Perfectionism is self abuse

Self abuse takes many forms, one of which is perfectionism.

Perfectionism is a strategy that we learn as a reaction to our shame that says we are fundamentally and beyond repair flawed. And so we subconsciously decide that we will not except any mistakes, anything that is less than perfect. We actually are striving to become more than human and overcompensate for what we are convinced that we are: bad and rotten at the core. And because perfection does not exist, what we actually do by expecting and wanting perfection is to abuse ourselves and harm ourselves.

We will never achieve it and even if we get close enough to what society would consider perfection, just because it is not actual perfection, our perfectionism will have us believed we have failed.

In order to start healing from perfectionism and the visceral need to be perfect, we first have to decide that we are human. Our humanness has it's own inherent limitedness (like for instance we cannot fly). We make mistakes and we are here to make mistakes because of what the mistakes mean: a chance/opportunity to learn a new lesson and move forward. You need to start telling yourself that it is ok to be human. Give yourself permission to see that there is a difference between making a mistake and being a bad and flawed person. Mistakes don't make you bad. Separate the doing from the being.