Perfectionism Makes You Sick - So Cut Loose A Bit And Be Healthy!

FlyersFan

kosmicjack
Facebook is notorious for aiding and abetting perfectionism...you view everyone's highlight reels while you are left with your own everyday, mundane out-takes and bloopers.

Man that's so true. On Facebook, everyone's kids and/or marriages are perfect and all you see are the upbeat 'life is good' posts. And magazines and TV are awful too ... everyone is airbrushed to perfection with perfect white teeth and the best clothes. It can make people feel left behind for being less than perfect.

Don't forget the magic of Photoshop. Nothing says "I'm perfect" better than getting a computer program to remove all those imperfections for you.

reply to post by Krazysh0t

As a hard core procrastinator, I'd be at odds with any homeowner's association I was apart of, all the time. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

You and me, both, man. Impatient Procrastinatrix here. I'll get to stuff some day, maybe....
but - no rush. No one will drop dead if I have some brush growing along the fence.


Come to think of it - I should go out and try to nip the saplings off while it's sunny.....
or.....

not.....

or....

okay. Maybe.

I look into the forest and see a lot of damaged and lopsided trees....that is perfection. I look at a natural spruce tree growing on side the road and see a perfect Christmas tree, one that is made to fill with decorations. I look at my yard full of plantain, dandelions, daisies, Yarrow, and clovers and see perfection. I look at the thistles out back and the burdock near the deck and feel it couldn't be much better.

I'm a perfectionist, one that really understands what perfect is.

Perfectionists' can't settle for really good. If they don't reach that 'perfect' point on whatever it is they are obsessing about, then they get upset and put their health at risk. It's not just perfection at work, but in different aspects of their personal life. It could be a perfectly clean house or a perfectly written letter or perfect grades or whatever ...

reply to post by FlyersFan


I agree. I am not a perfectionist. The majority of my work involves duct work for large hvac systems. I want it to be be perfect, but it is all hand made and half the time above a ceiling so it doesnt have to be perfect. But just because it is above a ceiling doesnt mean I want it to look like hell.

I can see how if people wanted everything in their life perfect, it could lead to trouble.If I was a perfectionist I would have killed myself years ago

This is absolutely true. My mother is a perfectionist and she is mentally ill.

There's no harm in shooting for perfect so long as you don't lose your perspective. It can help you keep your standards high, but by no means do I live my life as a perfectionist, just in a few areas where I know I need to have a high standard - like in my professional life. A proofer who doesn't expect close to perfection at work is going to get sloppy. You pretty much have to be fairly anal retentive, obsessively detail oriented and perfectionist about stuff on the job.

reply to post by BuzzyWigs


YOU ARE RIGHT.

At least in significant measure.

Genetics does play a big part in TEMPERAMENT . . . and in neat-nick sorts of things.

Though some would say that there's some spiritual . . . and generational stuff passed down that contributes to such predispositions.

Certainly some "come out of the womb" with such predispositions.

Perhaps I should have said . . .

that DYSFUNCTIONAL flavors and intensities of perfectionism tend to come from significant degrees of ATTACHMENT DISORDER.

However, I would add . . .

that WHERE AND WHEN parenting included emotional, healthily affectionate bonding--particularly with Dad--when such occurs . . . even genetic, hormonal etc predispositions tend to be quite moderated toward a healthy balance.

At least in my observations . . . though admittedly, the number of such very healthy bonding dads and families has been fairly small over my 6 decades of observation.

Thanks for your thoughtful correction.

reply to post by BuzzyWigs


OOOOPS CORRECTION BELOW:

Majoring in majors and minoring in minors

vs

majoring in minors and minoring in majors

was a favorite saying of one of the best pastors I ever had . . . one I had in my teen years.

He meant

Spend the most focus, attention, time, energy etc. on the major priorities.

Spend the lesser focus, attention, time, energy etc. on lesser priorities.

I hope that's clearer.

Warning: TL;DR ahead. Read at your own risk, or skip

This does not surprise me, to be honest. My mother is a perfectionist, although it's been winding down the older she gets. Her stress & anxiety still goes through the roof when something isn't clean & perfect enough for her.

When I was growing up, her household cleanliness criteria was BS. Never expect a spotless clean house with kids when you shove them out the door to play. They will get dirty, and they will track it through the house. She never understood that, and essentially had hissy fits when we came back inside for meals and tracked dirt across the freshly washed entry. It was equally mind-boggling when she fumed when we tracked dirty up the recently swept front steps. WTH, it's outside, like nothing ever blew up there in the wind, either??
Sure, the vast majority of the time, our house was hospital-level spotless & shiny, but none of the neighbor kids ever wanted to play at my house. Nobody was ever allowed to touch anything, make the slightest mess, etc. It's no coincidence that the most fun us kids had was at other kids' houses where parents didn't mind the messy room so much and got down in the lego pile and played with us instead of scrubbing/sweeping a floor again with a scowl.

