You Might be a Perfectionist

You might be a perfectionist and not even know it. Many of the people I know are. If you have suffered trauma or abuse at the hands of other people, there’s a good chance you’ll develop perfectionism as a way of gaining control.

When people hurt us, we feel out of control. When we’ve suffered long term abuse, the kind which leaves few obvious marks, it comes out in our behavior. That belittling grandmother or a father who tells his son to go hang out with the women because he isn’t skilled in sports may cause us to doubt our value as human beings.

That’s when we turn into human-doings. A human-doing has to do things to feel validated and they have to be done right.

When I had my first baby, I cleaned the whole house every day. I dusted, vacuumed and washed the floors each night before bed. I tried to keep up with all that care and cleaning, but found I couldn’t. I slept less and became grumpy to maintain the appearance of having it all together. In no time, it began to drain any time for peace or personal care. I was nearly exhausted.

I graduated nursing school. I felt accomplished, but still worked as an aid, because I had a few regular clients that I knew. I was in control. I worked as an aid, with my nursing license, for more than three months. I made less money and had fewer opportunities.

Are there things in your life that you’re holding back on? Maybe you are fully qualified to step out into a new role, but the feeling of safety and a sense of control keep you where you’re at.

Here are some things I learned about being a perfectionist:

• Perfectionists come from all walks of life, but the one thing they have in common, is that they feel the need for control of their situation. In some way, they have lost control or maybe they’d never had it in some area of their life. So, they impose their idea of how a thing should be on others, usually to their own detriment.
• Perfectionists are pesky. They are not only ridiculously demanding of themselves, but they pester others too. She may ask someone to do something, only to devalue the work by saying it wasn’t good enough and do it themselves anyway. He might disregard the time and efforts of others and change the plan. Thereby effectively wasting the other person’s effort.
• Perfectionists are idea people, but their lack of follow through and attention to the details makes them frustrating to work with. She may decide to do a thing, but if she doesn’t believe it will be done to a certain specific envisioned outcome, she’ll complain during the process or worse, insist it is cancelled.
• Perfectionists communicate poorly. It isn’t that they intend to change their minds. It isn’t that they know they want to see every step of a process before they embark. It isn’t even that they know they are doing it. He may fully intend to do a thing, but as it gets close and other things have come up, he may not be able to keep the end goal in mind. So, distracted he distracts with what ifs and doubts.
• Perfectionists don’t know they are perfectionists. Sometimes they are even self depreciating. Others may see it as a false humility. They insist that others do things their way. They are often edging on the role of a bully, when it comes to getting things done. She might want her child to clean his room. A laudable notion, but there is a point at which a grown child, prior to leaving home or home for a visit, should not be nagged about such things.
• Perfectionists are easily frustrated. There are probably more perfectionists today than at any other time in history. All you have to do is go out shopping. The clerks in any store will tell you that the consumers today are gruff, aggravated, and impatient. Road rage is a symptom of perfectionism.

You might be a perfectionist or you might be a recovering perfectionist, like me. Kind of like a recovering …anything, it’s a life long process that will never fully go away. Next week we’ll talk about strategies for recognizing and dealing with our own perfectionist tendencies.