Perfectionist Drama

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

It would seem, what is wrong with perfectionism (the belief that improvement - both your own and that of others - is the goal that a person should strive for)? After all, striving for growth in all areas of your life is wonderful … Until a person begins to reject everything that is not related to the ideal. And it does not deprive the right of existence of what, in his opinion, is not perfect enough.

Perfectionism arises from childhood experiences of interacting with disapproving or inconsistently approving parents, whose love is always conditional and depends on the performance of the child, who seeks to become perfect not so much in order to avoid the disapproval of others as in order to accept himself through superhuman efforts and great achievements. Or he comes to the understanding that only the best performance of the activity makes him valuable, forcing him to carry the attitude “I have no right to make a mistake” into adulthood. Mistake is the perfectionist's worst fear, which makes it impossible for him to learn. It is thanks to him that a person often does nothing (after all, the one who does nothing is not mistaken).

The perfectionist is convinced that everything in the world must be right. He has inflated demands not only for himself, but also for those around him. He constantly doubts the quality of the work performed, is always dissatisfied with the result of his activities, is overly sensitive to criticism of other people (he perceives almost any criticism as an attempt to humiliate or insult him), but he criticizes himself even more mercilessly.

His inner critic is so picky about the smallest details that he is almost never satisfied, as if following the unspoken rule "I don't need you to do this … I need you to get fucked up." He lives in the eternal hell of a black-and-white world, because in his understanding the quality of the work performed can only be in two forms: a perfect ideal or an absolute insignificance. There are no other shades. On the one hand, he is convinced that he is able to do everything better than anyone else and never make mistakes, and on the other, he is faced with the fact that his conviction is not confirmed in reality all his life.

Perfectionism sometimes looks like a street boy with a grin in his eyes, who constantly teases, instigates, forcing him to stubbornly prove to others and to himself that "is not weak." It is not easy to swim a few kilometers in winter, ruin your health and regret all your life that you did not succeed in fully implementing your plan. Instead of soberly assessing the situation and abandoning this idea at the very beginning. It's not a shame to write a great business plan at three o'clock in the morning, when you are madly sleepy. And throw all your contempt on yourself if "not good enough." It's not a shame to say to yourself that a painting can only be sold if it is painted no worse than Monet. And again to be disappointed in yourself. After all, perfectionism does not pay attention to the characteristics of a person, does not want to take into account the imperfection of his nature and limited possibilities. He will try again and again to satisfy the ambition of his owner.

Perfectionism, hiding behind the noble goal of helping a person as quickly as possible to carry out everything conceived to the maximum, has in fact another goal … not to let him into those areas in which he aspires. He makes a person take a big acceleration, fizzle out, and, in the end, lose faith in their strengths or be filled with disgust for their goal. It is often the cause of depression.

Perfectionism therapy includes the destruction of the illusory self-image and the achievement of a person's ability to accept himself as he really is, as well as identifying and eliminating the reasons why perfectionism was formed (working with parental attitudes, etc.)

It is very important to use healthy logic in every possible way, especially when working with installations, chewing them thoroughly and carefully examining them under a magnifying glass.

(For example, on the installation: "You must do everything perfectly!" receipt? "," How realistic is it for a living person to do absolutely everything perfectly? ", etc.).

It is important to go through such a painful stage of recognizing oneself as an ordinary living and imperfect person who has the right to make mistakes.

It is important to work out the evaluative dependence, which makes a person strive to do everything in an ideal form, and replace the concept of an ideal quality (which, in principle, does not exist in nature), with an acceptable one (or good enough), and also establish real criteria for it.

It is important to learn to praise yourself for every small but very valuable step, to notice the voice of the inner critic and give it a ruthless rebuff.