Musings About Perfectionism

I have a family member who wants things and people and relationships and herself to be perfect.  She imposes this demand on most people around her, and [sometimes] on herself.  Most of the time she does not know this about herself.  It may be a corollary to this, but she has no sense of humor.

I'll muse about how humor usually is a way of dealing with foibles, failures and imperfections -- one of these days.

She wants to be the perfect wife, the perfect parent, the perfect teacher, the perfect cook, the perfect housekeeper and the perfect friend.  Possibly you know someone who can actually be that perfect.  I don't.  Yes, I know her.  She is not perfect.  How she copes with being not-perfect would be funny if it were not so sad.  I'm too close to laugh.  I weep for her.

But she wants me to be perfect, and the perfect man does not weep.  In her judgment, I am a failure.  I guess I have been a failure for many years, in her view.  In my view, I'm human.

Life is too complex, and living to complicated, to be always on, always right, always having just the perfect emotion for the situation.  Anyway, get two experts on living in the same room and they will not agree on what the "perfect" and "right" response is to any given situation.  So how can anyone know what would be "perfect"?

Ask her.  Even if her answers differ from month to month, she is convinced she is "right", perfectly right, and any given moment in any given month.  Thus I fail, in her eyes, and she fails often in her eyes.

I find it supremely sad.  I find her a walking sack of misery, and I hurt for her.

Perfectionism is not only a form of mental illness, it's a form of self-hatred.  I don't think I know anyone who deserves to be hated all the time, even by herself or himself.

What do you think?  Leave your comment and share your thoughts with us.