I can see it so clearly in my mind. I was sitting on the [closed] toilet, watching my mom do something at the sink. Or maybe she was fixing my hair. Either way, I was with my mom in the bathroom (and that’s the part I can see clearly, okay?).
We were talking about kindergarten, which would be coming up soon for me. She must have mentioned how first grade came after kindergarten, then second grade, and so on and so forth.
All of a sudden, I panicked.
I asked her what happened if I wasn’t ready to go to first grade after kindergarten.
I asked her if she or my dad had ever flunked a grade.
I asked her what would happen if I ever flunked a grade.
I may have been born a perfectionist. Or perhaps I started showing signs before that day. I’ve never actually been brave enough to ask my parents. But what I know is that on that day, in that moment, in the bathroom with my mom, I bloomed into a full-blown, put-pressure-on-myself, expect-excellence-and-fear-failure perfectionist. At age five.
That’s when it began for me. When do you first remember fighting perfectionism?
This post is part of 31 Days of Giving Up on Perfect. All month long, I’ll be working through a whole lot of ways I’m fighting perfectionism. For more 31 Days, visit The Nester.
You started early! I actually don’t remember much about my childhood or when I started the perfectionistic/OCD-like tendencies on certain things. I think it’s amazing you remember it so well!
Oh you know, it’s a blessing and a curse (remembering, that is). ;)
I learned it later in life, more like middle school…compensation for a painful move, I think.
Oh yeah. I can see how that could develop in response to a hard move. :(
I can remember my mom telling people, “She’s 5 years old going on 20.” HA! I don’t ever remember NOT being a perfectionist.
Maybe someday you’ll remember when you stopped? I know that’s my hope for myself!
Oh, good question! I don’t recall when I started putting so much pressure on myself. Hm, I’m sitting here trying to recall and I think it actually is tied back to me trying to get into GT classes with my friends in elementary school. I finally made it in in 6th grade. I think after that I really had to work hard to keep up and then it just kept going. Wow, I think I might have just had a moment :) Thanks for this post!
Well, glad to give you a moment. :) Crazy how early we can place those expectations on ourselves!
5th Grade. Mrs. Pollard’s class. You were there!! : )
Ohhhhh yeah – if ever there was a class that made us want to be perfect! (Although Mrs. Phillip’s class the next year was way worse…)
Probably not until early high school. That’s when I started coating my face with concealer to hide my acne. I wanted to have flawless, perfect skin, and I spent hours analyzing my pores in the mirror.
My mom tells me that when I was about 4, I used to kick and scream if the line on the toes of my socks weren’t going perfectly straight across my toes. First signs of perfectionism. :)
Haha! I guess this means I should be glad my daughter can wear her socks completely upside down without a care! :)
This was the year that my mother slipped a disc in her back and was bedridden for 8 weeks, so I had to “take over for Mother.”
I remember deciding to get 100% on all social studies worksheets in 4th grade. My mother came home from parent-teacher conference later in the year and told me that my teacher had said she had to check my grade 3x because she couldn’t believe her eyes — no student had ever done that before!
Well, that blew the lid off Pandora’s box. I’d sipped the magical potion and couldn’t wait to taste more!
Wow, Cheri, thank you so much for sharing this. I thrive on approval like that, too, and it started early.