Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - The Driving Forces The Pressure of Perfectionism & The Angst of All-Or-Nothing

English: perfectionist measuring and cutting grass (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post continues with The Driving Forces: THE PRESSURE OF PERFECTIONISM and THE ANGST OF ALL-OR-NOTHING from Chapter Nine.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

The Driving Forces

Every workaholic isn't necessarily obsessive. But most strongly obsessive people are workaholics - driven to overwork by any number of their obsessive traits, including the following leading culprits.

THE PRESSURE OF PERFECTIONISM

The person who can't tolerate making mistakes, or who has to be perceived as irreproachable, is more likely to find himself at his deak late at night, laboring to catch any possible error and striving to make his work perfect. Lydia, for example, was a thirty-one-year-old travel agent who worked until eight or nine o'clock every evening - two or three hours longer than all the other agents in her office. She was not paid for putting in the extra hours, but she couldn't bear the thought of overlooking any of the details that would give her clients the best possible trips. <snip>

"I really enjoy my time off," Lydia insisted. "And my husband has pleaded with me for years to come home earlier. I'd like to, but I really empathize with my clients, and I simply have to do my best for them."

<snip> One other aspect of perfectionism also can foster workaholism. Remember that subscribing to the Perfectionist's Credo often results in unproductive and time-consuming behavior patterns. Fear of making an error may cause the perfectionist to procrastinate, for instance, or he may waffle over decisions, or be unable to wrap up his projects. As a result, some perfectionists have to work long just to accomplish the same amount as someone less perfectionistic.


THE ANGST OF ALL-OR-NOTHING

The familiar force of all-or-nothing thinking also shapes the work-heavy lifestyles of many obsessives. They seem to feel as if cutting back on their work hours even slightly will lead them to cut back more and ever more, eventually bringing them to a horrifying state of indolence.

Many find it hard to start certain projects, knowing that once they start they'll have trouble stopping before the task is completed (and perfectly, at that). Their reluctance to interrupt the work, in turn, comes partly from their knowledge that if they lose their momentum it'll be hard to start up again. It's a vicious cycle that is conveyed by one character in Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again:

"I've got an idea that a lot of the work in this world gets done by lazy people. That's the reason they work - because they're so lazy.... It's this way: You work because you're afraid not to. You work because you have to drive yourself to such a fury to begin. That part's just plain hell! It's so hard to get started that once you do you're afraid of slipping back. You'd rather do anything than go through that agony again - so you keep going... til you couldn't stop even if you wanted to... Then people say you're a glutton for work, but it isn't so. It's laziness - just plain simple, damned, simple laziness, that's all.

***

I was helping my ex with a set of back bank reconciliations. It was off by eleven cents - and he had to find those eleven cents. No matter how long it took.

Logically, that's not cost-effective. If you make, say $20 an hour for your services (I charge a lot more), each minute of your time is worth at least thirty-three cents. I tend to want to look for that dime, too, like filling in the last line of a crossword puzzle, but I have learned that devoting hours to prove that the bank cleared a check for $xx.56 when they should have cleared it for $xx.66 is not the best use of my time.

I, too, fear losing momentum. But not finishing something isn't the worst thing in the world. I *have* been able to pick up again where I left off.

These are the two things facets that (to me) seem to link OCPD to hoarding (again, not all OCPD'rs hoard, and not all who hoard have OCPD.) But hoarders can't think big picture. Their attitude is, why even start unless you're prepared to devote the entire day or weekend, keep going until you're done?

Sometimes this makes sense.  For instance, when it's the middle of the rainy season, here in So Cal, and there's the forecast for two days of sunshine, is not the smartest time to try to have your roof repaired. But most jobs CAN be tackled in small bites.

And when you keep adding more things to the room/closet/garage, you will never, ever be able to finish in one day.

