My Experience in Perfectionism and Anxiety
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I was able to start understanding the things going on inside my head. My fears and my anxieties weren’t something I grew up talking about. It just wasn’t something my parents knew how to talk about. Their focus was getting us through to the next stage in life. I used to be bitter about that but now as an adult, I know that my parents did what they could with what they knew how to do. I’m sure my parents were dealing with their own fears and anxieties as immigrants in this country. Understanding this about my parents doesn’t make my anxieties go away but it gives context to what they said or what they didn’t say, what they did or what they didn’t do. The things they weren’t capable of doing and the things they weren’t capable of talking about made a profound impact on me. Some of these things I will have to deal with my entire life.
When I was young, I got into my head that if I did everything just right and if I had an answer to all the questions that my parents would ask, I would be ok, I wouldn’t get in trouble. It worked. When what I did was irreproachable and when I had an answer to every possible question that was lobbed my way, I wouldn’t get in trouble. Years upon years of this habit only gave me anxiety. I would be anxious if there were uncertainty. I would be anxious if there were no clear answers. I would be anxious if I thought someone would be angry with me because of something I failed to say or do.
Finally, it taught me perfectionism. If I created art perfectly, nobody can criticize me. If I did my work perfectly, nobody would be unhappy with me. If I said exactly the perfect thing all the time, nobody would be angry with me. I live alone and in this pandemic, with nobody to talk to but myself most evenings, I’ve thought a lot about how perfectionism has affected my life.
What is Perfectionism?
Perfectionism is the need or desire to be or appear perfect. According to Psychology Today, one of the motivations for perfectionism is to avoid harsh judgement or failure. This definitely resonated with me. After all, I started trying to make sure everything I did was perfect to avoid the anger and punishment of my parents. Once it started there, it only gave birth to other unfortunate things like people pleasing. If I told people exactly what they wanted, if I did what they wanted perfectly, everything would be alright. I would be alright.
How Perfectionism Has Affected My Daily Life
To say that trying to be perfect is exhausting is a vast understatement. In my teen years and, to some extent, in my early twenties, anything short of perfection was never good enough.
I had to be the perfect daughter and student to the grownups. I had to appear perfectly responsible and trustworthy. To my friends, I had to play my role exactly right. I felt like I had to say the exact right thing to make everyone laugh or else they would be bored with me and why was I even there. I was out to seek the approval of everyone I met.
If someone told me that I made a mistake, it was the end of my world. I would feel bad about it for days or weeks. If someone took an issue with something I did or say, I would beat myself up over it night after night.
I would get far worse, though, once I started working full time as an adult. There was the added pressure of feeling like the training wheels were off when I started my first full time job. I would truly be on my own. My parents weren’t there herding me towards the right direction. There were no teachers or professors to please. The nice and neat and perfect path that was school had hit an end and I was off roading (so to speak). Where I wanted to go was up to me, what I wanted to do was up to me. Whether I succeeded or failed was up to me. The “right” thing was no longer simple or clear or easy and I was terrified.
The night before I started my first full time job, I had a panic attack. I sat on the corner or my bed, bawling and unable to breathe as I tried to gurgle out to my brother who had to talk me down that I was scared I would do it all wrong. I was scared that I would mess it up. I was scared I would let everyone down. I was scared I wouldn’t be immediately perfect and, just like when I was a little kid, I would get in trouble.
This fear that I would mess something up, that I would let everyone down, that I would get in trouble permeated most of my young career. I have worked for companies who required perfection. When things were going well, it was smooth sailing. As soon as there was a hiccup, as soon as something didn’t perform as well as hoped, there would be a line of questioning of what we failed to do. Was there something else we could have done? Was there more we should have prepared for? What did we do wrong?
I worked for companies that sent me to do projects with very little instruction and very little guidance but had a million different criticisms and corrections leaving me to feel incompetent and second guessing myself. I worked for companies that quite literally told me to make my work perfect so that it wouldn’t need edits or notes.
