On the evening of May 7, 2017, a young teenage girl buried her baby girl just hours after giving birth and mere hours after her high school prom. The teenage mum’s name is Brooke Skylar Richardson or Skylar as she is known and she had given birth to the baby girl in secret. She told no one of her pregnancy, not even the father of the baby nor her boyfriend at the time.

The only person who knew was her gynaecologist who confirmed her pregnancy. At the time, Skylar told her doctor that she simply could not have the baby nor tell anyone she was pregnant.

The police arrested Skylar after the infant’s death was reported by Skylar’s gynaecologist. She claimed that the baby girl was stillborn and not knowing what else to do, she decided to bury her in the backyard of her home.

Authorities suspected that she had ended the baby’s life but could not prove how. They further claimed that she had tried burning the corpse of her deceased baby, presumably to destroy any proof of the baby’s existence but this claim was later retracted.

A straight-A student, cheerleader and generally viewed as a good girl, there was no doubt that Skylar holds herself up to incredibly high standards. What was illuminating however was that her pregnancy remained unnoticed due to her fluctuating weight from her long-term eating disorders, a sign of a twisted sense of perfectionism manifested by a mismatch between her ideal self-image and real self-image.

Skylar was afraid of what people would think of her and how she sees herself and this all overrode the miracle and preciousness of a baby’s life. Skylar is clearly a perfectionist and tried to control everything in her life, from her accomplishments, to her grades and her looks.

She had an expectation of what she ought to be and being a teenage mum did not fit into that perfect narrative. On an extreme end, this is what an obsessive pursuit of perfection can lead to. However, perfectionism presents itself in our daily lives, more than we care to admit.

What is perfectionism

Perfectionism is our pursuit of flawlessness in everything that we do. When perfectionists pursue perfection, they tend to not tolerate the slightest imperfections. Perfectionism is often seen as a desired virtue that gets brandished about as a badge of honour.

People who tend to proclaim themselves as perfectionists aren’t really focused on the perfect way of doing anything. Instead, they are focused on their way of doing things which they perceive to be the perfect way.

When you meet someone who insists on doing things their way, they say “I’m a perfectionist, I can’t help it if I want things to be great.”

Perfectionism also manifests as us being perpetually unhappy with what we have done or how we look as we always feel like we could have done better. Take grades for example, in school, I was always upset when I did not get the score I was expecting.

Even if the score was good, higher than average, I often felt disappointed with myself because I thought that if I scored 80%, I could have scored 85%.

It is not surprising that many of us are not happy with how we look. We might go on diets, attend bootcamps to change how we look physically, we might also deploy the arsenal of beauty treatments such as botox and laser therapy to achieve a certain quality of complexion.

Then there are people who go for endless cosmetic surgery chasing after the “perfect” look but what that is, is highly subjective to the individual. As we’ve seen from the socialite famously known as Cat Woman who had multiple surgeries to look like big cats or the British guy who wants to look like Jimin, a Kpop star because “Jimin is perfection”, our view of perfection is often skewed and often, a little odd.

Another form of perfectionism which we see everyday on social media is the need to appear perfect as opposed to being perfect. I am sure you have noticed all the perfect workouts, booty, clean diets, outfits of the day and everything else. #Instaperfect much?

Why we chase after perfection

The pursuit of perfection comes from how we view ourselves and what we can do. Sometimes we misconstrue perfectionism for standards and conscientiousness. However, perfectionism is often a guise for our defenses against threats to our self-esteem, self-worth and self-image.

When we do something “perfectly” or people commend us on how great we are at certain things, it reaffirms the positive aspects of who we are.

On the other hand, when we fail at something or simply don’t do as well as before, we let that one thing view ourselves negatively. Say for example you are someone who prides yourself on being a good student and yet find yourself struggling to study and to achieve decent grades in university. How would that make you feel about yourself? A little less worthy perhaps?