Do you know someone who stays up late correcting minor mistakes?
Who works extra hours to make sure his/her work is perfect?
Or who won't start a big project unless it can be done?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 5 - Demands & Work Blocks; The Ruination of Work

from Ambro at Free Digital Photos

This post continues with Demands and Work Blocks; The Ruination of Work  from Chapter Five.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Demands and Work Blocks

I saw this in Jane, a fifty-one-year-old grant writer who came to me when she began to have trouble making progress on an assignment.  Jane had a very productive work history, so this development surprised and upset her. <snip>

Although she normally chose her own projects, this one had been assigned by her supervisor.  At first Jane rejected the notion that this one factor could be the cause of her trouble.  She conceded that by all standards, the assignment had been a reasonable one, and while she didn't find the project particularly exciting, neither could she truthfully say it was repugnant.  And it clearly fell within her sphere of responsibility.<snip>

<snip> She was soon able to see how, with her boss and with me, her resentment and balking were not only unreasonable but self-damaging.  That is, they were obstacles to what she wanted to do and were undermining her success (although she was totally unaware of their influence.)

<snip> What begins as an effective means of self-protection becomes overdeveloped, indiscriminate, or automatic.

THE RUINATION OF WORK

In the area of work, demand-resistance need not take the form of a full-blown block to be damaging.  Work may simply weight heavily on the obsessive, or she may have trouble concentrating.  She may feel a festering resentment that saps her creativity and enthusiasm.  Eventually she may have trouble motivating herself to do more than the minimum of what is required of her.  And her projects often wind up bearing the subtle mark of her resentment - coming in late, or with some small detail omitted, or in a form slightly different from what was requested.

You might be thinking that every employee sometimes resents being asked to do unpleasant tasks or having to carry out the wishes of superiors.  That's true.  The demand-resistant worker, however, is apt to sense demands that aren't even there, and to dread or drag his feet on tasks that aren't at all unpleasant.  He's also likely to find himself feeling burdened by jobs he initially wanted to do.  Even self-employed obsessives can experience inner demands as somehow coming from the outside.  With no boss or supervisor to blame, they focus their resentment on the work itself, their clients, or their dependents (who are "making" them work).

When demand-resistance sabotages their on-the-job performance, many obsessives start to feel demoralized because normally they take pride in their ability to work effectively.  For many, the "solution" to this dismaying turn of events is to rationalize the resentment of, and alienation from, their work in ways that enhance rather than hurt their self-image. <snip> The obsessive tells himself he's a victim of exploited conscientousness.  <snip>  "...No one appreciates my efforts and, worse, they're wasted, because the system is sloppy and inefficient."  His feelings of victimization explain his negative attitude towards his work, and meanwhile, the real culprit, his demand-resistance, goes undetected.

***

I think I have normal demand-resistance.  When a supervisor wants me to say, do Task A this morning, when in my mind I am already working out how I'm going to do Task B, it's something of a mental and emotional wrench for me to shift gears.  Sometimes it's easier for me than other times; and sometimes I will negotiate, "I'm working on Task B, and I have to have it by 1:00; can I do Task A  later on?"

My ex, on the other hand, expressed extreme demand-resistance.  Not to a supervisor - he hadn't worked in many years, but when he did talk about his prior employer, there were many stories sprinkled in about how they wanted him to do a project in X way, and he insisted on doing it Y way, or not giving up on something until it was tested to his satisfaction.

As someone who was basically self-employed, he would assign himself tasks - and drag them out.  Avoid others altogether.  And pretty much anything I suggested he do re: home projects was a non-starter, even if he had brought it up himself.  For example, he might say, "I should clean up and sell my ATV" (which hadn't been taken off-road in 20 years, and was taking up a fair amount of space in the garage).  I might agree mildly, and then at a later date, suggest we take a look at the Recycler or Craigslist to get an idea of the going price for said ATV.

Six years later, he still hadn't found the time to even begin determining its fair market value, let alone  think about cleaning it up, taking a farewell ride, or placing an ad.  In the beginning, when I didn't know about OCPD or demand-resistance, I thought perhaps he just needed a little nudging and encouragement.  By the end, I realized that even my agreeing with him about a project made him much less likely to do it (though he managed to resist and postpone plenty of things without my  input).  I felt too emotionally exhausted (and resistant, myself) to play the "reverse psychology" game.

