Seriously, it’s tiring. From a distance, you might think perfectionism is an admirable trait. You probably admire the fact that perfectionists are so “principled” and “set in their ways” and always “put their all” into whatever they decide to do. But, if you look a little more closely, you’ll realise that perfectionists are ordinary people who are captives of their own standards.
For the sake of this article, I’ll be referring to non-perfectionists as “regular people”.
Regular people have standards too. If you’re reading this and you’re not a perfectionist, I’m pretty sure you don’t just “go with the flow” all the time. You know what you want, and you want what you desire, but you can very well adapt if the situation doesn’t let you get it. As a perfectionist, however, everything I do revolves around my standards and, take it from me, it’s more of a curse than a blessing.
Being a perfectionist in a country like Nigeria — a country whose system is highly infused with disappointment, uncertainty, and steady decline, is not for the fainthearted. The cost of your standards goes up every month. For instance, if you decided last year to only eat Old English bread, you’re probably now paying almost twice as much for it as you were at the beginning of 2022. Or, if you’ve been making use of a particular laundry service for a couple of years, you might one day discover that they’ve closed up business because they couldn’t cope with the steady increase in running costs, and your poor perfectionist self will have to go through all the stages of grief before figuring out the next step to take regarding your laundry.
Sigh, if only these were the major issues.
Regular people might not understand the metaphysics of perfectionism, so I’m going to break it down as best as I can. Being a perfectionist goes deeper than wanting to have your way by all means. It’s a seed that takes its root in pride and brittle self-esteem and then grows into a tree of unrealistic thoughts and expectations. I’ll be using myself as a case study, just so this article doesn’t seem too far from you.
As a perfectionist, I subconsciously believe I should be flawless and faultless, and over the years, that has done me an unhealthy amount of harm. It makes it hard for me to accept correction and criticism from people. When people tell me the things I do wrong, I feel less than what I believe I should be. Sometimes, I feel ashamed even, because I believe I’m flawless, so why are there still parts of myself that I have to fix?! Why am I not perfect?! And so, I stay wallowing in my flaws while I pretend they’re not significant enough to play a role in my personality.
Apart from my flaws, another thing that holds me back is my standards. You see, I don’t have a list of standards or principles I set for myself, but I do know my brain believes I’m not allowed to fall short. Whatever it is I’m doing, I must get it right, otherwise, I could start to feel inadequate, and trust me, believing you should be perfect while feeling inadequate is an emotional migraine. It’s difficult for me to let go of my mistakes, and this was my first clue to realising I was a perfectionist. I beat myself up nearly every time I make a mistake. Now, here’s the peculiarity of my own perfectionism; I am a bit clumsy and, in fact, very forgetful (it’s unbecoming of a perfectionist, I know), and I clearly know this about myself, but when I accidentally knock something over or forget something important (which happens nearly every day), I get mad at myself — I even used to cry when I was younger!
Regular people understand and accept all that they are, good and bad, but not perfectionists. We abhor and reject our flaws, and so we inadvertently refuse to work on them.
Unfortunately, this spills into our interpersonal relationships.
First of all, I find it hard to “share”, emotionally. When something is wrong with me, I’d much rather deal with it myself than let people know I’m experiencing some form of problem or difficulty. I think so highly of myself that I absolutely hate for people to know I’m going through challenges. I don’t want people to watch me falter. It’s the perfect illustration of being a captive of my own standards because in the times of my life when I desperately needed emotional support, I subjected myself to loneliness.
Perfectionism also makes it very difficult for me to forgive myself. I hurt someone important to me recently, and they got over it within a reasonably short time, but did I? Nope. I thought about it for days! Of course, I was unhappy about the fact that I offended them, but I was even more ashamed that they’d seen that part of me, a part of me I strongly resented and have had a tough time working on — a flaw. This is how I feel every time I do something wrong in my interpersonal relationships. I even go into hiding sometimes, and not just because of what I did, but because I did it! So, after earning their forgiveness, I still have to pine for my own.
And you know the worst part of all this? I project my perfectionism on others.
I believe the delusion of my perfect self is the appropriate standard to judge people by, and so I’m as hard on them as I am on myself, which means I struggle to forgive others just the way I struggle to forgive myself and I struggle to accept and pardon people’s flaws the very same way I struggle to accept and pardon mine. The perfectionist in me believes, “I’m incapable of falling, so why should they?” when I am, in fact, very much capable of falling!
Honestly, being a perfectionist is like self-induced slavery. I’m tired of my unrealistic thoughts and expectations controlling every part of my life. I’m tired of being so hard on myself and others by extension; it constantly puts me in a state of confusion and at war with myself. Deep down, I know I’m not perfect, but I can’t seem to snap out of the delusion that I am.
Or can I? We’ll find out in my next article ;)
