Ramblings of a Recovering Perfectionist

Perfection causes all kinds of problems.

As a child I learned my temper was unacceptable,

a beast to be hidden away from, so

I banged and scratched my mother's bedroom door

and howled the frustration I couldn't understand,

my fingernail marks on the wood

a monument of my abandonment.

My two-year-old tantrums weren't the end of it.

My sense of injustice was sensitive

and I didn't know how to reconcile

myself with the world, so I lashed out

and slapped what I could not control—

the mortal sin of violence

rooting ever deeper

my shame.

I was told stop, stop, stop

but given no instructions and

I couldn't,

so every time I boiled over

I cried and hated myself

and broke myself in two—

the good part and the anger I cannot control.

So I controlled it.

I learned not to be bossy,

not to be selfish,

not to stand up for myself,

not to ask for what I needed;

it was safer to be silent.

As a teenager, I didn't see the problem with my perfectionism.

I clung to my high standards, the mast of a sinking ship

with a flag at the top proclaiming, "I'm a good person!"

I took pride in my effort and quietly resented

everyone who was free to not care quite so much.

But I see it now.

I see the anger and shame

and all the ways I learned to make myself small.

I feel it all over again every time I make the tiniest mistake

and it's enough to stop me from even trying;

safer to sit in depression and fear than risk

being locked out again.

Safer to lock out myself.

Safer to nitpick every thought and

never let it out of my mouth.

Everyone hid from my emotions, so

I learned to hide them from myself.

In messy reality, perfection is meaningless

and "doing your best" is easily misconstrued,

and I think what we really need is to be seen.

Witness my anger and my shame, and love me anyway.

When failure is met with love,

space is created to move forward.

I hope I can learn,

deep in my bones,

how worthy it is to try and fail;

how courageous to accept myself as I am;

how wonderful to sometimes let things be.

"I am enough" does not preclude growth;

without "I am enough,"

I exhausted myself

holding back half of myself

and had no energy left for moving forward.