The Joker
Growing up I loved puzzles, word searches, board games, video games, movies, science, experiments, challenges. Movies were most interesting to me, and much of my time was spent watching movies, researching how they made movies, scenes, awards, etc. The movies I enjoyed most were ones of thick dialogue, mysteries, and interweaving story lines and plots. I loved it. It was my thing. Math was hard, but I loved new ideas, learning about new concepts and how things work at school. It transitioned much of this to my teenage years and adult life with the additions of loving meeting new people, travelling, having meaningful conversations, and helping people solve their problems. Curiosity. Questioning. Problem solving. I love it. It’s probably one of the reasons I’m an OT. But the biggest problem that I’ve been consistently curious about, massively puzzled with, and have questioned constantly is:
Me.
Or so I thought.
After coming off medications 4 or so years ago and some failed attempts at counseling back in 2016, I thought that it was going to be really difficult to find someone to chat with about my depression and anxiety about and not feel like my feelings or emotions aren’t really and/or present. In 2018, when my fiancée and I moved to BC, I took it as a fresh start. Moved across the country with our two dogs and there was a big part of me that was being held back still by this overwhelming heaviness on my chest and shoulders. Like my heart was in overdrive half the time and normal the next. I looked up some counselors and decided to give it another try. Early on it was really hard for me to let those walls down, even though I was craving connection to someone who understood my challenges and struggles. Trust is the foundation of any therapeutic relationship, because if your client doesn’t trust you, you don’t have shit.
I sat and spoke. She asked meaningful questions. She was curious. She listened. She called me on my shit. And over the first few months, slowly but surely those walls started coming down. I felt like I might be able to get somewhere and get to the bottom of this. Over the past two years in therapy, I’ve been introduced and re-acquainted to a few friends of mine. I’ve had chances to sit down with them. They come to work. To the gym. To the mall. Trips. Home. Wherever. Whenever. My friends are Perfectionism, Inner Critic, and Shame.
Perfectionism, shame and my DJ Inner Critic spin tracks like “Secret between you and I” and “You’re not good enough for me.” Classics. These have haunted the areas of my mind for some time now and the way I’ve felt throughout most of my student and professional life. It’s been really self-destructive.
To be honest, I never really thought of myself growing up, to be a perfectionist. Sure, it’s easy to look back now and pick out pieces, but I wasn’t introduced to this trait until recently and it’s a piece of the puzzle I’m trying to figure out and that is perfectionism. I quote Brene Brown (simply because I love her work and I think she does the best job at defining it from my perspective), but she defines perfectionism as a “personality trait characterized by a person's striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.” So, where did this all come from for me? I think some came from perceived pressures to perform socially in sports and academics growing up. In my teens, I struggled with self-esteem and being accepted. I think being “perfect” is portrayed consistently in magazines, TV shows, pop culture, social media, etc. Repetition of achieving 100% as the benchmark for success. High grades. University. Job that pays well. My point of this is not too place blame, because I have a problem to solve, and that’s not going to do anything. That was then, this is now. Let’s talk about perfection.
In school, I identified with being perfect early on (secretly). It showed up in my work at the library, typing papers, doing research, by myself, at the gym, playing ball. I wanted to do well and I set really high standards for myself academically and professionally. Probably deep down, it was wanting me to prove something to someone or some thought, but it started out as high standards and accepting this was the only way these could be approached. It showed up later in my masters saying yes to every opportunity, doing presentations and beating myself up afterwards, taking chances, taking on too much work, studying hard, partying, relationships, part time work, in excess. Likely not seeing the entire learning opportunity in front of me, but rather wanting to get to end line, and doing it perfect along the way. I know it shows up in school, with the excessive time it takes me to format a simple assignment title page to ensure the second page starts with the number 1 and no 0 shows up, to perfect centering, to formatting, to ultimately not being satisfied by the end result of my work and questioning it all of the time. My perfectionist tendencies tend to come out in my work with thoughts of “Oh but I missed a bolding area on the client’s report,” That session wasn’t perfect,” proper formatting, taking on too many clients, etc. In my recovery, my meditation must be perfect, my breaths exactly right, mindfulness exercises, find the missing clue in the endless self-help books. Often my perfection gets in the way of me “doing”, and has me caught up in my head thinking about the all or nothing attempts that I take towards my work, responsibilities, and learning.
Next up to bat we have DJ Inner Critic. That inner voice that shows up regularly, unannounced, sporting a nagging, condescending voice that talks shit about you all day, about you – INSIDE YOUR OWN HEAD. I’ve spoken with my inner critic. He’s a dick. He’s been inside my head for the longest time, I’ve formed a narrative, perfectly curated and perfected by him, for me that formulates questions of “Why didn’t you do that?” “Why didn’t you go to the gym?” Why’d you eat those chips?” “That report was shit.” “That session should’ve been better.” “Are you sure you did enough?” He’s essentially a subconscious personality that I truly despise that has demeaned me, judged me and told me I’m not good enough. I believe(d) him. So now that we have Perfectionism and an inner critic that talks to you constantly about how terrible you are, we have the real kick in the pants, and that bugger is SHAME.
I spoke a bit about shame before in previous posts, but again, Brené Brown, describes shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we've experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” Yup. It fits. And about 6 months into my therapy here in BC, my therapist and I were having a conversation about my deep sense of guilt that I felt for experiences in the past, when it was actually just shame, and not guilt at all. From what I’ve learned, guilt is associated as an emotion where we feel bad or conflicted in thinking we’ve done something wrong. Whereas shame for me is something more complex, much deeper, and much more hateful being. Shame is the belief that I am not good enough. I am not worthy because of something I’ve done, experienced, or failed to do. And I’ve felt this for years. So long ago that I can’t really remember the last time I didn’t feel this way about myself.
