Dethroning Perfectionism

Disclaimer:  This post contains material possibly best left for a therapy appointment.  Still, it's what's going on.

Several weeks ago I was shopping in Goodwill and took a close look at their books, which I've only recently started doing.  The book selection is often quite incredible, and yet, when in that Goodwill mentality, paying $3.99 for a hardcover and $.99 for a paperback somehow suddenly becomes a process of prioritizing the Really Good Ones above the ones that are good but feel not worth even that price.  Never mind the hardcover children's book I purchased over the winter holidays which had about six pages in it and cost twenty dollars.  When searching among deals, it becomes a discriminating exhumation of the True Deal.

So I was walking along with my head angled down to the right, reading every title.  In the non-fiction section, I saw everything from the hilarious Cat Haiku to the blaming 100 Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives.  Or is it 10?  Googling the author right now I see it is 10, but by those ridiculous standards, I'm clearly guilty of more than that.  Anyway, I took a few more steps and a paperback practically jumped off the shelf into my hands.  It was the book Never Good Enough: How to Use Perfectionism to Your Advantage Without Letting It Ruin Your Life by psychologist Monica Ramirez Basco.

In the past six months I have begun considering myself a recovering perfectionist, as I get a handle for the first time on the underlying reasons why I periodically overwork myself, so enjoy (most of the time) crossing every t and dotting every i, and can at times be quite hard on myself for not doing so.  No small part of my motivation to look at this in myself is my noticing that my five-year-old has been known to adjust the angle of a throw rug on the floor before leaving the room.  Ack.

So while standing in the book aisle, I quickly flipped through some of the early chapters.  The first thing I noticed was that the book contained some self assessments that had been filled in by a previous owner.  Ouch.  I considered writing down the title and going somewhere to buy the book new.  I said "recovering," remember.  But I pressed on, read the introduction and after the phrases "unreasonable expectations" and "extremely high goals" flashed by, I knew this book was coming with me.  For .99.

My reading style tends to involve having a few books going at once, usually a novel and some kind of non-fiction, optimal-for-personal-reflection kind of book.  Recently, for example, I just finished the third book in the Outlander series, a racy, action-adventure historical time travel set of novels, as well as Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup, a memoir about the death of the author's husband and her personal journey into the ministry.  I enjoy flights of fancy balanced with serious, introverted focus.

So I began reading the perfectionism book the next day on the bike machine at the Y.  The first amazing thought I read involved how perfectionists often try to make things perfect as an attempt to ward off or lower anxiety.  Whoa.  Anxiety?  What anxiety?  OHHHH...right, the anxiety of being seen as a total fraud, not good enough, and all the other things that may have actually been slung in my direction in years long gone past, but now were things I just perpetually remind myself of, quietly but surely. 

This was a new idea, that perfectionist behavior has a purpose, other than just being reflective of the Right Way to Live.  I had been at points in the past despairing about whether I might ever dethrone the set of standards that are entrenched in my everyday life.  I had long since stopped expecting others to live by the same standards (most of the time), but I was thinking I would be forever bound by the rules, had no choice about them.  No dishes may be left in the sink.  The bed will be made every morning.  Things must happen on time, and in a certain order, and by the way, find a way to actually like this ALL THE TIME so you can be perceived as cheerful, for God's sake.  This is the Right Way to Live, and people are paying attention. 

The thing about perfectionism, and its dear friend multitasking, is that people do pay attention.  Others sometimes envy the productivity, the clarity, the sureness, the deafening relentlessness of needing to get things right, that results.  It has a lot of benefits and I get a lot of at-a-girls from working so hard at everything I do.  However, it's companion reaction by others is that we perfectionists can also be intolerant, controlling, and unable to relax while that picture is hanging slightly unevenly on the wall.  It implies a Right Way.  So we are not always fun to be around.  "Too intense," is a phrase I recall someone using to describe me when she didn't want to insult me outright. 

So surely it remains a tall order, to keep the good and negotiate the bad in all of this.  But, suddenly knowing that comparing the relative stress of giving a reasonable timeline for a job and hoping it is acceptable to the client, to the stress of being judged by the invisible queen who breaks into my soul and metaphorically runs her gloved fingers over the tops of my doors looking for dust, snarling and cackling about how I am "Nothing, nothing!" is a no-brainer.  I now perceive the choice.  

For me, having been chased by this royal pain for decades, this beacon of light feels like...hmmm...what?  Power.  Freedom from the queen's dungeon.  A considerably lighter load.  Despite that fact that I still value high achievement, examining and dismantling my perfectionist thought is increasing both my joy quotient, and the amount of actual credit I give myself for what I do well.  If the goal of working hard has been to reduce my ever-present anxiety, this explains why no amount of good work over the years seems to have quelled my undercurrents of self-doubt.  I remember in college telling myself I somehow convinced professors to like me so they would feel guilty if they didn't give me As.  Anyone else have wild self-talk like that? 

Finally, one of the tyrannies of being a perfectionist is that there is no rest.  Even resting can involve waking up in the early hours to jot down lists that magically come to your attention even while asleep.  And does anyone else only rest when sick?  I remember a former supervisor telling me after several years of big projects, "Kate, you may be the most productive employee I've ever had.  My fear is that one day you will wake up and not get out of bed."  On the one hand, no one can argue about you not doing enough when you're sick, unless on the other hand your curse is that your family thinks getting sick results from you not doing a good enough job of taking care of your self.  Just sayin', perfectionism is all about no escape.  It's no-win.

So here's to rethinking our own quiet and self-damaging thoughts, and to the idea posted on my blog to the right of my blog posts, for the month of March:  Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.  Paraphrased from Voltaire, and "perfect" for any occasion.