Breaking The Bonds Of Perfectionism – ‘12 Essential Insights For Emotional Sobriety’ by Dr. Allen Berger

I want you to meet Maria, who was struggling in her marriage and was sabotaging her own attempts to achieve emotional sobriety. As you will see, her unrelenting pressure to achieve perfection was making it impossible to achieve emotional sobriety. I would even say that for Maria, as for all of us, perfectionism is as much of a threat to our emotional sobriety as emotional dependency.

Maria had been working on her recovery for almost eight years but relapsed about three years ago, for an entire month. Maria was very proud of the years she had in recovery, which made the relapse even more devastating. She felt humiliated and became suicidal during the relapse, which resulted in her being hospitalized in a locked psychiatric ward for two days. Upon release, her shame was crippling. She had never imagined that she would drink again. She was still perplexed as to what happened that led to her relapse.

Maria said that during her relapse, her alcoholism was “stronger than ever.” This is not an unusual phenomenon for many of us in recovery. Addiction seems to progress whether someone is actively drinking or not, and relapse means we pick up where we’d be if we’d never stopped using at all. “It was like I’d just continued to drink for five years,” she said. “My behavior and drinking were crazy, out of control on a level I’d never imagined. It was humiliating.”

Maria’s Curse of Perfectionism

Let’s look at how Maria’s perfectionism was making a mess of things. Maria couldn’t tolerate displeasing her wife Judy. She became highly threatened whenever Judy was unhappy with her. Instead of sharing her vulnerability with Judy, she attacked her. She made Judy be in the wrong and therefore she, Maria, wouldn’t have to feel bad about not pleasing her.

She demanded that Judy be happy with everything she did to please her, no matter how Judy really felt about her actions. Maria claimed she wanted to please Judy because she loved her. But her behavior was not very loving.

Maria had a strange definition of love. She believed that love was contingent on the degree to which you made the other person’s life perfect. This was one of her core beliefs. If Judy wasn’t happy with her, then Maria feared that Judy would no longer love her. Judy’s love, in Maria’s mind and heart, was conditional. This meant that Maria had to be the perfect partner. She should never displease Judy, never screw up, never be imperfect. But this was also a projection of what Maria wanted. Maria’s love was conditional too. Judy had to appreciate everything Maria did to please her.

Maria’s expectations of perfection were relentless. She was willing to manipulate and control the woman she loved in order to prove that she was perfect. She was driven to be perfect because of her fear and anxiety that if she wasn’t perfect, she wouldn’t be loved, she wouldn’t belong, and she wouldn’t be accepted.

We can see that Maria didn’t want to please Judy as much as she demanded that Judy be pleased with her. That difference meant everything for Maria’s troubles. It affected the spirit behind what Maria did for Judy and what and how she gave to her.

Psychologist and author Dr. Jerry Greenwald observed that not all giving is truly generous. Sometimes we give to take. This kind of giving is a manipulation. He explains: “Relating with an expectation that others should respond to our giving in some positive fashion is a prime example of how we create a pattern of self-induced loneliness. Such expectations hamper our ability to become aware of how others actually do respond to us. A phony relationship of mutual manipulation is usually the consequence when two people relate to each other primarily on the basis of each other’s expectations” (1980, 52).

Maria was driven by perfectionism, which created a deep sense of loneliness. It also set up a deadly situation where she had to be perfect and Judy had to be perfect. Their marriage had to be perfect, which in Maria’s mind meant they were always pleased and happy with each other. There was no room, in Maria’s mind, for the kind of imperfection that is normal in relationships. In other words, there was no room in Maria’s consciousness for Judy. She didn’t show a concern for what Judy wanted or experienced—unless, of course, Judy’s response met Maria’s expectation.

