What’s Underneath Your Perfectionism

By: Jennifer Rollin, LCSW-C, Therapist & Founder of The Eating Disorder Center

Some of us have parts of ourselves that are perfectionistic. In the past, I definitely identified as a ‘perfectionist,’ although that has changed over the years as I have developed a more self-compassionate approach to myself and the expectations that I have.

If you identify as a perfectionist i.e. someone with perfectionistic parts, it can be helpful to explore this deeper in therapy both in terms of the underlying issues that the perfectionistic parts may be trying to protect you from-as well as how you can challenge the need to always strive for ‘perfection.’


What’s Underneath Your Perfectionism:

Often underneath perfectionistic parts are wounded parts. Sometimes perfectionism masks issues such as low self-worth, being neurodivergent and trying to cope in an ableist world, past trauma, shame, or other parts of ourselves that we don’t feel are ‘good enough.’

Subconsciously, then we may try to cope by striving for perfection i.e. if i can get ‘perfect grades’ and perform ‘perfectly in soccer’ then I will finally feel like I’m good enough.

Perfectionism may serve as a shield that we are using to try to ‘protect ourselves’ from feeling deeper emotions, feeling like we are not ‘good enough,’ nervous system dysregulation, or deeper pain.

It’s important to ask yourself, what might be underneath my perfectionism? Another way to start to explore this is to ask yourself, “If I didn’t do something ‘perfectly,’ what am I afraid would happen?”  And then try to get to what the core fears are. It can be helpful to explore this in depth with a specialized therapist.


How Perfectionism Can Be Unhelpful:

While perfectionistic parts may feel like they are being ‘helpful’ or ‘protecting you from pain’ (and you can send compassion to these parts!) often these parts can lead to increased pain and suffering.

For example, in college when I felt like I had to get ‘perfect grades,’ and engaged in compulsive studying-I sacrificed at times my self-care, fun, and well-being all in the name of achieving the highest score possible on an exam. Additionally my grades were one of the things that I felt I could ‘control’ following trauma. This was an exhausting cycle.

Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with caring about school or striving to ‘do well’ on assignments, but when it’s driven by intense fear, perfectionism, and the idea that you cannot tolerate ‘getting a bad grade,’ this is generally psychologically harmful.

Putting so much pressure on myself to excel led to increased anxiety-and one of the ways that I coped with anxiety, stress, and difficult emotions was through eating disorder behaviors. You can imagine how tiring this was.


Healing Both the Underlying Issues and Addressing the ‘Perfectionism Rules’ at the Same Time Is Important:

It can be so helpful to use therapeutic modalities such as exposure and response prevention (ERP) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to challenge rules that come from perfectionistic parts.

Challenging perfectionistic rules without compensating, while also working to explore what is underlying the perfectionism can be so helpful in terms of healing your relationship to yourself.

It’s important to meet with a specialized therapist who can help you to explore this.

It’s worth learning how to be more compassionate with yourself. Life is too short to spend the rest of it chasing perfectionistic standards. You deserve to be free from this.


Journal Prompts For Perfectionism:

1. What is your definition of perfectionism? In what ways or areas of your life do you identify as a perfectionist?
2. How is perfectionism serving you in your life right now?
3. How is perfectionism not serving you (i.e. getting in the way right now)?
4. How/when did this start? Think back to your earliest memory of perfectionism.
5. If you were able to let go of perfectionism, how would your life look different?
6. What are your fears (if any) when it comes to trying to work to embrace uncertainty and imperfection (i.e. letting things be ‘good enough’)?
7. What do you think might be underneath your perfectionism? 
8. What’s one small step you can take this week towards challenging perfectionism?

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The Eating Disorder Center is a premier outpatient eating disorder therapy center founded by Jennifer Rollin. We specialize in helping children, teens, and adults struggling with anorexia, binge eating disorder, bulimia, OSFED, and body image issues. We provide eating disorder therapy in Rockville, MD, easily accessible to individuals in Potomac, North Potomac, Bethesda, Olney, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Washington D.C. We also provide eating disorder therapy in Arlington, Virginia and virtually throughout Virginia. Additionally, we offer eating disorder therapy virtually in New York (NYC), Florida, Pennsylvania, and California. We provide eating disorder and EMDR trauma therapy in Rockville, Maryland and virtually throughout Maryland and Virginia. We provide eating disorder recovery coaching via Zoom to people worldwide. Connect with us through our website at www.theeatingdisordercenter.com