Being required to be constantly perfect and being made to feel incompetent every time I wasn’t took a heavy toll on me. Trying to be perfect in this way was unrewarding and I rapidly burned out. I fell into a depression. I became cynical and pessimistic. I hated my life. I hated getting up in the morning. I hated going to bed at night knowing that I’d have to get up and do this song and dance all over again.
The Beauty Industry and Perfection
It would be disingenuous of me as a makeup and skincare blogger to avoid talking about perfectionism in the beauty industry. If you take a look at almost any beauty brand’s social media feed, you’ll be greeted with incredibly beautiful people with smooth blemish and wrinkle free skin. Models with hair in just the right place. Models who seemingly chose not to participate in skin discoloration, skin damage, or skin blemishes that we mortals have to participate in.
When I was younger, I used to think I had to buy all the items they were selling so I could be as perfect looking as these models. I would get frustrated when I took my pictures that I wasn’t. So I kept buying more skincare, more makeup in an effort to be perfect like these models and influencers that I saw every day.
The truth of the matter is, some of those people don’t even look like that. Photo editing technology is available to anyone with a smartphone and enough time. While the collective beauty got busy with smoothing, tucking, and patching skin and bodies, they created problems that don’t exist. Our skin was never smooth enough. Our skin was never clear enough. Our skin was never dewy enough. Not until you buy this cream. Not until you buy this serum. Not until you buy this foundation.
Full transparency, I edit my photos. I edit out dark under eye circles. I erase out random strands of hair that stubbornly stick to my lipstick. I increase the lighting and saturation of my photos to showcase me in the best light. I used to use editing apps to make my cheeks smaller but I stopped doing that a year ago. Even so, the amount of time I spend taking photos at just the right angle in just the right light is enormous. The amount of time I spend subsequently fixing the lighting and color after the photo has been taken is also enormous. For what? So random people on the internet can look at it and think I look perfect. I’ve gained nothing and lost time and money. This is something I will need to sit with and digest for a longer period of time.
Still, I love the ritual of putting on makeup. I love swirling a makeup brush around on a pan of eyeshadow and buffing color out on my eye. It’s a relaxing process for me, a calming ritual. Somewhere along the way, I got away from that, swept up in the process of hurrying to put on makeup so I can hurry and take a photo so I can hurry and edit it into perfection. In my pursuit of the perfect photo, I’ve stopped doing this for me and started doing it to get the approval of others.
What Now? Thoughts on Overcoming Perfectionism
I count myself lucky that I’m surrounded by supportive and loving friends and family. They remind me that you don’t have to be perfect to be good. You don’t have to be perfect to be loved. I’m lucky that I have them standing beside me to point out when the perfection required of me is toxic and impossible.
I count myself lucky that I have also worked for companies who both expect and encourage some failures because it means we tried something new, tried to push forward, and we tried to learn something from it.
Requiring perfection from others is a cruelty. Perfection is subjective and therefore an impossibility. Whose perfect are we talking about? Everyone’s version of perfect is different and therefore reaching someone else’s version of perfection would make you imperfect in someone else’s eyes.
I don’t think perfectionism is something that I can cure in a month or even a year no matter how supportive my friends and family are or how encouraging my work situation is. Because the constant push for perfection is so ingrained in the society we live in, I think this is something I’ll have to spend my whole life being vigilant about. This post doesn’t even touch on the fact that people of color feel the need to be perfect to be seen as human or that people need to perform and execute at work perfectly because the job market is so competitive that if something were to go wrong and they are fired, there’s no guarantee that they can easily find another job.
I am not even seeking being perfect in unlearning perfectionism. The only thing I can try to do is be kind to myself. Let my good be good enough. Do something just for pure enjoyment of it and not to be evaluated by other people. Mistakes and failures and missteps are part of life. In this pandemic, we’re all grieving and therefore do not have the bandwidth to perform even close to perfectly, I think it’s necessary now more than ever to live with imperfection.