For Judy, some of Maria’s “helpful” actions amounted to a “thank you for nothing, darling.” Maria did only what she thought should make Judy happy—not what Judy told her about what she wanted. It’s impossible to make someone happy without coordinating your efforts with the other person’s desires. But there wasn’t room for Judy to say what she wanted in the relationship; Maria took any feedback as criticism if it differed from what she believed Judy should want or feel. She’d say things like, “You never like anything I do for you,” and “I work hard day and night to make this marriage good and all you do is tear it down—do you want a divorce?” She just shut Judy down and silenced her, making her wrong for not being pleased with what Maria had done. This created quite a dilemma and was driving Judy out the door.

In truth, there was a part of Maria that genuinely wanted to please Judy, but there was another part of Maria that prioritized doing things perfectly. Maria was in conflict with the side of her that expected perfection. We are going to refer to this perfectionist side of Maria as her top dog bully.

Maria had the idea that she was responsible for Judy’s happiness, and therefore the burden was on her to make Judy happy. Why? Because her top dog bully told her so. It is common to take responsibility for your partner’s feelings when you are emotionally immature, but when you add perfectionism to this mix, you’ve really got a serious problem because you are then required to do a perfect job of managing your partner’s feelings.

Maria summed up her struggle when she said to me, “If you don’t do something perfectly, it’s not worth doing.” What a terrible curse she suffered from! And it was affecting more than her relationship with Judy. The curse of perfection was infecting every area of Maria’s life.

The Spawning of the Top Dog Bully

Perfectionism spawns a self-part called the top dog bully. This part of us is righteous, absolute in its thinking, authoritarian, and punitive. The top dog bully believes it is always right. It tells us, “You should” and “You should not” and “Why don’t you?” If these admonishments don’t work, the top dog bully becomes verbally abusive and sometimes even physically abusive. I’ve had patients slam fists into their face or even burn themselves with a lighter because they weren’t perfect. Although the top dog bully controls us like a puppet master, it has an impact on the outside world too, as it manipulates others to get what it needs in the same way it manipulates us. The top dog bully manipulates us with demands of perfection and threats of a future catastrophe, such as “If you don’t please your partner or if you aren’t perfect, you won’t be loved. You’ll be left all alone in the world. No one will want you.” This is what Maria’s top dog was telling her when Judy wasn’t pleased with her. It was driving Maria mad with fear that she was unworthy of Judy’s love. Maria’s top dog bully was running and ruining her life. Maria was treating Judy in the same way she treated herself. She bullied her with her top dog just like she bullied herself. Her top dog bully made it impossible to have a good relationship with Judy. It also limited her capacity to achieve emotional sobriety because the top dog bully required that she control people and events around her. Her top dog bully, her perfectionism, demanded that life conform to her expectations. As you know by now, this is the very definition of emotional dependency.

Dr. Fritz Perls saw perfectionism as the basis for the famous self-torture game we play with ourselves: We usually take for granted that the top dog is right. In many cases the top dog makes impossible perfectionistic demands. So if you are cursed with perfectionism, you are sunk. This ideal is a yardstick which always gives you the opportunity to browbeat yourself, to berate yourself and others. Since the ideal is an impossibility, you can never live up to it. The perfectionist is not in love with his wife. He is in love with his ideal, and he demands from his wife that she should fit in with this [Greek mythological] Procrustes bed of his expectations, and he blames her if she does not fit. I’d like to paraphrase those last two sentences, since they sum up the problem for Maria and Judy: The perfectionist in Maria was not in love with Judy but with her ideal of who Judy should be; she demanded that Judy measure up to her expectations and blamed Judy when she didn’t. Just imagine for a moment what it was like for both Judy and Maria to live under those rules.

Perfectionism is not doing things perfectly; it is expecting ourselves to do things perfectly. It is the relentless drive toward an unrealistic, inhuman, and unattainable goal. Perfectionism is an expectation of rigid precision: We should do things perfectly, others should do things perfectly, life should be perfect—which means life has to conform to our expectations. Some people assume that perfectionism means they actually do things perfectly. This is a misunderstanding of perfectionism. It is the relentless drive toward an unrealistic, inhuman, and unattainable goal.

