Perfectionism: How to Relieve the Spinning Mind
For many people, the process of becoming a fully formed individual involves questioning, analyzing, and even criticizing themselves. This kind of mental sorting is part of how we make sense of the world. We all need to be able to analyze our environment in order to clear out and eliminate everything deemed irrelevant or toxic. Humans spend a lot of time experiencing; we need to have the ability to purify and cleanse, and separate what’s true from what’s false. “Separating the wheat from the chaff so to speak”; this is an introspective selection process that is refined over the life span. But what is the difference between helpful self-awareness and relentless self-criticism?
Is perfectionism keeping your mind in overdrive?
Crises can occur when in this process of accumulation, which information to keep and which information to eliminate? One possible excess is to become preoccupied with order, exactness, and being right. If you are a self-proclaimed perfectionist, nothing is ever good enough, everything is always perfected and worked on until you reach a state of almost perfection, and periodically rework it but never quite arriving a sense of peace.
When pushed to the extreme, we find so much information that it is impossible to make sense of it and rationally put it all together. We reach a state of complete over saturation that is paralyzing to the point you can’t trust your own thoughts, feelings, or intuition. The energy can become rigid instead of flowing. Shame and guilt partly underly a tendency to worry and be anxious, with a never-ending loop of self-criticism and doubt. “If I mess up, I’ll disappoint people. Maybe I’m not enough.” The spinning mind is like electricity traveling everywhere but through the cord, leaving you high strung and tired.
Perfectionism as a protective strategy
There is a need to name and classify things in order to understand your place in the universe but to also feel emotionally secure. It’s a protective strategy against unbearable rejection, shame, and “being unlovable.” Staying one step ahead is the priority, even at the cost of abandoning yourself. I know you work hard; work can be a way to flee and maintain distance from unresolved traumatic experiences, and you get the “earned” reward of being prideful about your contributions. Connection feels conditional, but this means you can always try twice as hard to be “good” in the future. You may have learned to perform in order to feel safe, worthy, or wanted. “If I do everything right and never mess up, I won’t get hurt.” It’s a double bind, because your inner critic has helped avoid the pain of any perceived abandonment but the busyness is also distancing you from the very connection you deeply crave. This defense keeps us company when we feel unbearably alone.
Emily Bachardy, LCSW (she/her), Therapist in Virginia Beach, VA specializing in Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Trauma and Dissociative Experiences, and Addiction. I also specialize in supporting autistics, ADHDers, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Ready to heal from perfectionism in Virginia Beach, VA?
A trauma-informed therapist can help you trace these perfectionistic tendencies back to their roots. I help perfectionists negotiate with their inner critic with gentleness and curiosity. I provide strategies to develop self-compassion, not just self-improvement. I actively listen and reflect back at you to help you distinguish between your own voice and societal expectations. I help perfectionists increase their capacity for safety, resting, and letting go without losing your opinions, criticism, and judgment. We need to keep these, but we can learn how to use these skills in a flexible way.
You don’t have to quiet your mind on your own. There are evidence-based approaches like Accelerated Resolution Therapy and Trauma Model therapy that are specifically designed to help with these looping thought patterns, unresolved shame, and the nervous system overload that comes with perfectionism.