Confessions of a Perfectionist

As strange as it may sound, sometimes I keep a tally of how many days I can be "perfect," as if it’s a streak I don’t want to lose. When I finally mess up and break that streak, it feels like the world is ending. This is a pretty delusional thought because I definitely am not perfect every day, but that’s the way my messed-up mind as a perfectionist thinks.

From a very young age, I equated perfection with love. I didn’t think I could be loved by anyone unless I was perfect — perfectly keeping everyone around me happy, perfectly making everyone adore me, always focusing on how others perceived me. It didn’t matter how I perceived myself. One of my biggest pet peeves to this day is when someone doesn’t see my truth, and I have no control in changing that. If I disappoint someone because I messed up, it always seems like a much bigger deal than when others mess up. Maybe I do mess up more than others, or maybe it's because I’m hyperfocused on the goal of showing someone my perfection to be loved as the perfect employee, the perfect sister, the perfect partner.

I know this is wrong, but that’s how I was molded. Even now, as an adult who has been through hundreds of therapy sessions, rehab, trauma retreats, and done a lot of work on myself, the emotional pitfall of feeling like my perfection streak is over puts me in a dangerous place. My messed-up brain wants me to punish myself for it by not eating, not laughing, not enjoying life, and to sit miserably in my depression until I do something perfect again AND get the validation that I did something perfect from someone else. These emotions are so overwhelming that even when I rationalize and try to reframe my thoughts, the emotions are stuck with me.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I understood I need to truly believe I deserve to be happy for this to not affect me anymore. This task has proven very difficult and is something I’m still trying to conquer to this day. Some seasons I’m able to believe that I deserve happiness, and sometimes it’s just difficult to pick myself up again, but the key is I need to keep trying. I have to keep practicing to break that cycle, to not rely on validation from work, my significant other, or those around me.

Perfectionists often use others’ perceptions of them as a meter for how they’re doing in life. Am I happy? Can I be happy yet? Am I good enough yet? Constantly checking others' reactions to themselves and their actions, desperately seeking validation to get a read on how they’re doing that day. Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, I now actually pause and ask myself, “How am I doing?” Because I often have no idea. I remember that I’m a person in that moment and not a robot carrying out task after task, checking them off my to-do list in hopes of achieving perfection. The never-ending pursuit of perfection is a deep hole where I begin to lose myself and my personality. I get so wrapped up in this rat race that I forget about the little things that bring me joy or what makes me me. I forget to embrace my quirks and say my odd playful remarks that not only make life fun for me, but most importantly, help me connect with people. I get so lost in my thoughts and determination to be more and more perfect each day that I stop at nothing, only to end up burning myself out and falling into a deep depression.

The thing I need to remind myself of is that the goal in life isn’t to be more perfect each day. It’s to get better and better each day at being you. That doesn’t mean being perfect; it means making your own day better by laughing more, loving more, and making those timeless memories that can only be made when you’re completely present — not living in the future or the past. Getting better at those things every day is what we should strive for day in and day out. So when someone now asks me, “How are you doing?” I will respond based on if I’ve laughed that day, loved that day, and have been present connecting with myself or another — not on how many days I’ve gone achieving perfection or how many tasks I’ve checked off my list that day.