The Faces of Perfectionism
- Jacob Somers
- Sep 24
- 4 min read
How Idealism Manufactures a Mask of Alienation
Perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear…Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success. -Michael Law
Perfectionism is striving for perfection at the point of psychological and emotional distress. At its root perfectionism is a stress response, which predisposes an individual to respond more severely regarding its foundational concept. A Foundational Concept is the underlying source trigger from which a stress response is forming, similar to how the foundation or trunk of a tree is where the branches form. For example, the foundational concept for anxiety (another stress response) is danger. Anxiety will work to protect an individual from ‘dangerous’ scenarios through over-responses that overwhelm our senses. This can be anything from infected splinters to internal chastisement from negative self-talk. Within perfectionism, the foundation is idealism regarding various aspects of a person’s life. Where perfectionism is the excessive striving for perfection, idealism is the pursuit of unrealistic standards (ideals). Let’s take a moment and discuss how these concepts can manifest differently given the situation and expression.1
The ‘Down-Player’ Perfectionist
An individual may appear outwardly and inwardly humble through this expression. In their successes, one may hear themselves say, "It wasn’t very hard" or "I hardly tried, it’s not even a big deal". In these moments it may seem that they are trying to empower or prevent those in our lives from experiencing negative emotions witnessing our successes, but these words have power. This can be further recognized in situations where the outcome is a failure in similar statements. In these ways, it is easy to alienate oneself from the connection of celebrating our successes or mourning our failures. As to communicate, "I can handle this on my own"…While it’s possible to do alone, additional support can elevate us beyond our capabilities.
The ‘Selective’ Perfectionist
A selective perfectionist may have an especially organized space at work, or be very particular regarding their hygiene bordering on obsessive, with a debilitatingly messy home. They may place all of their eggs into one basket in their life. Investing their limited attention, and energy into one avenue of their life (office space or hygiene) while leaving no energy for other aspects of their life (home-keeping). This does not prevent a person from feeling aware, or sensitive to these aspects of their life and often leaves a burnt-out individual cancelling plans to prevent others from seeing their ‘mess’.
The ‘Fragile’ Perfectionist
A swarmed face of perfectionism is a clear example that these faces are not worn one at a time. The fragile perfectionist is filled with shame and fear regarding their focal trait. The presence of our high standards for ourselves pushes our idealism to self-humble and lower our pre-existing self-compassion standards, this leaves behind a fragile being who when criticized on our ideals provides a discrepancy that increases negative self-talk, poor self-worth, and a fear of disconnection leading to a shame responses (despair, deception, defensiveness, etc.). These responses often trigger others to distance themselves, as they are not empathetic responses that draw people in but shame responses that push them away.
The ‘Discreet’ Perfectionist
Finally, the perfectionist that goes under the radar of many but never the individual. The discreet perfectionist is a ‘cliff facer’, someone who blends the fear that guides anxiety with the avoidant nature that idealism uses to guide the reins. They resonate with the phrase, "If I don’t try, then I can’t fail". This is where one may use their pursuit of excellence as the reason they should not attempt new tasks, experiences, etc. The logical rationale is that they are not excellent because they are not perfect, which disengages any attempt to build new opportunities, connections, or failures to allow them to develop or learn.
These faces are not death sentences, but signs for a possible lifestyle change. If you find yourself resonating with some of these and notice that your negative self-talk could benefit from trying something new then don’t let the cliff-facer within stop you from trying something that could help. Perfectionism is found to hinder accomplishments despite the mindset being founded under the premise of striving for perfection. An accomplished individual will enjoy the act of pursuit greater than the requirement of a perfect destination and will pursue further. 2
Many of these faces are found to distort our thinking enough to alienate ourselves from our connections and supports. The greatest combatant to these distortions is self-compassion. This is to identify that you are worth more than the value of your accomplishments. In striving to accomplish the things you are called to, do not mistake your worth for the work you do. Address each failure, cognitive distortion, and face of perfection with self-love and patience to transform your perfectionism into motivationism. In short, be your own cheerleader and others will want to be a part of your team. Take moments to ensure that your journey is defined not by flawless outcomes but by continuous improvement and self-affirmation.3
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