Gone mental

Get it perfect… no more perfect

I have struggled with perfectionism my whole life. I have made things and immediately compared them to master works. I have tried musical instruments and given them up because I’m no Segovia or Satriani. I have kept my skills quiet because the world would then see just how bad I am, and they would judge me in the back handed way trolls do.

But why am I like this. In the same way I glorify other people’s work, I glossed over some pretty harsh memories. Here is my exchange yesterday.

I’m folding a bedsheet and trying to line up the corners perfectly.
My mom says “don’t worry about it.”
Me- I almost have it.
Mom- really I don’t care
Me- I proceed to fold it anyway.
Mom- helps me adjust the sheet to align the fold and fix the corners the back folded.
Me- smooths out the middle of the sheet where some odd wrinkle appeared.
Mom- don’t sorry about it.
Mom- puts her hand between the folds and tried to figure out where the wrinkle comes from.
Me- I wait and think, inthotshe didn’t care…
Mom- continues to work the weird fold in the middle.
Me- the sheet probably won’t show the wrinkle when it’s folded.
Mom- puts both hands in and smooths from each layer of sheet.
Me- “I thought you didn’t care”.
Mom- put her head down and laughed.

I am a perfectionist because I was groomed from a baby to be this person. I live in the shadow of being required to do things absolutely perfect or fail. The opportunity to fail is not remanded to any particular area either. I am open for ridicule in the most simple tasks, including sheet folding.

So when I looked at myself in the mirror a few months ago and bile flavor filled my mouth while the unprovoked words telling myself “my god you are ugly”, I can proceed with the knowledge that going forward, in my mind, I am all these things. I am broken because I don’t know how not to be.

👆even this first sentence in the preceding block of text is a run on sentence. It’s not a paragraph because it’s only two sentences and I didn’t bother to indent… really three is no end to my criticisms of myself.

You would think in would be this way towards everyone. I am not. I don’t see anyone the way I see me. I give people the benefit of a clean slate. And I clean that slate all the time.

—-

I was going to see the sunrise this morning. I slept right up to it and panicked. Then I saw, through blurry eyes, that it is grey and overcast. So I layer down and wrote the preceding entry. This is a beautiful home, but I actually don’t like it at all. It demands perfection. Did I mention I struggle with just that? 🤷🏻‍♂️😉