I am a recovering perfectionist. And honestly, it has been harder to let go of the vice grip of perfection than it has been to manage my schizophrenia. That might sound hard to believe, so I will go into it a bit, into the why of it and how perfectionistic tendencies make chronic mental illness even worse, to the point of being acutely dangerous. Also, it is worth noting that folks who are not neurodivergent or carrying a label can and do exhibit perfectionism. It is very common in the society we live in today.

In my art class yesterday I was working on a life drawing with a model. I felt myself shutting down as I added ink, feeling like I was ruining it. My teacher saw something different. She told me I had loosened up, that I had a “breakthrough.” I was shocked and amazed. Suddenly, I could see what she was seeing. It was not perfect, but it was organic. My gestures were loose. I could see that it was beautiful because it was not perfect. I learned from this.

When I first began to unravel in high school, I began severely controlling what I ate. There were a couple of reasons for this that all synergized and tanked me. The thoughts and quiet but loudening voices made eating very difficult. I felt it was “impure.” I ended up in treatment with the guise of an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa). I was a seventeen year old girl who was severely underweight and didn’t speak much. I fit that label. But there was so much more going on that had nothing to do with anorexia nervosa, but rather the early years of schizophrenia. I left high school, got my GED, and continued to struggle, going in and out of treatment and hospitals for the next ten years. Food became a fixation because the older I got, the more explicit the voices were. I stopped eating solid food and was sent to a state hospital, where I was tube fed for over two years. I think I felt so out of control with my wayward mind that following the voices’ admonitions and my own desperate need for some agency was all that I could do. And I almost died doing it.

When I was home, in between hospitalizations, I would take on a lot. I would read and write, I even found myself work in a couple of non-profits. It would be an understatement to say that I wanted to do well in my jobs. I worked long hours, perfecting posts, redoing things until they were satisfactory to my now-apparently ludicrous expectations. Whenever I would come home from the hospital, I had it in my head that this was going to be “the last time.” That I was never going back to the hospital. Unfortunately, I set myself up for failure over, and over and over again. If there was any conflict at all amongst my family members, I would crumple. If I was symptomatic, I would spiral into psychosis, fearing that my family was actually trying to kill me. More than once I hurt myself significantly. I think that there was an underlying current of “if it’s not perfect, it’s nothing,” or “if everyone is not perfectly happy, it’s the end of the world I can’t be alive anymore.” I was projecting my inner perfectionism onto everyone around me, but I was also barely functioning due to my schizophrenia symptoms. One issue magnified the other. One had to go, and it wasn’t going to be the schizophrenia.

We mitigated the schizophrenia with medication, namely Clozaril, an antipsychotic used to treat treatment resistant schizophrenia. I broke the cycle of my perfectionistic behavior with the mantra/affirmation “Relentlessly Positive” or “Relentless Positivity.” When I was inhabiting this state of mind, I didn’t need to be perfect. In fact, I could look back on the years of compensation with sadness. I didn’t ask for schizophrenia, but I made everything worse with my inability to accept myself and my circumstances, and so I repeatedly failed to trust in my self and in my own growth. I also felt forgiveness. Hence the frequent return to the hospital for stabilization and essentially a very loud and obvious statement that “I am NOT PERFECT.” In fact, “I AM REALLY SICK.” Well, that didn’t work out too well. With the help of my family and my outpatient team, I was able to slowly but thoroughly create routines for myself at home. My fiance and love of my life, C has also dealt with perfectionism and we are now able to hold each other accountable for any lingering perfectionism that might hurt us both. It’s exciting to live without perfection. I laugh more. I cry less. I have no anxiety. I have mild symptoms from the schizophrenia, but nothing compared to what they used to be. I am grateful for that. The more I trust myself and do the basic things I need to do to remain healthy, the more I realize that I am enough. I don’t need perfection to be happy, which makes me very happy just to think about. You try it! Imagine what it would feel like if you gave yourself permission to try and to fail. You can make a “mistake” and know that mistakes are really just learning opportunities. I know that sounds a little hokey, but trust me, it helps soften the self-talk that we all experience.

I am a work in progress. I am far, far, far from perfect. This is a relief. Why? Because I can be myself, Kaiyuh, and perfection has nothing to do with that. I am free to try and fail and then try again. And if I don’t get this the first time, well, on we go for a second.