I am afraid that I have an addiction to perfection. My biggest side effect is hatred. Then judgement. Anxiety. And possibly OCD (yes I know it’s more than just cleaning tendencies and coloring inside the lines). Regardless of the diagnosable possibilities, it is clear to me that I am addicted to being perfect. It’s a high I’m always chasing, and it’s always out of reach.
There’s a difference between perfectionism and being addicted to perfection. I understand perfectionism as something that fuels someone. I imagine perfectionism like drinking too much caffeine and experiencing anxiety or a rush on a rare occasion, while most the time the coffee motivates you. When I chase perfection, I feel a high that never lasts as long as I remembered. It’s something I have grown a tolerance for, so even when I do something right, it always feels like I could have done more. Better. I am addicted to a feeling I have never truly felt.
I developed this addiction at a young age. I learned what not to do from my siblings (older and younger, sisters and brothers), and took detailed notes in my brain. My dad slapped me across the face and I mentally jotted “do not say you miss your mom”. He hit me with a wooden paddle and I jotted “don’t spill milk either”. I tried to be perfect, as a survival tactic. I still got hit, but I chased the high anyways.
When I was at my mom’s, it was a different high. She never hit us. Didn’t slap, spank, paddle, beat, nodda. I respected her much more than my father. She didn’t flip like him either, so the anxiety was never about needing to have a heightened sense of emotions in fear of being beat. While my dad was hot and could burn you if you weren’t careful, my mother was cold. She would freeze the house for days while you silently wished for warmth.
One of my earliest memories was when she came home from work exhausted. My mom worked more than any other moms I knew. She morally, physically, and financially raised 3 children while getting her Master’s. Even so, she was at every school event; academic, athletic, and anything in between. She cooked and cleaned, drove us to school, ran the sound system at church. Needless to say, she had every right and more to be exhausted. But as a young child, I did not understand the ebb and flows of life. I just saw my tired mother. I saw her face, drained and stretched thin in her hands. I felt it was my purpose to heal her.
I did what any five year old would do. I grabbed fake googly-eye glasses we got from the Halloween shop and placed my hands over my face. I walked over to the corner of the dining room table (I barely reached the surface) and opened my palms to stare at her. I was nervous she would be annoyed, but it was a risk I was willing to take.
She laughed, and I knew I had done good. That is the first memory I have of that high.
My mother held high expectations. From academics to athletics, she desired perfection. Ninety-six was not a high enough A, getting twenty-one on the ACT was a no-brainer that I would be taking it again, and Dean’s List was just another semester. Likewise in sports, every throw should be right on target, every swing should make solid contact, every step needed to be quicker. Most times she would lecture, sometimes she would exercise silence. Every time, her face was clear – I was not good enough.
And so – I chased good enough, conditioning myself to believe it was never something I would achieve.
In high school, I did what every 15 year old girl does and starved myself. #go-gosqueezes and gra#nolabars. I told myself 50 crunches a night wasn’t good enough, I could do more. My chest wasn’t big enough according to a high school bully and more than one stupid boy, so I stopped doing chest workouts. No matter how little I ate or how much I exercised, my hips never got smaller and my hip dips never went away. I decided I was cursed. I would never be enough.
When I started to bruise across my body, I decided I had tried hard enough. I would live with the curse of never being perfect. The symptom of self-hatred had crept into my days, seeping into every relationship. I only talked about myself, I compared myself to every girls under the sun (competing with even my bestest friends), I flirted with boys hoping they would fill the void, and I convinced myself that every person had the same eyes as me- in that they could only see my flaws.
Somewhere in the past couple years, I’ve healed my relationship with the gym, I stopped looking at nutrition labels, and I started wearing clothes I liked because I like how they look, not because of how they made me look. But, I still struggle. When I see other women, I judge first. I question why they are still male-centered. Part of me knows this is rooted in FOMO. I know how to fit in with them. But I am not willing to regress. I miss the cravings, the excitement, the rushes. But I am sober.
I experience withdrawal. I feel left out. It’s like social-drinking. Sometimes I yearn to social-self-sabotage. Dress for men, do my makeup for men, talk differently and post for male attention. Sometimes I give in. Especially after a few drinks. Or in a room of unfamiliar faces. I want to show up and fit in. But it doesn’t feel the same anymore when I do.
Ultimately, I have learned that my addiction is rooted in the same thing every time: other people. I want to fix others. I want to be perceived as perfect. So I can be loved, safe, acknowledged, included, given attention. It is how I have survived at times. But, it is also what has slowly killed my soul.
I have made the decision to be sober. I give up on my idea of perfection and my goal to obtain it. My soul is more important than how I am perceived. Instead of working towards perfection, I want to aim for completion. I have felt complete before. I have never felt perfect.