Can Perfectionism be Cured? Will I Ever be Good Enough?
We all want a lasting, absolutely complete cure for the things that drag us down and get in the way of our lives.
I wish it were that simple.
When it comes to perfectionism, we tend to think the “cure” is to just be perfect at everything all the time without fail.
Then I will be good enough.
This is exactly what keeps us spending countless hours striving and worrying about our mistakes.
The cure for perfectionism is actually to become okay with the ways we are not perfect, what others might think of us, and our willingness to let other people be different from us. We can also put some boundaries on how much time and effort we expend on certain things.
The extent to which someone can heal from perfectionism depends on some different variables.
Where does perfectionism come from?
Perfectionism is not a standalone diagnosis or disorder. It is a byproduct of anxiety and often, trauma.
It very often starts out as a way to cope.
There may be a pre-disposition to make anxiety and/or perfectionism part of personality.
Sometimes a person grows up with a tendency to be anxious, either based on their own actual biology and/or the way things worked in their early family life.
Someone can also grow up with a personality that is what we commonly call “Type A,” very driven, detail-oriented, usually organized, and even competitive or controlling. Think “Monica” from Friends.
This kind of personality can be shaped by surrounding people, so that achievement and striving is reinforced.
These early personality differences grow with a person. Life experiences confirm the usefulness of perfectionism or dismiss it. As a result, it grows stronger or diminishes.
There are many cultural factors that confirm it.
We see people rewarded for being top athletes or academics, and for looking like society wants people to look (which changes over time).
We can fall victim to the halo effect; thinking that if they are great in one area, they must be great in all other areas too.
We start thinking, If they are great at everything, what is wrong with me?
We start to think that perfection, in all things, all the time, is possible.
This happens subconsciously, but it causes us to start striving to measure up, especially if we are already someone who experiences anxiety.
We feel bad about ourselves when we fall short, and this can cause us to strive harder.
Trauma can also confirm perfectionism as a viable coping mechanism.
I am not only talking about the severe, life-threatening trauma we think of when we think of a PTSD diagnosis.
I am talking about what we call “little t-trauma,” too.
Trauma can be anything that overwhelmed our capacity to deal with it at the time.
When we are little kids, it is easy for our capacities to deal with things to be overwhelmed.
Give somebody enough experiences of being yelled at, criticized, or rejected and they start to internalize a message that being perfect will keep them safe from those types of interactions.
Perfection can keep them one step ahead of trouble.
Perfection might get positive attention.
Perfection feels safe and good.
How do we cure perfectionism?
Earlier I said that the cure for perfectionism depends on multiple factors.
This is like anything in therapy. Each person is different, they bring different biology, different life experiences, different goals, different comfort levels, and different levels of willingness to work on their stuff.
Here are some questions to ask to explore how it might look for you.
How does perfectionism need to function for you?
Are you in a place of safety with it?
If you are living in a situation where making mistakes may result in jeopardizing your physical or emotional safety, you may need to keep that coping mechanism for a while so you can work on figuring out how to get what you need to actually be safe.
I am not just talking about living with someone abusive. When you live with someone who is frequently unstable, the pressure is on to be perfect, think ahead to lessen the impact their instability may have on you.
Living with someone who criticizes you or questions your every decision might create a situation where you feel like you have to do everything perfectly. It feels very unsafe to make a mistake.
You may have elements of occupational unsafety related to perfectionism. If your job is one that has costly consequences for mistakes, you may feel the pressure to be perfect every time you go to work. You may bring your work home in your mind and dwell on your decisions.
In situations where you really are using perfectionism to prevent unsafe outcomes, it may take longer to work on perfectionism because you need it to function. Addressing safety concerns becomes the first goal in these situations.
How long has perfectionism been coping for you?
Have you been appeasing the expectations of others since childhood?
If perfectionism is connected to your attachment to your primary caregivers, it could take some time to work on it. We may have to take some time to bolster your sense of who you are, help you see yourself as a capable adult who can be there for yourself.
How willing are you to do the work?
Are you coming to therapy because you want to make changes, or did someone else in your life insist that you need therapy?
Are you willing to accept that the answer is not going to be to figure out how to be more perfect? Or how to force someone else to change? Or are you willing to accept that it might be okay that you have flaws and so do other people?
Are you willing to attend your therapy appointments and be honest? Therapy tends to not work well if you are trying to only say what you think your therapist wants to hear, or hide your real thoughts and feelings because you are embarrassed. There is zero judgement from therapists; we are trained to put ourselves in your experience and understand what it might feel like to be you. We are really good at tapping into an understanding of why you said or did or thought what you did. And, chances are, you are not the only one who has told us a story like that.
Trust me on this.
How does therapy help with perfectionism?
There are multiple ways to work with perfectionism, but I will give a brief description to the way I tend to work with it.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
This is a mind and action-based approach that helps clients separating thoughts, feelings, and actions, exploring how they impact each other. With this approach to therapy, we slow down what happens when we have an automatic thought. I really like to get people journaling using my FACETS approach.
We understand the meanings and beliefs clients have attached to the situation and figure out ways to practice responding differently. This involves tolerating the discomfort of doing something new and keeping a focus on what motivates you to willingly be this uncomfortable. It also involves normalizing and learning from mistakes.
We can do this cognitive work, and get to a place of knowing, mentally, that we are good enough, but we do not feel it. This is where some more experiential trauma work comes in handy.
Parts of Self
I know, even this name, “Parts of Self” sounds a little weird. When we talk about parts of self, we are talking about the parts of you that get in the way of how you want to function in a healthy way.
For example, the part of you who is afraid to show imperfection, the part that needs to be the best, the part that feels rejected by others, etc.
I am not actually suggesting that you have all these little personalities inside you, but thinking of it that way makes it easier for your brain to picture and understand, which leads to healing.
Parts of self are really just memory networks.
It’s all the stuff your brain has connected somehow, and it is usually these memory networks that react almost automatically for you. These parts of self often hold traumatic memories, limiting beliefs, and ways of coping that don’t always work for you. Often, they old these things in parts of your brain that do not connect to language, which explains why you can know something is true (or untrue) but still feel bogged down by it.
We do some work to identify, understand, and befriend those parts, especially your perfectionist part.
CBT helps identify your present automatic thoughts, and parts work helps us get at where those thoughts started and what gets in the way of working with them.
EMDR Therapy
From there, I like to use EMDR as a way to actually target those thoughts and getting the trauma memories moving through your body.
EMDR activates those memory networks and gives your brain to lead us on a journey through all the things that are connected to those memory networks. It gives your brain a chance to connect the old memory networks to new, healthier things you have learned since the time of that trauma. It lets you put the memory away in long-term storage instead of keeping it just under the surface where it can react for you in ways you don’t want it to. I’ve written much more about EMDR here and here if you are interested in learning more.
Healing perfectionism is a a blend of knowing and feeling, learning and healing.
You may be able to heal your responses at a deep, deep level so that you do not feel activated anymore.
Or you may heal it to the extent that you feel just a slight activation and you know exactly how to handle yourself with it. For some, it may be more of an exercise in building up the tolerance to feel some negative stuff and know you are ok. Everyone is different this way, but I can say with confidence that it is very possible to see positive results from therapeutic work with perfectionism.
Give me a call if you are ready to get started!
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
