Healing From Perfectionism

Meeting Eileen for the first time, I didn’t know what to expect. I'd lost my previous, and up until then only, therapist to a better career; she went on to become a trauma therapist for veterans at the VA.

The sadness over her loss lingered for an extended period of time; it was a year in which I was sure that I would never enter treatment again. For someone who lost his father and his stepfather, losing another seminal figure was emotionally devastating, although there was no aspect of me that would admit it.

But then, something significant happened, which was, to a kid marred by recurrent abandonment, improbable; a mentor of mine strongly suggested that I resume clinical supervision, and she had the perfect supervisor for me. This was the beginning of our great adventure.

Over the next few weeks, I began to disclose more and more of my personal life to Eileen, focusing on the manifestations of my personal challenges in the context of my clinical work; I quickly realized that by being in supervision, I was already in treatment. So, we replaced supervision with it.

With her inquisitive and penetrating style, Eileen dug deep, helping me focus on past sorrows that I had long ago repressed: the bullies, the grade-school teacher who told me that I was ugly, my abusive stepfather, an overprotective mother, and my terror of wanting perfection, believing that the lack thereof implied inadequacy and shame. Little by little, and session by session, the mask was slowly peeled off, exposing the vulnerable boy who resided in a basement that was long forgotten and buried in the depths of a seemingly rational, adult mind.

Eileen, like me, loved Irv Yalom; she told me that it was the relationship that healed, and it was our relationship that healed me. As a fellow traveler along my side, she went with me into that dark, nearly deserted basement I perpetually feared entering.

And she helped me understand what happened to me, while reinterpreting my experiences in more positive and, more importantly, more realistic forms. She helped me see that I wasn’t unlovable and that those who harmed me were reacting to the harm done to them, not to me.

But, although she took me there, it was there where our mutual journey ended. Eileen left me alone in my basement, signaling that a part of her would always be there with me. This time, it was different; this time, my heart didn’t ache from a memory of abandonment, as I knew that her spirit was there inside, and would help to carry me through.

In its depths, I discovered myself, the great saboteur, that inner demon that persuaded me that I was incapable of being loved. I learned of all of the ways in which he lived through me, the ways in which he operated my psyche.

I recalled each significant failure, or rather the avoidance of it; I remembered dropping out of school for believing myself to be intellectually inferior; I ruminated over all of the girls I could have loved, but was afraid to; and, I finally acknowledged the role that my rage played in my isolation, and how I used it to push people away. I realized how much of my life was dictated by fear and the saboteur’s demands. The monster within succeeded in convincing me that no one would ever be good enough for me, because he believed I wasn’t good enough for anyone else. In those depths, I found myself, the hurt and frightened child who created a monster to protect himself from being devoured by one.

Perfectionism and self-sabotage are paradoxical, seemingly incompatible. On the one hand, I sought to be self-actualized, to become my ideal self; on the other, I was terrified of it, plagued by the "what-ifs." What if I disappointed everyone and couldn't live up to my potential as a therapist or as a writer? What if I was incapable of having my own family? What if I was just like my own fathers? What if I'm actually saving everyone else from the inevitable heartache of being wrong about me by implicitly convincing them I'm lazy? And what if I can't actually grow up?

By itself, however, perfectionism isn't a paradox; it's more like a contradiction, containing inherently incompatible opposites, at least for the most part. One's desires and her decisions hardly ever seem to align.

To me, the concept is perfectly (no pun intended) symbolized by the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail (an apt metaphor from a patient), representing a perpetual cycle that leads one as far away from perfection as something can. The preoccupation with the ideal creates the breeding ground for self-defeating choices.

Unconsciously, I didn't want to be perfect for its own sake; I wanted the ability and approval to run. So, I just gifted them to myself anyway (creating excuses to procrastinate and avoid), feeling guilty every time; for only the perfect were allowed respite.

Eileen knew that as with many other perfectionists, I used my mind to run, retreating to it whenever I felt scared. Somehow, she carried it from the platonic realm of forms back into the heart (she used the word "heart" a lot). When I wanted to understand, she preferred to help me feel by telling me how she was feeling for me.

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Through her, I finally understood the difference between sympathy and pity, the latter of which most perfectionists tend to scorn. I got that her sorrow and care for me didn't imply blame or judgment. I always believed that sympathy was that, that it invariably possessed an aura of superiority.

So, I stopped hearing "You should've known or acted better," which was replaced with, "You didn't deserve to be in that position." No amount of intellectual or professional success could have ever provided me with that sort of relief. I still can't even really explain how all of it works.

Thus, I went to work on picking up the pieces, putting back together the parts of that shattered boy who remained chained in isolation, desolate and terrified. And so, as therapy neared its end, my work was complete. I looked at that little boy and smiled, telling him what I had never said before: I love you. With an expression of terror on his face, he looked back at me and asked if he’d ever be down there again. Staring peacefully into his innocent eyes, I responded that, from then on, he would always be a part of me, no matter where I went.

I took his hand, with him holding onto mine, and together we went up those creaky stairs, taking one final look at a room that would never be occupied again.