Welcome To You Will Make Mistakes — The First Chapter
I pray reading this first chapter blesses you as much as writing it did me.
— Leneé
Part 1: THE RULES
Chapter 1: Prisoner of Perfectionism
Years of Bondage
I don’t like mistakes—at least not when I am the one making them. I can easily overlook others’ mistakes, but I have a much harder time when I am the one at fault. The irritation I feel at my own missteps isn’t a simple annoyance that gnaws at me for a few minutes before I can let it go. It’s a full-on assault of accusing and condemning internal voices that replay my mistakes and relentlessly remind me of what a failure I am.
Maybe you hear those voices too. If so, you know they may last for days or even years until they become your closest companions, always pushing you to be perfect.
Over time, they grow like vines in the garden of your soul until your entire belief system is rooted in the lie that you are not good enough unless you reach perfection. Your life becomes a series of criticisms that grow together like merciless weeds around your mind until you’re consumed with depression, anxiety, and a host of other barriers to peace. The louder the voices are, the more you strive.
Even worse, you carry the same destructive beliefs into your Christian faith, leaving you burned out and robbed of joy and intimacy with Him.
Sound familiar?
Understanding Perfectionism
One definition of perfectionism is:
“A broad personality style characterized by a person’s concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”1
Gordon Flett and Paul Hewitt, two leading authorities in the field of perfectionism, say that perfectionists are known for having “unrealistic expectations and thinking or feeling negatively when those expectations aren’t being met.”
Flett and Hewitt published a landmark study almost three decades ago that suggests three different facets of perfectionism:
Self-oriented perfectionism—expecting yourself to be perfect
Other-oriented perfectionism—expecting others to be perfect
Socially prescribed perfectionism—believing that others expect you to be perfect
They argue that everyone struggles, to some degree or another, with one or a mix of these aspects of perfectionism. My biggest struggle has been the self-oriented kind, which you will hear more about as you read on.
Many factors can cause perfectionism, ranging from inborn tendencies to environmental ones, such as excessive demands of a parent or modeling a parent’s behaviors. It can be difficult to identify the cause because every person is unique. The effects of perfectionism, regardless of its source, can damage one’s mental and physical health, resulting in extreme anxiety and stress, constant self-condemnation, oppression and depression, various addictions, or even suicide.
Signs of perfectionism can include:
You want to be the best in everything you do.
You have very high expectations for yourself and others.
You are very upset with yourself if you make a mistake.
You feel guilty for relaxing. You feel like you are never doing enough.
You’re very particular about the details of tasks.
When you perform well, you analyze your performance for the weak spots and quickly gloss over the things done right.
You want something done right or not done at all.
You are perceived by others as a role model.
You feel like others are never satisfied by your performance.
You compare yourself to others. If you perceive someone is better than you, you analyze that person to see how to measure up.
You don’t attempt things you know you can’t complete with excellence.
You are frightened by the thought of failure.
You procrastinate.
Your relationships can be strained or difficult.
You feel like you won’t ever be perfect.
You rarely experience joy.
You constantly focus on the destination.
I struggle with one or more of these on a daily basis.
You may be thinking, How could being “perceived as a role model” or being “particular about the details of a task” be bad? Some of the items on this list seem good and even godly! You are not wrong.
Certain behaviors may be good in themselves, but with perfectionism, the problem lies in the motive behind the behaviors. As you will learn, at the heart of perfectionism is a wounded and prideful heart that replaces God’s ways with man’s and is the greatest barrier to the life He desires to bring you.
The Awakening
To give you an idea of how perfectionism took root and evolved in my life, let me take you on a little journey back in time.
I was eight years old when I began journaling. I’m not sure what prompted me to start; I was a creative being, so stories and poems were a natural draw for me. I also needed to express myself outwardly, and journaling provided a safe environment to sort things out without keeping everything bottled up inside. There was something about journaling that made it possible to survive. Over the years, I accumulated volume after volume of my life experiences and deepest secrets. Rarely did I revisit my journals, though it felt important to have them close by for some unknown reason. One day, that changed.
I was in my late twenties when my life took a radical turn.
To the world, I appeared successful, and I was perceived as having it all together. Deep inside me, however, was a little girl whose heart and mind held unhealthy beliefs that led her down tracks of destruction in an attempt to validate her self-worth.
I had been a Christian for a few years, and in a very short time, I had dated one man, been engaged to another, gone through a breakup, and become engaged to yet another man. My life seemed to be operating at warp speed. Even so, I was completely unaware that something was off.
