My friend Bob recently shared with me the term “maladaptive perfectionism” in another context, essentially describing a personality trait. I decided, however, that the term pretty succinctly summarized some of my own struggles over the years – especially when younger but continuing through the present moment.
I had a further insight yesterday. I was watching Arthur struggle with a piece of saran wrap, over at least 20 or 30 minutes’ time span. He was cussing. He was throwing things. He was refusing my offers to help. This happens more and more often, with Arthur, and there’s little that can be done. Typically, I flee the room and let him deal with it on his own. His reflexes and physical abilities cannot match the mental picture he harbors of what his reflexes and physical abilities should be. This is exacerbated by his memory issues – his brain isn’t very good at updating old self-images with new ones, even in the face of overwhelming new evidence.
This led me back to thinking about my own “maladaptive perfectionism,” and it occurred to me that this is an issue not with behavior but with belief. It’s about the interaction between expectation and self-image. Unrealistic expectation vis-a-vis self-image leads to frustration, and the broader the mis-match, the more the frustration. But self-image can be incorrect, and over-determined by fantasy, by past experience under circumstances that no longer apply, or by many other factors. Therefore fixing the problem of “maladaptive perfectionism” is a matter of changing beliefs, not changing behavior.
