I'm going to go ahead and go even further to a "beginning" than others here. And I'm only going to focus on one thing you said. "I'm also a crazy perfectionist..."
No, you're not. You're vain, that's not an insult, but let me explain why I'm pointing this out:
A "perfectionist" seeks to do things perfectly. You are not, you are skipping steps and attempting to step foot in a Gym with the pretense that you already know how to fight a lil bit. And I'm not even saying that's not possible. I've met a couple of talented copycats (learned by doing shit they saw) in my day. And your vanity in wanting to LOOK a certain way causes you to strive to practice something you don't really know on your own. And you might actually get your goal, you might walk into a Gym an impress some trainer with what you're doing, and they'll agree to train you. The problem is sooner or later, that vanity isn't going to be enough and you're going to come across an ACTUAL perfectionist who went about this the right way. Nearly every person I've met like you who got beaten up by the guy who did it "perfectly" eventually quit boxing. What people fail to understand nowadays about fighting is, you're only going to "figure out" so much, and how much cannot be measured. These are skills, and skills need to be taught. Take any other field and apply your approach. Think there are many self-taught architects out there designing bridges that are responsible for people's lives? How about pilots?
A TRUE perfectionist does whatever it takes to LEARN their craft properly from beginning to end.
Now sure, your parents held you back and I understand that. But man, there's a lot of shit my parent (I only had one) tried to hold me back from, I still did most of it. Even if it meant finding someone in my school who knew it and relentlessly asking them questions. A perfectionist finds an instructor and learns everything they know:
No matter what it takes. I say that because more often than not, learning how to fight doesn't begin like people think it will. They always want to hit the ground running. Which is dumb, and leads you to the "trial by fire" places where you either sink or swim, get beaten up or survive. In that place, ALL you learn is to survive, and if you really love this Sport, you don't want to just become a good survivor. So you do what's asked of you in the beginning, with as little ego as possible. Otherwise it goes this way, where all you have is bravery:
I'm really not meaning to sound harsh. But you're putting yourself out there and it's concerning a Sport I've dedicated my Professional life to. I'd be a poor representative of this Sport if I didn't keep it real with you. A decent instructor will always tell the truth about if someone is prepared to do a task or not, especially in something involving combat:
So, what I'd do if I were you is stop worrying about whether or not you "look" like you know what you're doing until you can get to a decent instructor. And instead keep yourself fit, and flexible (I mean like degrees of hip rotation and such), address any postural issues if you have them, etc. Conditioning will do you a lot more good to learn to box than forming a bunch of habits someone like me may have to erase anyway.