And boy oh boy, was he full of resentment about his heavy workload, and how overworked and unappreciated he was - though he "worked" at home, and I was working 40 hours a week plus doing all the grocery shopping.  I also did the dishes every night, vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned the bathroom on the weekends.

Does demand-resistance affect your work, or that of someone you love?
Do you know someone who's lost a job or 
become unemployable due to demand-resistance?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 4 - Overcoming Indecisiveness & the Fear of Commitment

This post continues with Overcoming Indecisiveness and the Fear of Commitment from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

Overcoming Indecisiveness and the Fear of Commitment

If a person cannot make decisions or avoids commitments because he wants to "hold on to his options," he had better be enjoying them.  They are expensive.  Consider some of the costs:  

• You suffer every time you can't decide about something or face a potential commitment.  It is grueling and excruciating to be torn apart this way.
• Hundreds, even thousands of hours of your life are wasted on trying to make up your mind or ruminating over decisions already made.  Imagine how much energy this costs.  And for what?  Does all the waffling and stalling make the decisions turn out that much better?
• Indecisiveness and fear of commitment are sure to cause you to miss numerous opportunities, from financial ventures to long-term romantic relationships. <snip>
• A tentative attitude prevents you from giving anything your best effort.  <snip>

...you do manage to get into or out of jobs, relationships, projects, purchases.  But you rarely do these things directly and cleanly, carried along by the force of unconflicted convictions, so your actions somehow feel as if they're not truly yours.  <snip>

You don't develop a strong, clear sense of self, partly because this would require you to acknowledge that, for better or worse, you have directed your own destiny.  <snip>

***

I once dated a man before my OCPD ex, who was probably OCPD as well, just not as severely.  He spent a great deal of energy explaining to me why he didn't have any choice in:  ...where he lived, what he did for a living, what he did artistically, on and on and on.  Rescuer that I was, I would  give him countless examples to show him that he did, indeed, have other options, he was simply choosing not to make them.

Finally I realized that that he was emotionally tied to this concept of himself as a victim of circumstance.  He refused to accept that he was doing what he was doing or living where he was living because that was his own choice.  I lost patience with the whole poor can't-help-myself attitude (though, apparently, not enough to keep from trying to Rescue the next one who came along).

One of the frustrating things about being involved with someone with this Perfectionist Personality is observing how very painful this "dithering" can be for the Ditherer. From the outside, it looks not only excruciating, but entirely avoidable.  It's like the old joke about somebody hitting himself in the head with a hammer, "because it feels so good when I stop."

Churning from Wikimedia
Good for butter, not for decision-making

It makes us want to scream, "Why, WHY are you doing this to yourself?"

Which, of course, is the multi-jillion dollar question.  Brain wiring?  Habit?  Chemical imbalance?  Childhood trauma?  All of the above?

I could wish there was more research and better answers as to the why, but what little there is suggests that the brain can be rewired, the old habits can be broken, and better, healthier ones put into place.  That it's not simply "the way it has to be" but a choice.

Those with this condition must come to see that the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain/fear/risk of making a change, and be willing to invest the very hard work it takes to STOP the old, churning behaviors.

Would you be rich, if you had a dollar for every hour wasted dithering?
How about for the time spent second-guessing an already made decision?
Does being afraid to commit enrich your life, or steal from it?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 3 - Performance Pitfalls Deadly Deadlines

This post continues with Performance Pitfalls: Deadly Deadlines, from Chapter Three.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

Performance Pitfalls

Besides putting many obsessives under enormous pressure, the Perfectionist's Credo an cause other insidious damage.  It often propels obsessives into self-defeating behaviors that far outweigh the rewards of avoiding errors.

DEADLY DEADLINES 

Many perfectionists chronically have trouble getting their work done, or even started.  They tend to procrastinate because all tasks loom large when they have to be done flawlessly.

<snip> Once a task is undertaken, the perfectionist always finds room for improvement.  No matter how much time he spends on a project, there's always the chance someone will catch an incomplete or erroneous detail.  So he holds on to it, spending far more time than necessary.  In his mind, the danger is in letting go of something before it is truly perfect.  Under this pressure, some perfectionists actually miss their deadlines, while others meet them but pay a terrible personal cost.

