Are you a child of Perfectionism Parenting – “this might make them happy”…How you end up frazzled and anxious!
Are you a child of Perfectionism Parenting – “this might
make them happy”…How you end up frazzled and anxious!
Last year I saw a client who was studying at university and
was aimed for a first by the end of her second year. This was quite amazing as
she had started to feel low and lonely, her mood affected her work and she
stopped going to 80% of her lectures half way through the academic year, that
was when she contacted me for counselling.
Her goal for therapy was to regain the motivation she had
felt for the course and feel passionate about her chosen subject again. After
the initial session and quite a bit of exploration together, I said that in my
experience I thought it would take more to feeling better than just university
related motivation, her eyes filled up “yes,
I think so, I feel like part of me has always felt this low and anxious”
·
Over the weeks we went on to explore her
feelings about attending lectures (she would miss them to join in with friends
doing something social)
·
Her lack of enthusiasm and procrastination in
work assignments (she couldn’t face starting them as her expectation and her
parents was that they had to be perfect and get over 90%)
·
Her energy re friendships and relationships and
how the consideration and effort she put into friendships was not reciprocated.
How when she wanted friendships more than ever they tended to fall apart.
·
Her exhausting feelings around achievement and
performance.
·
Her inability to seek help and process feelings
that were distressing.
L explained that growing up there was a message that was
spoken and unspoken around achievement and performance. She was expected to win
the village show, the athletics competition, achieve piano grade 8, in fact in
everything she did…and now secure a first-class honour. She was minimally
praised when she achieved the result expected and questioned as to what went
wrong when she didn’t.
L explained that mum and dad checked in with her to evaluate
progress and academic performance. She was hardly ever allowed of school
poorly, even when she felt and looked like death. She remembers surviving on
one meal a day after comments about her appetite. When she lost weight, it was
mentioned she looked well, what was not discussed was the unhealthy way she did
it. She constantly felt valued for what she did instead of who she was.
Her willingness to miss the lectures and hang out with
friends came from being rejected in secondary due to her controlling nature and
wanting to perfect everything she undertook. L tried overly hard with friends such
as making elaborate and exact arrangements for gatherings, expensive birthday
gifts etc, she was disappointed when friends were not overwhelmed and wanting
to do the same for her.
L couldn’t face the
shame of not achieving and actually the constant attainment felt exhausting. Now
her parents were not there to check up on the effort level, it didn’t take much
for L to convince herself that the lack of pressure felt nice.
What L was still left with was feeling guilty and not
trusting her judgement. Children of perfectionistic parents are able to feel
guilty, it is one of the only feelings that they can acknowledge to themselves.
Other feelings of sadness, anger, frustration are bottled up.
The overriding feeling of perfectionism is ANXIETY. People
who have experienced perfectionistic parenting and are experiencing
perfectionism themselves are ANXIOUS and wired most of the time.
In adulthood it becomes problematic as they may find they don’t
take feedback very well and feel it is criticism. Getting close to people and
forming intimate relationships is hard as they may be anxious about people
seeing the ‘REAL’ them, which they have convinced themselves is unlovable as the
more they tried the more they were criticised and that left them feeling fundamentally
flawed.
I lived with perfectionism, How does it affect my parenting?
If it is not recognized and worked on with feelings
acknowledged, perfectionism continues to be carried out in parenting. When we
are young and we have one or two area of life to keep perfect it is more manageable
than when we have friends, PTA, work, healthy
living, marriage, family, school life. If you believe perfectionism may be part
of your personality you can do this on-line questionnaire to learn to what
degree it is impacting your life.
Brené Brown is a very inspirational and knowledgeable author,
one of her books may help in working through perfectionism.
I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey
from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough"
When Perfect Isn't Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with
Perfectionism
Later in the blog series we will go on to discuss ways you
can work through this ‘way of being’ and also put boundaries in place with
parents who still do this in adult life now.
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