The quite brutal reality of shame is that it gets along well with all the undesirables. Perfectionism and inner critic’s, and then it also gets along really well with depression and anxiety. It’s that feeling some mornings where I feel the invisible weight, feeling impossible to get out of bed. It’s feeling flawed after social interactions at work with clients and families. It’s feeling incapable of managing finances or my future. It’s what I believed for years. I am not good enough at work. The work I produce is not worthy. I have a lot of student debt, which must mean I am not worthy. I am not good enough for anyone, so why even bother with relationships. What’s the point in this life if I’m not worthy? You get my point. It’s this ongoing cognitive narrative that is just on replay day after day, and week after week. And it gets to you. It feeds off of fear and insecurities and nests there like a parasite. I have a cocktail of all the undesirables that have been present for far too long.
The most recent example of all of these working together was at work, and when I started my new job in BC. This same routine of shame likely appeared in most of my other jobs before it from my own perception, but nonetheless here’s an example. In 2018 I came to work as an OT at a private company in BC. I took on way too much work initially, thinking well I can do things perfectly so this shouldn’t be a problem. New assessment? Sure. New problem? Sure. Tight deadlines. Sure. I was doing it AGAIN. Keeping everything inside at work and in my personal life to put on a show of perfection. And to no one’s surprise I’m sure, I really struggled to keep up for about a year. This was a new world, I had great mentorship that talked me through things and was there to answer my questions, and I had so much “new to learn.” Pediatrics. Sensory Integration. Gross Motor. Fine Motor. It was a world where I wanted to be and knew I wanted from my core but had to play catch up fast and adjust to the fast pace.
To some I probably looked like I was thriving. I had great clients, great admin and coworkers, and it provided the flexibility I needed. But deep down, the part that I couldn’t show to the world, was being scared of this new adjustment to a world I didn’t know everything about, and likely wouldn’t. Fear. Anxiety. Major depression. Panic attacks at 4 in the morning over uncontrollable thoughts. Sweating, puking, crying. I felt shame about not being perfect, and my inner critic reminded me of that daily. I felt shame that I was at work for so many hours, and not getting everything, I needed to get done in an 8-hour day, resulting in 60-70-hour work weeks. My inner critic saying “Hey ya bud that’s not good enough.” And I still believed it. Every word. Questioning my every move. But then I started to sit with my shame in sessions with my therapist and figure this fucker out. Because essentially what I did was work myself into overdrive on every single job that I had, on 6th gear into perfectionist avenues of late-night papers and after work reporting and documentation, and my inner critic sitting shotgun, sipping coffee saying where too next!?
Everyone will likely experience shame in different ways and for me I know my shame comes from unrealistic perfectionism, self-esteem, and pure fear. Fear of what? Well a lot of it has to do with perfectionism and perceived failing. And a lot of my shame comes from the fact that for years I’ve been scared to be myself and show the real me and trying to be anything but.
Over the past 2 years I’ve started taking steps out of my old shell, with a fresh and new body emerging as a whole, both mentally and physically. Some areas I’ve been working on in and out of therapy sessions include:
· Setting clear boundaries at work with what I will and will not do; with clients and families; and with coworkers.
· Around accepting that what I do is good enough. That what other people think of me does not define who I am as a person.
· I have started to challenge my inner critic and started asking him why he’s there, thinking through what he’s telling me and challenging it with positive thinking and self-compassion.
· Showing myself love and acceptance in times of mistakes, perceived failure, anxiety, and depression.
· I have been working on communication in my relationships at work and with some family and friends.
· Understanding that my perfectionism and inner critic are just trying to protect me from being who I actually am. And that I might have to be vulnerable sometimes and face the hard work that I have ahead of me.
Ultimately, I am transforming into the person I always wanted to be, and it’s been really quite satisfying to see. Being able to write and talk to you helps me in the process of finally accepting who I am. This is the hardest work I’ve had to do behind the scenes, but with a two-year investment in therapy and application, I’m learning and I’m adapting to new ways of doing things and feeling emotions that I haven’t felt before. Comfortable? Nope. It’s unbelievably uncomfortable. But instead of questioning my worth and why I am here; I’m starting to see some light. I’m starting to see that when I get past these now clearly defined obstacles called shame, perfection, and my inner critic, there’s going to be something really great on the other side. Pretending to be someone you’re not is exhausting and when you do it for so long, with the same negative script wreaking havoc on your neurological connections – it attacks your inner soul and drains its energy. Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety can consume your life. I get it and I have lived this way long enough to tell you what all the symptoms, emotions, and fallouts feel and look like. I don’t pretend to be an expert on perfection, shame, and it’s evil. But the thing is, is that I’ve come to a point where I’ve stood face to face with my harshest critics and challenges, that I’m finally finding some answers to my most difficult problem to solve and why I feel the way I do. For the first time in years I feel like I’m inching closer to the person I always wanted to be. Trying to show myself a little love along the way and reminding myself I’m a good person. A good therapist. A good partner. And worthy.
If you’re stuck and looking for a good place to start, here are a few books that have helped me along the way:
- At home:
o “Daring Greatly” by Dr. Brené Brown
o “The Courage to be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
- For work and helping with shame, perfectionism, and leadership I’ve really enjoyed these:
o “Great at Work” by Morten T. Hansen
o “Dare to Lead” by Dr. Brené
- TED Talks
o Sangu Delle : https://www.ted.com/talks/sangu_delle_there_s_no_shame_in_taking_care_of_your_mental_health