Perfectly Imperfect.

I have a problem. Now, it’s not that big a problem, at least not so much anymore but it’s still a problem. I’m a perfectionist. Of course it can be a good thing when it comes to things like my career but it isn’t so great, in fact it’s incredibly destructive when it comes to my mood. Anything taken to extremes isn’t good, and boy, but how I took it to extremes. I have this constant law of absolute personal responsibility in mind, which though it has its place, does get in the way of my having fun, relaxing, having relationships, getting comfortable and just plain being.

The combination of perfectionism and depression is awkward, at best – it’s oil and water. My mood bottoms out and I kick myself when I’m down because I have this long, almost endless list of ‘Shoulds’ and ‘Coulds’ and ‘Woulds’ in my head. They roll around in there, and hit me at the worst possible moment, naturally. Guilt is one of the big bugaboos of depression. You feel guilty for being ’sick’, for not living up to expectations, for your own despair or numbness, for even opening your mouth at all and daring to breathe. Don’t exhale, says your mind.

Vast is the gulf between you and everyone else in the world, so says your inner critic who takes on the power of invincibility when your mood drops out from under you. It’s so vast that you can get to the point where you feel as though you’re forever lost, destined to wander numb and homeless down a road dotted with large red neon signs, which point at you. They say things like: ‘loser’, ‘victim’, ’sick’, ‘crazy’, ‘freak’, ‘weirdo’, ‘dumb’, ‘ugly’, ‘fat’, ‘lazy’, ‘useless’, ‘downer’, ‘waste of space’ etc. etc. These are punctuated by billboards, ever on the horizon, which list the distance between you and your life goals, your dreams, your hope, your happiness and more. That distance rarely gets any less, and so you get desperate enough to just sit down, right then and there: ‘That’s it’, you say, ‘I’ve had enough’.

If you have this tendency to want everything to be ‘right’ then you’re likely prone to staking out camp grounds along the self-pity highway because by any standard you’ve ever held you simply do not measure up. Depression won’t let you: Nothing is as it should be, nothing fits, least of all yourself. You may as well hook yourself up with a good divorce attorney just so that you and the world can part amicably: a no-fault settlement sometimes looks like the best bet. Only it isn’t – it is in fact the worst idea you’ve ever had but that doesn’t make it any less appealing at the time.

But one day you turn a corner, and you see how much damage perfectionism does, and that it’s ruining any chance of you finding your bliss. You think: hang on here, maybe something needs to shift. Perfectionism combined with depression robs you of every desire, and you know only you can stop it. So you climb every hill, cross every river and follow each rainbow until you start to notice that those acts alone go a long way towards drowning out the ‘Shoulds’.

In actual fact perfectionism can work in your favour. Instead of letting it shred all hope of happiness, you turn it around. You jam your round peg into that square hole because you know you can, because nobody else but you really cares about it being ‘right’. You have the most to lose but also the most to gain. You’re the one who put those signs up in the first place so you can erase them, or better yet change them. If you can’t do perfect perfectly then come hell or high water you’ll do imperfect perfectly.

The definition of perfectly imperfect can be altered to fit you better but the basic pattern is the same. It’s about being what you are, and fighting for yourself. It’s a catch-cry to be passionately engaged in living, even if living is hell. Even when you feel like you’re missing out, like you’re lesser than, always making up for something, ever waiting for the other shoe to drop. Perfectly imperfect is dropping that shoe, and booting it across the room. It’s wiping the chess board of all its pieces, and playing the game out in your mind. It’s focus and dedication to self, and it’s about recognising life is complicated, messy, and a struggle against great odds for every single one of us. It would be no achievement to be perfect if you just fell into it, if it came naturally, if human perfection were actually about being ‘right’ and acting ‘right’.

Human perfection.

It’s a total oxymoron – that we ever put the words together is absurd, and yet we do because what we’re after isn’t about being clean stamped automata capable of perfect strength and solitude. What we’re after is to live, really live, as close to the line as we can. I can’t give you an absolutely definitive description but essentially perfectly imperfect means starting to absorb and to live by these immortal, sublime words:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~Dylan Thomas