mental-health

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Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist – Part 116

Healing the inner child

A few weeks ago I attended a retreat in Southern Utah, a “healing weekend” sponsored by Husband Material. I’ve attended other experiential weekends in the past and they have all benefitted me. This one was targeted at healing the inner child. My “inner child” represents the part of me that experienced childhood, including the joys, fears, wounds, and unmet needs from that time.

Many struggles in adulthood—like low self-esteem, fear of rejection, or difficulty trusting others—stem from unmet needs or emotional wounds from childhood. These might be from neglect, trauma, or even unintentional patterns passed down by caregivers.

Perfectionism can show up as a result of childhood traumas. 

The word “trauma” might seem a little extreme for what I’ve been through. When I think of someone being traumatized I usually think of a soldier who came home from the war with PTSD because he saw his buddies die. Or a child who was kidnapped and regularly abused. Or someone who was in a horrible car accident and people were killed. Those are big T traumas. 

Conversely, little t traumas could be like being teased or bullied in grade school. Or moving to a new town and being “the new kid” at a new school. Or not getting the desired attention from one’s parents. In these cases, the kid may be told to “buck up” or “just get over it.” And yet, any of these could have a big T effect on a kid. 

Besides big T and little t traumas, there are A traumas and B traumas. B stands for Bad. So these are when bad things happen—abuse, severe punishment, loss of a family member. And A stands for Absent. These are when certain things are absent in a kid’s life. For example, neglect, not receiving attunement/attachment, or being emotionally abandoned. A traumas can be as destructive as B traumas, particularly because they are more subtle and difficult to recognize.

Also, two kids may have experienced the same challenge; one would be deeply affected by it and the other wouldn’t. For example, the divorce of parents, or being adopted. Some seem to take it in stride and others are scarred for life. It’s all about the perception of the kid. 

If I don’t address these wounds, they can show up in unhealthy relationships, perfectionism, self-sabotage, or emotional reactions that feel bigger than the situation at hand. By connecting with my inner child, I can better understand where my feelings come from and treat myself with the compassion and care I might have missed as a child.

So that’s the purpose of the healing weekend. Healing allows me to show up as a more whole, secure person in relationships, free from the need to be perfect. This isn’t about pretending to be a child again; it’s about acknowledging that the experiences and emotions of my younger self still influence me. And it’s about giving my inner child the support and validation he needed but didn’t adequately receive as a child.

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Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist – Part 114

Benefits of counseling

It was 10 years ago this month that I seriously decided to meet with a counselor. 

The world in which I grew up held a stigma toward counseling. If I weren’t able to deal with whatever life dealt me, then I was weak and incapable. Only really messed-up people needed to see a shrink. 

But I finally decided that I needed help with my perfectionistic thinking. So, since then, I’ve come to be a proponent of receiving counseling. Maybe not everyone needs it, but many could benefit from help from a qualified support person. In addition to professional counselors, this could include life coaches, social workers, mentors, sponsors, and even just a trusted friend lending a listening ear. 

I had my “main” counselor for almost 8 years. We typically met for an hour per week. Fortunately, my insurance paid for most of the cost and my copay was minimal. When I retired, I needed to find a new one, since he didn’t take my retiree insurance. I’ve been through three more, to find another one who was the right fit for me. I need to feel like the counselor has the expertise to help me, there needs to be a rapport between us, and I need to feel that he/she genuinely cares about me. 

Here are some of the ways in which counseling has benefited me. 

My counselor has helped me with perfectionism in really supportive and practical ways. First, he created a safe space where I felt comfortable opening up about my struggles. Perfectionism can be exhausting, and I sometimes feel like I have to constantly be on-task or that I’m not good enough, so it’s important that a counselor listens without judgment.

He has helped me recognize the underlying beliefs driving my perfectionism. A lot of times, perfectionists feel like their worth is tied to how well they perform, or they’re afraid of failure because it feels like a personal reflection of who they are. My counselor worked with me to challenge these beliefs and start breaking down the idea that I need to be perfect to be valuable.

Another thing my counselor has done is encourage me to set more realistic goals and expectations for myself. Instead of aiming for “perfect,” he has helped me aim for “good enough” in different areas of my life. He’d talk through what those more balanced goals might look like and how to be okay with things not going perfectly all the time.

My counselor also taught me coping skills for dealing with the stress that comes up when things don’t go as planned. For example, he showed me how to practice self-compassion—talking to myself kindly rather than beating myself up for every little mistake. He also helped me learn how to step back and take breaks, rather than pushing myself to the point of burnout.

He has helped me uncover where these perfectionist tendencies started—some in childhood, some from pressure at school and work—and then we worked on healing from that. The goal wasn’t for me to stop caring about doing things well, but to help me feel more balanced, more at peace with myself, and less driven by fear and unrealistic expectations.

I’ve appreciated that my counselor has walked alongside me as I’ve learned to let go of the need for perfection and embrace being human, with all the imperfections that come with it.