The Heavens of Idolatry

Chapter 1

Portrait of Perfectionism

Getting the Picture

The man who made it didn’t want it.

The man who bought it didn’t need it.

The man who has it doesn’t know it.

What is it?

If you’d like to stop reading right now and think on that one for a while, I understand. You’re a perfectionist and that’s what perfectionists do. But, to ruin all the fun, I’ll keep this story moving along. The answer is: A coffin. And so begins this book about perfectionism. The profiles of perfectionism lurk around every corner, occupy the seat next to you, work out at the community gym, fill prospering offices and classrooms and factories, build governments, fix your plumbing, come in all shapes and sizes, perhaps even walk in your own shoes, live in cardboard boxes and abandoned buildings, drive successful men and women to suicide, haunt houses and destroy health and families. Yet very few owners even know they have it. One person starts it, another buys into it, and before you know it, it’s in your possession, and you’re wielding it unaware, slashing away at relationships as you go. Abandonment, physical, sexual and emotional abuse. These were the burdens on my back by the age of four. Entering into my teen years, I’d witnessed enough crime and injustice to shred the last of my innocence. Homeless, sexually assaulted, medicating with street drugs, and suicidal, at 17 I faced my future with great determination to break the cycles that kept my world in orbit. I literally wanted to die rather than stay where I was. No one would have looked at my life and said, “Now there’s someone who has it all together!” I surely didn’t use the word “perfect” in any form to describe myself. If you had asked me if I was a perfectionist as a youth, I would have shown you my bedroom and asked you to reconsider the question. I had no idea what a perfectionist was, but I was sure I wasn’t one of them. After all, nothing in me felt perfect, neither as a child nor later as an adult.

My misunderstanding of what perfectionism looked like was common. “[Perfectionism] has to do with unreasonable expectations – how we belittle ourselves and others for having human (we translate that word as ‘weak’) thoughts and emotions, inconsistent faith or less-than-excellent plans, accomplishments, families, bodies or dreams.”1 The perfectionist knows no bounds. She may know about boundaries, but when it comes to doing well, there is no such thing as “good enough.” She always sees room for improvement, can always think of a better way to do a thing. She can’t find the “off” switch and therefore finds no rest. She stops but only because she runs out of time, energy, or resources. “She works long hours, taking on project after project, often feeling misunderstood and underappreciated for the significant contributions she makes. Yet she feels compelled to keep doing; it is a matter of identity for her. If she stopped to rest, it would prove she is inferior, lazy or both.”

Like many perfectionists, I didn’t think in terms of trying to be perfect. I thought mostly in terms of negative cognitions (thought patterns of false, unrealistic, or only partially true beliefs). The following is a list of perfectionistic thoughts, attitudes, and postures compiled from personal experience and fellow perfectionists. These statements each seem to indicate a source from which the speaker is deriving his or her own self-worth or to whom the speaker is ascribing authority over the perfectionist’s worth. The statements are loosely grouped according to apparent sources of worth. Feel free to check off the ones familiar to your inner dialogue: