The Dead End of Perfectionism

One of the hallmarks of the "as-if" personality and imposter syndrome is perfectionism. Anything is excluded that might displease, and one aims to avoid whatever could be interpreted as discordant or misshapen. This person is lured by the relief of fantasy and creates images, ideas, and events to cover the assumed personality flaws. Social media promotes these presentations of oneself.

Perfectionism is based on the shame and panic the person feels must be hidden and denied. In striving to be perfect, adopting a persona of confidence and surety, one becomes false and puts on facades.

However, perfection is never satisfied and inevitably turns destructive. Nothing—and no one—is good enough or lasts long enough. The good easily dissipates as each next endeavor is needed to prop up the personality. This way of thinking and perceiving the world occurs when one grows up without a foundation of support, safety, or sufficient nurturing. It can be a reaction to childhood trauma or cultural expectations, or unconsciously reactive to transgenerational issues. Appearing perfect becomes a strategy to emotionally survive and cope with the lingering distrust in the environment, self, and others.

The gnawing emptiness signals the lack of a secure identity. One is always uneasy and needs validation and positive evaluation by others. One must be stellar and without any issues, or succumb to the crush of despair and defeat. The sense of solid identity is easily jeopardized in the anticipated abandonment for any infraction. Anguished by the smallest detail and assessed as doing poorly, this reaction is based on low self-esteem and feeling battered, without reserves or defense to make it through.

Self-negating thoughts and actions are set up against imagined standards of perfection. In the progressive deadening of the self, one enters a sort of wandering, repeating the original losses, refusing reflection to escape introspection. Relationships are based on disguise and learned inauthenticity. Coming to really be oneself feels fragmentary and precarious. Although this person is often social and exhibits the expected presentation, seemingly capable of warmth, emotional depth is stunted, and the person feels unable to emerge or be safely seen.

There is also the issue of self-hatred indicating “a basic division between the ego and self when the spontaneous being of the person is always hated, feared and attacked” (Colman, 2008, p. 363). The frantic need is to avoid the impact of shame and self-hatred and is not easily eradicated. “Hatred is paradoxical. It emerges from traumatic origins and involves primitive defence mechanisms of the self…but it manifests itself at a sophisticated level of consciousness where ego fragments have coalesced, albeit in a distorted way, to form a fixed complex” (Weiner, 1998, p. 499). In other words, hatred of self, driven by perfectionism, causes one to become frozen, separated from within.

Culturally, social media and the superficial focus represent a compromised search for knowing oneself. Identity cannot be found behind the masks of social media touch-ups. The mounting disruption of oneself is accentuated by a persona set in place for the social media world. This is a perpetual re-impersonation dependent on the judgment of others and the need to fit in. No complete self is offered or seemingly desired. Instead, the false self and shell of persona house the identity. One then picks up an identity for a while and becomes it temporarily, assuming the face of the one they imagine looking at them. Aiming to be a media queen means packaging oneself in the cloak of facade. This facade makes it seem the person is there when they are not. But where are they? Airbrushed, tinted, trimmed, or reshaped, they become an object, needing to hide their vulnerable and sensitive reactions in the search for self-legitimization.

These people learned to maintain themselves through split selves, partially engaged in relationships but remaining emotionally hidden, mostly to themselves, unable to commit or to find their depth, meaning, or fulfillment. The talents are there, but the dedication to their individuality is curtailed. Little remains of the intimate and private in social media. Not truly a tool of communication, social media arouses a sense of isolation as the virtual substitutes for person-to-person connection. Contact with the world is feigned as there is no real personal or touchable entry to oneself or others. Too much becomes reduced to the general or the trivial as appearance substitutes for being and general for individual. The reality of one’s emotions seems muted or wildly uncensored. Basically, the passion for self-exposure is stylized for popular consumption. The portrayals, whether true or not, make the idealized image seem to be what is sought and lauded. The attempt is to maintain fascination, yet there remains psychological remoteness that does not bring the real person near.

If the ego is too weak and life is behind the masks of the false self, then how can one begin to integrate the shadow? These are usually assigned to be the rejected parts of the personality, denied by the imposter in the attempt to be perfect. However, these are the parts that make us human. People hesitate to be in the present, living as if not really there, absent as humans. If we negate the real, we become liars like Pinocchio, whose nose grew every time he was dishonest.

What this all demonstrates is that the quest for perfectionism gets in the way of being genuine. Can we take the step into reality and reveal the truth of our being? The process can be difficult, but it is the way to develop a secure personality. This journey is not driven by AI or the desperation for approval but is instead based on solidity and confidence, the courage to come forth in the reality of who one is. The question is, do each of us have the courage to do so?