Some of her anal retentive crap rubbed off on me (I even used to iron underwear to remove wrinkles...I was that pathetic) BUT! To my credit, I've been breaking myself of the old habits. I do enough to be tidy, but not perfect. I clean to be sanitary within reason, and remove hazards (who wants to slip on matchbox cars in the middle of the night?) I do not live in a model home, and there's no logical reason for me to strive to mimic that look.
Our furniture has signs of wear, it happens. As opposed to my mother, I'm not going to fret over a dent. One of the kids drew all over the kitchen floor in crayon? A few minutes with a soapy scrubbie takes care of that. When my younger brother did it as a kid, I distinctly remember her wailing to my dad, "This is why we can't have nice things!" I don't know who she was trying to show up, we never had visitors. And other than it being a learned behavior, I don't know why I ever went that far myself. It was almost a compulsion for me, but it must have been pure compulsion for her.

I completely agree with sites like Facebook not helping, too. I no longer have an account with Fakebook, the most important reason being because the narcissism among my friends on there was getting gaggy. Nobody really cares what drink you just ordered at Starbucks, nobody really cares about what you just ate for breakfast, no one really cares that you just pulled up to the gym -- like you do ever day. Yes, you look fine in all 129 Instagram selfies you took of yourself between dinner last night and breakfast this morning.
It had gone from a great place to chat and catch up with friends & family across the country to being complete self-absorption on display. I honestly can't tell you how many news articles, science discoveries, historical things I linked that went unnoticed. Maybe they'd get a Like or two, or one half-arsed one-liner comment, but hot damn, if someone bought a fugly new designer purse, it got 50 Likes and 100 comments. WTF indeed.
And it seemed to be no coincidence that if someone posted a picture of a sparkly clean, well decorated room in their house, other friends would begin posting their own, albeit under the guise of whatever a kid in the house was doing, or a pet, etc. Totally transparent motive there.

Comparing ourselves to others is natural, it's a part of who we are by nature (competitive) But toss in FB & FB-fueled perfectionism, and it's just a bad mix for peoples' psyches.

And that is the problem with perfection. It is inherently impossible. Not because some magic words say it's impossible but because it truly is.

As a perfectionist you either cannot achieve perfection because it doesn't exist or you cannot achieve your idea of perfection because you change the goalposts after your achievement

It's ugly and I have treated patients who have this ideal that frankly doesn't exist.

Great post OP

We really do need to relax ourselves from time to time and realize that imperfection is perfection

The problem with perfectionism happens when somebody sets unrealistic standards and of course cannot reach them. Since they cannot reach them, they feel like a failure. This feeling of failure recurs and leads to all sorts of negative things.

That's what's known as Perfectionist Concerns. It's very debilitating.

There's another form of perfectionism, however. It's the kind where the person is able to set high goals without also feeling like a failure. This form of perfectionist doesn't make a person better, but it's not debilitating, either.

That's what's known as Perfectionist Strivings.

So the idea for perfectionists is to learn to strive for higher goals without letting yourself fall into the habit of focusing your thoughts on your failures.

For non-perfectionists, none of this really concerns them, unless they're bothered by someone who's perfectionist. It can be very unhealthy for everyone.

The article mentions the "Multi-Dimensional Perfectionism Scale". You can take it here:

www.bbc.co.uk...

Here are my results, in brackets are average results. 5 point scale:

Concern over Mistakes (CM): 4 (2)
Personal Standards (PS): 4 (2)
Parent Expectations (PE): 4 (2)
Parental Criticism (PC): 2 (1)
Doubting of Actions (D): 5 (2)
Organisation (O): 3 (2)

Yeah, looks like I'm doomed. But seriously, I think it's my biggest strength and also my biggest downfall. Perhaps the best example is that I stayed up for 36 hours working on an assignment once because I wouldn't accept a 20% mark deduction if it were 1 day late.

a reply to: C0bzz

Heh, I'm a 3,3,4,3,3,3. Looks like we're both doomed.

4, 3, 4, 2, 2, 4.

Guess I'm a neurotic mess after all!!!!

a reply to: FlyersFan

Perfectionism is way down the list on causing illness!!

But at the top of the list is hate, avarice, envy and jealousy and just plain old mean spirited thinking.

Prayers!!