<snip> This patient wanted every sentence to be profound, and she couldn't write down a single word until she was absolutely certain it was the right word.  Ironically, the longer the writing took, the higher she felt others' expectations would be, so the self-imposed pressure mounted with each passing
month.

Over and over, I've heard patients describe being frozen into inaction by the awesome imperative to do a task not just perfectly, but in a way that truly impresses or astounds - in other words, to be "great."  I have to stress that most of the time the obsessive doesn't walk around consciously thinking that he or she must tower above other people; acknowledged consciously, it sounds pretentious.  But whenever I question, point by point, why she can't stand an oversight in her presentation or why he can't stand to be seen as an average attorney (or designer, or chef, or teacher), a submerged desire to astound people with his or her knowledge emerges.

Not only can the imperative to be great inhibit one's day-to-day functioning, but it can also, paradoxically, discourage one from developing one's talents - sometimes at a tragically early age.  I think of Janine, a gifted twenty-seven-year-old architect who consistently had trouble undertaking important projects because she as convinced she had to "produce a design so innovative that it stands everyone on their ears."  Even sadder was Janine's' outlook for her future.  "I had to many plans, so many fantasies," she told me.  "But because my work has to be incredibly good, it takes infinitely longer to execute somethng than to simply think of doing it.  I feel like I've wasted the last two years.  Anything I do now will be less than what I fantasized I would do.  So now it feels like there's no use."

***

The "everything-including-the-kitchen-sink" thinking, is, I think, one of the markers of this condition - the lack of working filter.  On a report, say, those with OCPD really can't sort out which things are most important,  which things are less important, and which things are frills to throw in, if there's time, or as an illustrating anecdote.  Everything ever known about the subject must be included.  Which means a confusing mess, much of the time. 

Then, of course, if a task is never finished, it can never be criticized, because, of course, it's not finished.  (Like my current novel - though I am getting critique on the unfinished bits.)  And you don't have to start on any new projects, because the old project isn't done, are you crazy?

This was why my ex could rarely be persuaded to start some new project.  His favorite excuse being the garden - and when there's a big yard, you can always find trees and bushes that could use a trim, weeds that need pulling...  The yard was never perfect enough to move on to something else.

I find that I tend to procrastinate on things I don't enjoy doing.  Like filing.  Housecleaning.  I find ways to get around that, like playing some "get up and move" music, but still, sometimes it's hard beating the inertia.

So I can empathize, to a certain extent, how much harder it must be for those with OCPD to get the ball rolling.  And yet, part of me just wants to scream:

Because if one just pitched in and got-er-done, it would take so much less time and energy than all the excuses.

Anybody with me on that?

I Want To Be On A Death Panel



Photo by artist Richard Heeks

Because after all, we're all going to die anyway.

I know, that thought makes most of us uncomfortable.  We don't know, after all, what's on The Other Side, and that's kinda scary.  Some people believe in Heaven (and Hell), some people who believe in reincarnation, some people believe in nirvana, some people believe in being gods on other planets or any number of intriguing possibilities.  And some believe that one is just gone, the consciousness dissolved into nothingness.

But despite any number of fascinating stories from people who were clinically pronounced dead and "came back"  (but were they really, truly dead?) we don't know.

What we do know, for a fact, is we're not getting out of this place alive.

Many of us live like there's an actual, physical Reaper, and if we keep running/busy/active enough, we'll be able to avoid death.  Like he's a bill collector or something.  ("Pull down the shades, turn off the light and the TV, we'll pretend we're not home.")


OCPDrs carry it to extremes, but many people are so worried about what could happen in the future, what terrible thing is lurking around the corner, about protecting against every possible calamity, they fail to enjoy any of the wonderful things that are all around them, every minute of every day.  They're too busy finding green baby galoshes - because it might rain, sometime, in Southern California, and the baby's feet might get wet, and then he might get sick, and then he might die.

They're not so much Pro-Life, as they are Anti-Death.