The Origins of Perfectionism

What is the origin of the curse of perfectionism? How did our natural instinct to move toward wholeness, toward mastery, become hijacked by perfectionism? While it is beyond the scope to delve into a thorough undertaking of the origins of perfectionism, we must discuss one aspect of its genesis that relates to the concept of the idealized self. I have previously discussed how we develop a sense of self in relationship to our childhood anxiety that we aren’t going to be loved, be accepted, or belong to the group (Dr. Michael McGee, a brilliant psychiatrist, calls this a love wound). This anxiety drives us to search for a solution that will ensure our emotional security. Our “search for glory” results in adopting a persona that we believe will ensure love and acceptance. This becomes our false self or idealized self—the person who will be loved. You can trace the origins of Maria’s anxiety in her statements to Judy, “You are never pleased with anything I do. You are just like my mother.” Of course, we don’t know anything about Maria’s mother. But we hear Maria projecting onto Judy her deep anxiety about not being lovable—that is, not pleasing her own mother. In this we hear the origins of Maria’s idealized self, the persona that would please her mother and be lovable. We hoped this idealized self would be our salvation. But it wasn’t. Because it is false, we can’t really live up to it. Our true self always agitates and expands against the prison of this ideal. Perls noted that the critical point in our development is when we attempt to actualize (make real) a concept of who we should be (the ideal self) rather than actualizing our real self. Expectations are the by-product of actualizing a concept of who we should be. We expect that we should live up to the ideals of the false self. This mandate is absolute. We have to perfect the persona of the idealized self or else we won’t feel emotionally secure. Our “should demands” become the driving forces to actualize this ideal concept of who we should be. Like magma expanding against the earth’s crust, the true self is in constant struggle with the idealized or false self. The discrepancy between our true self and the superimposed, idealized self generates massive stress and strain in our lives, and as we face the possibility of failure, we experience ever-greater conflict and unhappiness. Our pursuit of perfection—of somehow aligning our fallible, human authentic self with the unblinking image of our idealized self—sabotages any chance for a happy and fulfilling life. Perls gave a ridiculously exaggerated example to make this point. “An elephant wants to be a rose bush; a rose bush wants to be an elephant. Until each resigns to being what they are, both will lead unhappy lives of inferiority” (1975a, 3). Perls is telling us that the person who attempts to actualize his or her real self expects the possible, whereas the person who wants to actualize a concept of who he or she should be attempts and expects the impossible. Maria’s demands for perfection limited her ability to function well within herself, within her recovery, within her marriage, and within other social situations. Maria was attempting the impossible. She was tearing herself and her relationship to pieces in order to live up to her unrealistic ideals. Her perfectionism was creating an impossible way of life.

Coping with Perfectionism

There’s a reason why Bill Wilson included the following passage in the Big Book: “No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles…. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines…. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection” (Big Book, 60).

Bill W. warned us that striving for perfect adherence to the principles of recovery would interfere with emotional sobriety. He anticipated that many of us had a streak of perfectionism that would threaten our recovery if it went unchecked. Maria needed to check this part of her. In a couples session with Judy and Maria, I challenged Maria, “You’re not in love with Judy. You think you are, but you are not. You’re in love with your idea of who she should be. You are in love with an ideal.” Maria turned and glared at me. She crossed her arms and demanded, “What are you talking about?” I held my ground. “I am talking about how you treat Judy. You say you love her and I believe you do, but the part of you that is running your life right now doesn’t know what it means to really love someone,” I told her. “There’s a bully inside you who is running your show. It’s the top dog, and the only thing your top dog knows to do is put demands on Judy to do its bidding. Your top dog bully doesn’t care about Judy—it cares about Judy’s obedience to its rules. It wants Judy to be a puppet, not a wife, and Judy is tired of it.” Judy began to cry. Her sobs, soft at first, grew louder and louder. I sensed Maria was starting to become aware of her outrageousness. I pressed on, “This is what Judy has been trying to tell you. It’s gotten lost in some of her demands, which we will talk about later. Judy loves you and wants to have a life with you, but there is no room for her with all of the rules your top dog bully puts on her,” I explained. “She hates that part of you, and all you do is defend your top dog as if it is the best of you. It is not! There’s another part of you that knows that what your top dog bully is doing to Judy, and even to you, is wrong.” At that, the magma force of Maria’s true self surged forth. Now Maria started crying. Soon heavy, heartfelt sobs surged from her core. At length she said, “I do know that I’m wrong, but it’s so hard for me to admit it.” I told Maria that I’d like for her to think about it in a different way. “It’s not hard for you to admit you are wrong—you just did it. It’s hard for your top dog bully to admit it’s wrong. When it is in charge, it won’t admit that it is wrong. I think you need to learn how to deal with your top dog bully before you can learn to have a better relationship with Judy. What do you think?” She agreed. I asked Maria to confront her top dog. She put it in the empty chair across from her. Frowning, Maria said, “This is long overdue. You’ve been ruining my life with all your demands and rules!” As she continued, her words slowed, coming between tears. “You’re just like my mother. Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. You’re doing that same thing to me, and now you’re hounding Judy too. And if anyone knows how much that hurts, I do! Leave Judy alone. Leave me alone. Enough is enough.” She turned to Judy and sincerely said, “I am so sorry.” She sobbed for about five minutes.