Or how about looks? Do you feel better about yourself when you look good? What is your definition of good looking and do you try to match that? Or how about when you are scrolling through Instagram and see the perfect bodies and faces, does that make you feel bad about how you look and do you try to change how you look accordingly?

How we view ourselves feeds into our self-esteem and our self-worth. When we think we look good, did good, we feel great about ourselves and even then, that joy is often fleeting. And we look for the next bone to pick, next goal to reach for.

Our pursuit for perfectionism, however, is not a singular endeavour.

Psychologists have found that there are two dimensions to perfectionism:

1. Perfectionistic strivings
2. Perfectionistic concerns

Perfectionistic strivings are associated with the positive aspects such as the want to achieve more and improve oneself.

Perfectionistic concerns on the other hand are associated with the negative aspects of perfectionism such as chronic anxiety over our perceived flaws and the perpetual fear that we are never good enough.

Thus, a healthy perfectionist (if ever there was such a person) would score high on perfectionistic strivings and low on perfectionistic concerns. This balances out our need to achieve and improve and our human nature of worrying about judgement and worthiness.

Negative impact of perfectionism

We use perfectionism as an excuse for getting our way or an excuse for procrastinating. We justify not turning in work on time or putting in effort by claiming perfectionism.

At the first hurdle we face when trying new things, we stop ourselves from going further by telling ourselves that if we can’t be perfect at it, why do it at all? We limit ourselves by only choosing activities that we are already good at.

Most of us think of perfectionism as our strive to do better, to improve, to do something well. In reality, perfectionism is often a mask that we put on to stop ourselves and others from seeing the flaws we have. Perceived or otherwise.

If we are constantly occupied with putting on the “perfect” mask in front of others, our self-esteem suffers because we feel like our real self, warts and all, is not good enough for anyone else, including ourselves.

This sense of judgement on ourselves can often force us to judge others harshly and unreasonably as the yardstick we are using on them is just as unattainable as the one we use on ourselves.

Another negative consequence of chronic perfectionism is the inability to cope with life’s stresses and facing up to the truth about our own capabilities. Just think about it, if everything that happens in life needs to happen your way (which it never does) or when something throws your plans out the window, wouldn’t it just stress you out?

When that happens, what do we do? We lash out, we blame and criticise not just others but ourselves too.

When we fail to meet our expectations, it upsets the balance between how we see ourselves and what we are forced to acknowledge. Even though a failure in one thing is only a small part of us, it changes how we see ourselves in our entirety.

We see ourselves as less capable, we increase our negative self-talk and in time, chronic self-loathing and self-criticism causes us to become depressed, anxious and uncertain about who we are.

Accepting that perfection is flawed logic

There is no doubt that we should strive for excellence in the things we do. But the truth is perfection does not exist. We do not have perfect faces, bodies nor possessions. Our lives are imperfect. We are imperfect beings. Even our faces are asymmetrical naturally.

“God does not build in straight lines.”

– Charlie Holloway, Prometheus

There is simply nothing wrong with imperfections.

We love our partners for their strange quirks, we love pets who are a little out there, we want things that are imperfect and not cookie cutter because someone took their time to make them individually.

Study suggests that there is no positive form of perfectionism because pursuing perfection is chasing the impossible. Instead, a healthier way of looking at the positive side of perfectionism is focusing on striving for excellence instead. When we strive for excellence, we are simply looking at doing something the best we can as opposed to doing it perfectly.

Here is another way we might think about imperfections:

There is a Japanese art of repairing pottery called Kintsugi. This artform involves repairing broken ceramics with golden lacquer. In this way, the repairs are not hidden, if anything, they are proudly displayed like battle scars.

The imperfections are not shameful, instead, they add to the beauty and history of the pottery, they are there to be admired and appreciated.

Likewise, imperfections are a part of us. We shouldn’t be ashamed of our perceived flaws, instead we should embrace our perfect imperfections.

What about you, do you hide behind perfectionism and why?