We have to accept that we are going to die, and we have to accept that people we love are going to die.  That pain and loss are part of the admission price to this crazy Carnival called Life.  We can deny it, we can act like martyrs, and refuse to enjoy the Carnival - as if not enjoying life will entitle us to get more of it.  Hunh?

We can fight to be Cleopatra (Queen of Denial), and live like we have all the time in the world, but we don't.  We need to think about what's on our personal Bucket Lists, our dreams, and work on making them happen.  Is your dream to see the Grand Canyon?  Eat a hot dog on Coney Island?  Watch a taping of The Price Is Right?

Like Captain Picard would say on Star Trek: TNG, "Make it so."

And as far as the death panel thing, yep, there's a whooooole bunch of people I'd pull the plug on.  I don't believe, if one is extremely ill and/or 90+ years old, or in a persistent vegetative state, that it benefits anyone to take extreme measures to keep that person "alive."  (Okay, maybe the hospitals which are making a buck benefit from the care of said "person.") 

I believe that the soul has departed long before, but let's say, just for the point of argument, that it hasn't.  Let's say that the soul and spirit is still in that poor battered shell of a human body, unable to move, wipe itself, or communicate.

Could there be any worse torture than to be trapped there helplessly for weeks, months, years, not able to get out or let people know you're still in there?  To have to watch and listen to hours on end of daytime television programming?  (Whether your preference is Fox or MSN, you know they're gonna have it tuned to the other channel.)  To perhaps be in constant pain, either severe or low-grade, but nobody does anything about it because they don't know about it, and they think there is no pain?

I truly wouldn't wish such a fate on my worst enemy, and I have promised to come back and haunt anyone who does that to me.  (And not in a nice, Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost way.)  If we want to be kind and loving, we should let the person go, allow him or her to move on to...  whatever happens next.  Unless, of course, we know for a fact that the person we are "saving" would want us to fight for every breath.  I know some people in that horrible situation, knowing it's not a kind choice, but it's what their loved one wanted, so they are reluctantly carrying out those wishes.  (I'm so sorry!)

We've come a long way, in terms of preserving the physical bodies of those who would have died, 150, even 50 years ago, but that isn't always a good thing.  As a society, I think we need to reconsider what we often do to people in the last months of their lives, all in the name of "saving" them.  Saving them for what?  More torture? 

Just because we can hook somebody up to any number of modern gizmos and keep the heart beating and the lungs artificially pumped full of air and run a tube down somebody's throat to drip nutrients, doesn't mean we should.  Is an all-out battle to "buy" someone an extra two months of extreme pain, in a hospital, away from the comfort of family and pets and loved ones, always worth it?  (One friend recounted to me at her father's death, she counted - and then recounted, because she was sure she must have made a mistake - 187 tubes and wires running into his body.  187!!)

Newsweek had an interesting article recently on The Myth of Aging Gracefully.  Because of denial, we think we'll be one of the ones who's hardy, running marathons and making love into our nineties, and then drop instantly dead of a convenient heart attack or stroke, but it doesn't always work that way.

There is a 50–50 chance that anyone who survives to blow out 85 candles will endure years of significant mental or physical disability. The risk of Alzheimer’s disease doubles in every five-year period over 65. Furthermore, two thirds of Americans older than 85 are women, who usually become poorer as they age. Many won’t die at home, with the best care money can buy, as Sargent Shriver did in January, but in a Medicaid-funded nursing facility after their life savings have been exhausted.

What about living with gusto and passion?  What about accepting that death comes one to a customer, sooner or later, and making peace with that concept?  Telling loved ones every time you talk to them, that you love them, and treating them with love and kindness now? 


Image via Karen's Whimsy

For myself, I have my own Advance Medical Directive all filled out - copies with my sisters, doctor, and one in the glove compartment of my car.  Not to mention my threat to haunt people.  Your choices may be different from mine, but if you don't already have your AMD filled out, do it now.  No more excuses, no more waiting, no more "I'll do it when I have time," as if you know for sure you''ll have that time.

Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, didn't come to a very nice end, after all.

What are your thoughts on life, and death? 
What are you doing to live your life fully now?

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