Next, I asked Maria to be her top dog and respond to Maria. Maria’s top dog said, “You don’t want me to leave you alone. You need me. I make certain that everything you do is right. You’d be even more of a screwup if you didn’t have me. You’d never stay sober and you’d never find someone stupid enough to love you.”

“Okay, Maria,” I said, “now switch and respond to your top dog.” Speaking as herself, Maria said, “I know this is what you’ve been telling me for a long time and I’ve believed you before, but I’m beginning to see that you are the real problem. I thought I needed you to be okay, and what I’m realizing is that I’ve given you unlimited power.” She continued, “I can see that you are the reason I relapsed. I couldn’t stand your pressure. I let you put it on me to have a perfect program of recovery. The only way I’ve known to deal with you is to shut you up by getting drunk. No more. I don’t want to hurt myself anymore. I don’t want to hurt Judy anymore. You work for me now. I am no longer working for you!”

Striving to do things perfectly is destructive only if we let it become so. Maria was recovering her lost, true self. She was on her way to achieving emotional sobriety.

Emotional sobriety is realized when there is an appropriate balance and coordination of all that we are. Maria had been out of balance, and her top dog had been running the show. In individual therapy, she reorganized her personality and put a much healthier part of herself in charge. This part of her was humble, willing to learn. This part of Maria disagreed with the top dog and the rules it had for Maria, and she brought that dog to heel. This part of her accepted the imperfections that are a part of life.

Things were starting to get better for Maria and Judy. Their relationship was on a new and healthier trajectory. Bill W. understood that emotional sobriety is contagious.

In the beginning of his discussion of Step Twelve in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, he noted, “Here we begin to practice all Twelve Steps of the program in our daily lives so that we and those about us may find emotional sobriety”.

As we transform our emotional immaturity into emotional sobriety, others respond. They become more honest with themselves. When we lead by example, honesty is contagious. Emotional sobriety thrives. I am reminded that it takes just one emotionally mature person to have a better relationship. Maria’s clarity and work inspired Judy’s clarity and hope. The drive for perfection can destroy us and our relationships, but it is not all bad. This is what Maria revealed when she said to her top dog bully—her perfectionist self—“You work for me now.” Doing things to please our partner (when our partner actually will be pleased by them) can be a good and generous activity that helps make our lives better. Striving to do things perfectly (or very well) is destructive only if we let it become so. My mentor, psychiatrist Dr. Walter Kempler, had some words of wisdom for me on a day when I was struggling with my own perfectionism: “Listen Allen, there is nothing wrong with you striving to do things perfectly, as long as you don’t fool yourself into thinking you can achieve perfection. Being perfect is impossible. Your problem is that you expect to do the impossible.” He was right on that day, and his words have helped me find freedom from my own top dog bully. I hope his words help you too.