One morning, I awoke in a deep state of fear.
My heart was pounding rapidly, and panic ran through my veins. I liken it to the feeling that happens when you are about to have a head-on collision with another vehicle but somehow avoid an actual accident. Adrenaline and fear race through your body, but eventually, you realize you are okay, and things calm down.
In this case, however, I was unaware of where the panic was coming from, so I didn’t know if I was okay and could not get settled. The fear and panic cycled for three days, during which I did not sleep, I lost almost ten pounds, and I wound up in the emergency room.
A dark period followed. My senses were extremely heightened. The slightest sound felt jarring; I could feel their very vibrations throughout my entire body. A storm had risen inside that threw me every which way with no time to breathe. I was drowning in despair, full of confusion, fear, and every other emotion under the sun. I could see the concern and worry on the faces of the ones I loved, and the anguish inside my heart grew worse the more helpless they all felt. Something was happening, but nobody knew what it was.
Time stood still as I faced the unknown that was before me.
And then God showed up.
I was introduced to a relative of an ex-boyfriend who had experienced a similar thing. She was a Godsend. Before long, I received a large envelope from her with a book and a handwritten letter. As I read every word, hope began to arise within. For the first time in weeks, somebody was putting into words exactly what I had been experiencing! The diagnosis? An acute nervous breakdown (later confirmed by the doctors).
From a physiological standpoint, my body had created so much adrenaline that my nerves could not handle it, and they broke just like a bone. This phenomenon is known as the fear-adrenaline-fear cycle. It starts with fear, which creates a rush of adrenaline. Because the source of the fear is unknown, it creates more fear, which creates more adrenaline. Eventually, the body cannot handle it, resulting in a nervous breakdown.
God had my attention. Unbeknownst to me, there were things in my life that needed to be addressed, but the only way for me to realize it was through a dramatic awakening like this. My body had to force me to pause long enough to consider what needed to change.
As with any traumatic experience, healing takes time.
My case was extreme enough that I had to go on medical leave from work, move in with friends so that I had 24/7 support, start immediate therapy with a counselor, and begin small doses of drugs to bring balance to the imbalance within me.
It was then that I began revisiting my journals with the hope that I would find answers to what led to the breakdown. Though my body experienced acute physical symptoms, I believed they were the result of something much deeper.
I wanted answers.
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Early Bloomer
I came across my first diary from when I was seven years old. I smiled as I reminisced. Each entry mostly captured the daily events of life, such as what activities I did that day or where I went and with whom. For the most part, my diary didn’t contain any earth-shattering content that would make it to the bestseller list anytime soon. But that was okay; It had been my confidant, I held its key, and that was all that mattered.
As I entered third and fourth grade, there were times when deeper thoughts were expressed in my journal, like whom I had a crush on that day or what I thought of myself.
Sadly, my entries began to be filled with sadness, anger, self-loathing, and depression. I was still very young, but statements like, “I wish I weren’t so fat,” or “I hate so-and-so,” filled many pages. I constantly compared myself to others, especially the skinny girls, always wishing I looked like them. Unbeknownst to me, perfectionism had begun taking root in the garden of my soul, shaping my view of myself and my response to life. (Unfortunately, this carried into adulthood).
During that same season, my family had just moved to the little town of Hilliard, Ohio, where my siblings and I were enrolled in a local Catholic elementary school. Catholicism was central to my Italian heritage and was where I was first introduced to God. My parents attended Catholic schools as children, and my mother held her faith close to her heart. It was very important to her that we attend church as a family.
I consistently made the honor roll and was invited into advanced math classes at one point because I was accelerating and doing so well. I joined the basketball team and was a leading scorer. Then I got into softball. Life was fun.
Then things began to change.
Little by little, the bullying started. I’ll call them Beth and Sally. They were the big wigs in our class. Beth was the ringleader, while Sally was her right-hand woman. Whatever they said was how things were going to be. Each week, Beth and Sally would choose who they would allow in and who would be out. I can’t recall exactly when these dynamics began, but I can sure remember wishing so badly that I would be chosen. Instead, I became more and more ostracized, as if there was a special target on my back.
What started as a weekly cycle turned into two and three weeks of being alone. Then it grew into not being invited to birthday parties and people not showing up to mine. We were a small class, so everyone knew what was going on, and there weren’t many people left to be friends with after Beth and Sally had their say.
