8 hidden costs to perfectionism

read time: 4 minutes

disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is intended to educate, inspire and support you in your self healing journey. Speak to your medical professional. Some content might be sensitive; I invite you to practice self-harmonizing.

When I graduated high school, I fell into a deep depression. I spent that summer staring at a wall in my bedroom, too tired to cry but I could feel a lump in my throat and heaviness in my chest that was dying to escape.

“Is this it? What is it all for?”

My whole life I’ve been praised for being a perfectionist.

Praised for the (mostly) straight-A’s…

Praised for excelling school, sports and social life, all while working as a babysitter then hostess.

I was bright and pleasant, a hard worker, ambitious, and social with folks at any age. My parents were proud.

I was endlessly striving and rewarded for my work ethic. But at what cost?

Are the sleepless nights, insecurities, self doubt, and loneliness worth it?

Perfectionism develops as a survival stress response to two major stressors: caregivers out of control or missing opportunities for attunement.

Arising from the lack of control and/or physical and emotional needs not being met… fear, insecurities, feeling of inadequacies develop.

So you overcompensate.

And the hamster wheel of exhaustion, emptiness and isolation ensues — endlessly striving to fill the void.

8 hidden costs to perfectionism:

1. Sleepless nights — pulling all nighters using every moment you can to work on a project or task until the absolute last moment, making dozens of unnecessary revisions, endlessly preparing, endlessly striving

2. Poor boundaries — perfectionists don’t know when to quit. the phrase “as long as you try your best” is detrimental to a perfectionist. what is “my best” to a perfectionist?

   there is no “good enough” just endlessly striving to reach some vague ideal vision. these vague boundaries around tasks or projects can spill over into other areas of life

3. No “free” time for rest, play or intimacy — how can you do such frivolous things when you’re too damn busy making sure everything is perfect?

4. Lonely and isolating — not only do you have no time for relationships, because you grew up feeling unsafe in relationships, you continue to feel unsafe with others, nobody can do the task as well as you, you don’t trust them to get it right, you push other people away, you’re guarded, you don't collaborate well… you might have even convinced yourself you’re in introvert

5. Procrastination — endlessly striving and poor boundaries mean even “small tasks” end up being huge time commitments, compounded with taking on too much cause no one does it as well at you do means you are overwhelmed

   this overwhelm puts you in “freeze”, avoiding things you have to do because it’s all too much, not sure where to start, so you numb with a distraction like TV, checking email, online shopping, etc.

6. Lack confidence, low self-worth and self-esteem — not trusting yourself as you are that you have to expense so much time and energy to perfecting everything you put out because it’s not good enough until it’s perfect you’re not good enough until it’s perfect

7. Lack of fulfillment — endlessly striving but not sure what for, you have no time to actually enjoy the things you’re working so hard for, and when you do make the time your nervous system is addicted to work and stress

8. MORE STRESS — reaffirming the engrained perfectionist survival behavior, which leads to an endless vicious cycle… but also stress contributes to physical and mental health issues

Which of these resonate most with you?

infinite love,
Stephanie

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