Confessions of a Perfectionist
I went to a decent high school I would say and I graduated the top of my class (worked my butt off, took 15 AP/IBs, started a club, etc.) and I ended up going to college at UC Berkeley. Although this wasn't my original plan, it worked out alright. But it was that second month or mid-way of my first semester at college that I was hit really hard with reality.
The truth was, I was struggling to stay just even top 50% within my classes. I was amazed at how accomplished my classmates were and how they could handle extracurricular and classes and do so well in both. At first I was very motivated but as the stress added on, I became depressed because I looked at everything I didn't have/do as failures. That saying that "people can't be book-smart, street-smart, successful, nice, social, and attractive" was wrong. Some of these people I met/know were gorgeous in every way and I was frustrated with myself. The incompetence manifested into almost every aspect of my life. I began to follow a strict diet regimen in fear of the freshmen 15 and became obsessed with doing well in every aspect of my life. Anything less than perfection was a failure. I avoided most social outings and became secluded to my own goal of "perfection".Ā
The problem with this route is that it created a very unstable mindset and vulnerable person. I was paranoid, secluded, and borderline anorexic. Now it was not a dramatic mental breakdown that was very apparent and I hid it from friends and family. I never thought of anything suicidal or violent but I was sad. I was happy during certain situations/events but ultimately, at the end of the day, I went to sleep with this sense of sadness.Ā
It took me a while to find myself again. It was when I realized that I don't need to be the best of everything. In fact, the person I think is the best at something probably thinks otherwise. The truth is, there's almost always someone that's going to be above you (or at least in your perspective) and that's ok. If you never accept your failure as something beyond just incompetence, you are always going to be angry with the world. I was surrounded by all these highly motivated people and opportunities. I learned to accept I may not be the best but I should look to these factors around me as motivation, not just benchmarks of my failure.
