Striving for Perfection

I wouldn’t describe myself as a perfectionist. I generally try to keep things neat and clean, but sometimes my version of tidying is shoving it under the bed. I have a spare bedroom which resembles Monica’s messy closet…I just keep that door shut and pretend it doesn’t exist.

When I was unwell with anorexia I got to experience what being a perfectionist is like. Always finding that little detail that needs to be altered, always finding room for improvement. In the beginnings of my eating disorder I didn’t realise what was ‘wrong’ with me, but I knew I was losing weight fast. It became addictive and no matter how many pounds I lost, I could always lose more. My stomach could be flatter, my thighs could be slimmer – in my mind I was aiming for perfection, but in reality that was impossible because there was always going to be something I wasn’t happy with.

When I look back, it breaks my heart to remember how cruel I was to myself and how unhappy it made me. When I was so focussed on perfection, everything else in my life fell apart – my relationships with friends and family suffered and the effects of starvation sucked my once vibrant personality out of me. I have a distinct memory of being with my family at Christmas time, we were all sat around together and during conversation someone cracked a joke that I would ordinarily have found hilarious. But there I was, unable to laugh. My whole being had forgotten how to be happy. I forced a laugh out, and tears streamed from my eyes as I realised I had lost myself.

My recovery was a healing process, and one that helped me to come to terms with who I am. I’ve made a conscious decision to love my body for what it is, curves and all. And I genuinely mean that. It’s taken a while of telling myself over and over that I like how I look, but I’ve got to the point where I believe it now. More importantly, I’ve made a conscious decision not to let my body image have any control over my happiness. Whether I’m fat or thin, tall or short, have a thigh gap or bingo wings or protruding collar bones, none of that is the answer to my happiness.

I hear all too often people putting themselves down so casually. “I need to lose weight for my holiday” “I can’t wear that, my arms are too fat” and I can only begin to imagine the conversations that aren’t said out loud. What people tell themselves when they look in a mirror or step on the scales. I hate to break it to you but you’ll never be happy with how you look if you constantly pick yourself apart. There will always be something you don’t like until you accept your body for what it is. Perfection does not exist.

I still get days when I don’t feel as confident, but I refuse to let that voice tell me that I’m not good enough because I don’t look a certain way. And I remind myself that if I did look that certain way, there would still be things I’d want to change. Most of all I promise not to let myself get so fixated on something that I forget how to be happy.

Striving for something that doesn’t exist is never going to be worth the battle, so let’s just be happy instead.