Perfection is Paralyzing

If you read my first post, first of all, Thank You!  I feel like giving some background will set the stage for why I am so passionate about reclaiming my health(both mental and physical) and helping others do the same.

I continued my late teens trying to be “perfect”. I was a people pleaser (still am to some degree) to the extreme and was ALWAYS worried about what others thought about me. I had to get straight A’s in school, stay thin and didn’t want to try anything new if I didn’t think I could excel at it.   This drive helped me reach third in my high school graduating class and summa cum laude in college. I fractured my humerus(“shoulder”) after slipping on the ice my senior year of high school and the Orthopedic said it was a fracture he saw in 80 year olds. This should have been a clue that I wasn’t eating for my heath. However, in college I ate 1 slice of raisin bread for breakfast(or small bowl of cereal), a rice cake and apple for lunch and salad for dinner. I didn’t drink on weekends like my suite-mates. I was too homesick and went home as often as I could, and looking back I think home was where I felt more “in control” so didn’t want to chance staying in the partying environment of college.

As you can tell from above, all this need for control meant I missed out on a LOT of life experiences. Years I can’t get back. It has taken me a long time and a lot of reflection to see the truths of that time of my life. No one could tell me otherwise, I was never pretty enough, thin enough or smart enough. The more accolades I got the harder I felt I had to try to keep that up. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, which of course led me to living as a shell of what I really could have been.

Perfection is paralyzing, I see this now. Years of chasing something that doesn’t exist takes it’s toll on you and those that love you.   Now I have to let the “what if” or “what could have been” thoughts go  when I think how much more I could have given to those around me if I had not been so obsessed with how I looked or what others thought of me.