Anxiety sufferers - do you ever feel like you're all or nothing? And how do you manage it?

[pregnantncnc]

SHORT: do you ever feel like you're either putting 100% of your effort into something and obsessively panicking about it being perfect, or putting 0.5% of your effort into it and not caring at all how it turns out? Any tips?

Recently, with being able to meet up with others in parks and now our garden after a period of people not really seeing me parent, I've been receiving a lot of comments that I'm very "laid back" with DS. I'm not entirely sure if its a compliment or an insult honestly.

For example, I let him eat some mud and get very dirty, I'm not strict about naps etc, today he had cheesecake and toast with peanut butter for lunch when family were here, he is fairly free to roam in the house and garden and we haven't really baby-proofed at all. This is a far cry from how I was 9 months ago; obsessed with his sleep schedule, and making sure we did BLW perfectly with every food group and micronutrient accounted for and never spoon feeding (we do sometimes now), and absolutely panicked about baby proofing our house but absolutely overwhelmed by the idea of him hurting himself and having not done enough.

I thought it was just me relaxing as DS got older, but I think I'm starting to realise that it might be my anxiety making me "give up" on parenting DS 'properly' and I'm distraught. I'm a SAHM and absolutely love it, and I really wanted to be doing the absolute best for DS, and I thought I was, but now I'm worried that it is glaringly obvious to all the people I've met with recently that I've "let things go" and am failing. I've made an appointment to see a therapist I worked with a few years ago, so hopefully that will help.

This post is mainly centred around parenting, but actually the pandemic as a whole has been difficult for me like this (for ages nothing could be clean enough and I barely let the house, now I'm letting men 14mo run around at the park with other children touching equipment etc and as much as I wipe him down and then wash his hand afterwards, I just shrug and say "I've done my best and he had fun" which thinking about it now sounds crazy), and I've always had a problem with either working way too hard or not at all, right from primary school age.

I understand where you're coming from, I obsessed when my DC was little, agonising over doing it all 'right' and then as they got older, I let go on a lot of things, and had comments that I was a laid back parent - and it did not sound complimentary.
I read something interesting - please do not take this as a comment on your parenting though! As it says 'fail' and that's not how I read it;

"The phrase "good enough mother" was first coined in 1953 by Donald Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst. Winnicott observed thousands of babies and their mothers, and he came to realize that babies and children actually benefit when their mothers fail them in manageable ways."

I disagree with the idea that it's a 'fail' more of learning and natural consequences. Like with the getting muddy and eating a bit of mud - they learn it tastes a bit yucky, it's messy, sensory play and it washes off. Worst case is unlikely but potentially a tummy bug (although mine never has so far!)
The pandemic has been hard, and I think it sounds like you're a very caring parent, I don't think you have let anything go at all. Unfortunately, you will come across parents who feel their way is best and put doubts in your mind.