The worst memory was when I found a note on the playground with bad things written about me. It crushed me to have others reject me so deeply. I had a few friends outside Beth and Sally’s group, but this rejection still haunted me and had a major impact on my self-esteem. What started as “I wish I weren’t so fat” became, “There must be something so wrong with me that is causing them not to like me,” and “I am a horrible person and must not be good enough.”
As a child, I was not equipped to discern that what was happening to me was abnormal; therefore, I found no reason to run to the adults in my life to discuss it or to seek help. I have no doubt they would have wanted to help me, but for some reason, it was not a natural response.
Children often internalize their thoughts and feelings, drawing unhealthy conclusions about what is true. This was my reality, anyway, and by the age of ten, my brain had been hardwired to believe that something was wrong with me and that to avoid any rejection, I would need to figure out exactly how to perform. Whenever I was rejected, I concluded that I must not have performed perfectly; after all, had I done so, I wouldn’t have been rejected, right?
Keeping Up Appearances
Fast forward to the early 90s, and I was fresh out of high school. The love of my life had just dumped me for someone else, and the sting of rejection still haunted me. I already believed that I was fat and ugly, so this new season of my life only reinforced the idea that I must not have been pretty enough or skinny enough to keep my boyfriend. I simply concluded that I was not good enough. (It just keeps growing, doesn’t it?)
From there, I began a journey to improve my physical appearance. Exercise became a priority above all things, and I invested in weightlifting and cardio daily. I cut calories to unhealthy levels. Every single day I studied myself in the mirror, critiquing every ounce of my body that I felt was too big, wide, thick, or ugly. I spent hours doing my hair, making sure every strand was right where it was supposed to be. I entered each day as if I were dressing to perform on stage; I ended each day full of pressure to get up and do it all over again, all while juggling a job, college, and social life. To the outsider, I was succeeding at all I put my hands to. On the inside, perfectionism continued to suffocate me like weeds in a garden, causing extreme expectations of myself and anxiety and stress when I couldn’t live up to them.
By the time I had entered my mid-twenties, the not-good-enough belief system was so deeply rooted in me that it impacted every decision I made.
I continued to have failed relationships with men, mainly because I didn’t believe I was worth anything. I either picked men who were very unhealthy, or I felt too inadequate for the good ones, so I never gave them a real chance, though more than anything, I longed to love and be loved.
In my work life, I continued outperforming many of my peers, resulting in promotion after promotion. One day, I found myself in britches too big for my skill set, yet afraid to admit it to anyone. Determined to succeed, I suffered in silence while living with high levels of anxiety and fear on a daily basis. I constantly felt as if I had no idea what I was doing yet assumed I had to figure it out on my own. To admit my weaknesses would make me look bad in the eyes of my authorities. I strived even more to ensure I would not fail, and as usual, the rest of the world saw me performing at or above expectations. (Do you see the signs in my life?)
By day I managed to portray that all was well in my world. Meanwhile, several nights a week, I was out drinking and partying to help drown the noise and pain within. Some may even say I was a high-bottom addict. I started attending AA meetings to fix whatever was happening inside of me, but nothing seemed to stick, and every day, I felt as though my insides were screaming so loudly that my body would implode. My health grew increasingly worse, and at one point, I was getting strep throat and sinus infections about once per quarter as my immune system failed to keep up.
It was then that I knew there was no other place to turn but to God. He was the path I previously flirted with but now believed was my only way to real peace.
I dialed Janine, a long-time girlfriend who had left the party scene, found Jesus, and married her high school sweetheart. In my self-destructive mode, I had hurt her, but she met me with open arms and unconditional love. She and her pastor’s wife guided me through Scripture as I sought new answers to the pain within. It all brought such hope and excitement to me that on October 16, 1994, I surrendered my heart, declared my commitment to Jesus, and was baptized.
Looking back, I can’t say I understood all that was happening. The doctrine I was taught placed great emphasis on water baptism, and most of what I understood was that I needed to be baptized to be saved from the consequence of sin and eternal damnation. I couldn’t tell you what the “Blood of Christ’’ meant or what His death did for me; I barely knew what water baptism meant. What I can tell you, years later, knowing God as I know Him today, is that He honored my heart. The very little I did know, I acted on with sincerity and a true desire to be right with Him. Because of that, He lovingly accepted me into the Kingdom.
So that’s it, right? All was now well, my sins were washed clean, and I was a whole new creature. Perfection!
Except you and I both know it doesn’t work like that. Salvation was just the beginning.
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