still overwhelmed with guilt. Why am I constantly comparing the quality of my work to that of someone who has been in this field for 25 years? Self improvement and growth are important, but this seems unhealthy.
My spouse has been my biggest challenge/support on this topic. Always, but especially in the last couple of weeks. But then I'm worried about stress this could be putting on our marriage. Which comes full circle to feeling guilty for needing help.
Hey, I've been in the position of new to a small research company where everybody was a well recognized expert and I was starting out. Trying to keep up was impossible, but I tried anyway. A couple small shifts in perspective may help a ton. And I know a little bit of humility would have helped me greatly.
Try to get into a learner's mindset. That's not bad advice for anybody anytime, but you need that now. You have a bunch of smart, talented people to learn from. That's ideal for growth, if only you have a little humility and put your competitiveness aside. Learn to love the process and not the output or praise for it, because you're going to be stuck in the process. And since output while learning is never the level of perfection you could achieve, there's no need to feel guilty about falling short of that. You know you're going to, but in exchange you get something more important, growth. With time, your falling short will be better than your previous best.
Learn to play as a team. Learn to trust these other people's judgment of your work. They have significantly more experience than you do. You aren't capable of judging your own work output as well as they can. When they say they're impressed by your contributions, it's highly unlikely they're lying. None of the skilled professionals I've met will praise mediocrity. I've developed my own ways of nicely saying I appreciate somebody's effort but it needs improvement, and you wouldn't confuse them for praise. I understand high personal standards, but it's more likely that your standard is wrong if it conflicts with the experts' standard here. I know that hurts to hear. Your standards will get more accurate with time.
Understand that these people hired you for a reason. Even if they could do your work faster and better, they can't do both their work and your work. You've taken tasks off their plate and are enabling them to do their own work to their own high degree of competence without being overworked even more than they likely are. That's important! There's no reason to feel guilt over being so helpful. In exchange, they'll help you grow. They want you to grow. As you grow, they'll give you more of the hard work that takes the high skills if you show any interest in it. They don't want all of it. They have too much as it is. Be patient and all the hard work requiring the highest standards you could ever want will be yours. Oh, also be careful what you wish for.
Playing as a team means making reasonable assessments of what you can commit to. That means reasonable assessments of any issues (uncertainty in the work, health, stress, family, etc.) that may reduce your output. It's far harder on your team to try to make up work they thought was covered and nobody has bandwidth for than it is to deal with you getting ahead of plan if everything goes perfectly. Be good to your team. And if the experts agree that what you commit to is sufficient, it's sufficient. They need a workable plan, not teammates over-committing and getting off schedule. This is part of your standards being off. You think you need to be a hero. You don't. Trust your team.
When you do compare your work to something, compare it to your own past work. Comparison with the experts is only useful for finding where you still fall short. You won't see your own growth there. I spent 10 years in a group of experts' shadows, thinking I was struggling and wondering why I wasn't making as much progress as I felt I should have been. Those experts aren't sitting still either, and while the gap narrows, you may never catch them. They did have a massive head start. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't able to catch up, despite burning myself out trying. Doing that helped nobody. Bad team play.
But a funny thing happened when I ended up at a different job after all that. People praised me for one of the skills I thought I'd been struggling with. So much so that I was really confused. Couldn't they see I wasn't very good at that? Turns out I'd improved a ton, but couldn't see it because I compared myself to those experts. I'd have seen things much more clearly if I'd compared myself to where I was a decade prior. That difference was clear as day. I had felt bad that I wasn't improving when I was improving by leaps and bounds. How's that for pointless? Perspective matters.
Finally, there's going to be repetition. Blood, sweat, and tears. Again, learn to enjoy the process. If you can't, you're still not going to enjoy it when you're a decade down the road and much more skilled. The work is likely to change with your skills. You'll get to be the expert and have the high expectations, but that means more of the same feelings you have now. That can be miserable if you focus on how much you could stand to improve. That can be great if you love the process of improving. Your choice.