Thanks for this mention of imperfection. I, too, strive for it!!! I strived for it in this last futile attempt at a relationship, and found myself sorely lacking. As a middle school art teacher, I know I am lacking there also, but, for instance, this morning, I confronted an intelligent 8th grader who is failing and told him I know he is capable of passing. He has a big, big, handicap of having big ears!!! Students have made fun of him throughout the middle school experience. Some teachers characterize him as one who could come into the school one day with a gun, shooting up the school! Since he is in my "homebase," I challenged him to strive to do better. He responded that he is deficient in Language
Arts and failing. I said I could help him with that, and he could succeed! We'll see.
My own efforts at overcoming a broken relationship, very hurtful, are diminishing! HOORAY!!!!!!!!! I am moving on, and focusing on the things of my daily life.
ARI

Hi Ari and Eagle, thanks for responding on this topic. I'm learning to live with "good enough." The need to be perfect can indeed be deadly, as in the case of anorexia and bulemia, when our young women are striving and starving to be what the media portrays as perfectly good-looking women. The same with the boys, as in the case of your student with big ears. It sounds like you won't give up on him if you see potential. As for teaching, how can one ever be perfect what with all the bureaucracy crap that is thrown upon teachers, such as budget cuts. Ari, I don't believe you were "sorely lacking" in the relationsip; I believe the relationship and that man failed you. "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." (Somerset Maughn) Love never fails; his ego was faulty from the start, and you suffered the consequences. Eagle, I like the way you phrased this: "relax against my humanity." I am learning that too: it has been a huge revelation and revolution to relax the perfectionistic standards that are unachievable, and to enjoy the imperfect process we call life. Love and Light, Lynn

My oldest daughter was a perfectionist. So much, that she tried to kill herself when she was 16 because she couldn't measure up to her own standards. Today, I would know the warning signs. Back then, I didn't. She came very close to dying.

She still thinks she has to be perfect. She's back in college and trying to be an A student (which she is) mom and wife. And, she has health problems because of the stress. Her doctor is running scans on her this week as she's bleeding and having severe stomach pains. Said all of her signs are indicative a cancer. Please pray for her. She was the college biology student of the year. She's the first student in the history of the school to ever get a perfect score on the pharmacy test. This is because she makes herself study so much and has to be perfect. Poor thing.

Dianne, I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. Perfectionism truly is a deadly killer...but it gets masked by so many other seemingly-unrelated symptoms, that it gets called by every other name in the medical books except what it really is. We stress ourselves to death with this pursuit of something that we can never ever attain...the very nature of the illness itself makes achievement of perfection impossible, because we would never believe we had achieved perfection even if/when we did.

What she needs more than anything is permission to just be. It's a conscious choice, not an easy one by any means in the beginning (because we get addicted to the adrenalin rush), to embrace one's imperfections. The glory of God is us fully alive, not fully perfect...and we're not fully alive if we're killing ourselves chasing after the impossible instead of relaxing into the growth and discovery that we're supposed to be enjoying along the way.

Mistakes aren't proof of our imperfection. They're tools to teach us more about life and love. When we can grasp the lessons and laugh for the sheer joy of learning how to truly live and love each other better, then the journey becomes so much more pleasant and live-able.

I know it seems simplistic, but I'm telling you, it's (giving oneself permission to be imperfectly human) is the only first step out of that never-ending cycle of self-punishment.

Oh Dianne, I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter. She must have been in so much pain to attempt suicide, and you must have been in pain too. She must be very intelligent to attain so much in a scientific field. I wonder if one of the reasons I didn't have children is because I knew I could not be a perfect mother. The perfectionism kept me from continuing college in my twenties. I had an associate's degree with a 4.0, and I was so afraid of "ruining" it that it took me 20 years to get back to college for a bachelor's. I wish I had some words of wisdom that you can pass on to your daughter in addition to what Eagle has already said. I am so grateful that your daughter did not succeed with her attempt. I hope her health does not suffer any great damage due to trying to achieve the impossible, perfecton. Love and Light, Lynn

I think she has too much on her plate. She made the decision that if she stayed with her husband, who is very sweet and kind but not motivated in the least, that she would be poor for the rest of her life. This is why she returned to school...to get a degree so she could bring in more money. She grew tired of trying to buy groceries with a debit card that wouldn't go through.

I think the higher her grades get, the better she thinks she has to be. In other words, she's competing against herself. Plus, her husband is threatened by her going to school. Almost stalks her. Checks her cell phone for incoming messages and calls the number to see who it is, etc. He certainly isn't helping her stress levels any. Plus, he's one of these guys that wants to discuss things into the middle of the night when she's trying to sleep. In a way, I think he might be trying to get her to just quit school, which isn't going to happen.

She's also had stupid doctors that haven't run necessary tests to find out what the problem is and just hand her drugs. She finally found a good doctor. Poor thing. She's down to 112 lbs now.

Thanks for caring.

For anyone interested in the warning signs for suicide, the following may be helpful:
The following is titled the “SAD PERSONS” scale for evaluating suicide potential. Each letter corresponds to one of the high-risk factors.
S = sex: females are more likely to attempt; males more likely to succeed
A = age: 19 or younger are 45 and older are at higher risk
D = depression: may increase potential for suicidal thinking

P = previous attempt: highest predictor of a subsequent attempt
E = ethanol abuse: abuse of drugs and/or alcohol
R = rational thinking loss: unrealistic and subjective thoughts
S = social supports lacking: isolation from others
O = organized plan: the more specific, the more at risk
N = no spouse: single, divorced, widowed
S = sickness: long-term illness and/or no cure

Hi Dianne, yes, you know I care. I hadn't realized you were going through this with your daughter. Oh my gosh, it sounds like her husband is sabatoging her college career. Plus, he has that personality dichotomy that can be so disarming: kind and sweet, yet selfish and unambitious. If she should decide to separate from him at some point, a college education will certainly help her to be better able to support herself. That's a good way of putting it: that she is competing against herself. But this can backfire on her. Yes, she's under too much stress.

Perfectionism slows the writing process. I think the greatest lesson I learned about writing was from Julia Cameron in "The Artist's Way" and "The Right to Write." Her writing exercises encourage stream-of-consciousness writing every morning, long hand, for at least 20 minutes. These are called the "morning pages." When I started the morning pages, I started my book, in an accidental way. When I gave myself permission (actually, Julia gave me permission) to write without perfect grammar and sentence structure, I became unblocked as a writer. Those morning pages were uncensored and unedited. Thus, I started to write my book in that manner, without pausing to correct or analyze what I had written. That was how I accomplished the first draft. I'd do my morning pages every day. Later, I'd settle myself to a writing session for the book, and allowed stream-of-consciousness. Of course, many drafts later, I had to tend to the editing. But the concept of allowing myself to be less than perfect freed me enough to be an author! Now my task is to follow-up. I am so afraid I may not do as well with the second book (a memoir on breast cancer) that I am frozen before I've even begun. I have to heed the lesson I learned! I do morning pages every single day. Alas, many of these journals were destroyed during a sewer back-up in our basement last fall. I have to start from scratch. Is it like child birth? Does the second book come out easier than the first?