Perfectionists view their worlds in absolutes.
Their sense of morality and their expectations apply to all environments, all of the time. So, as most of us learn to feel safe in some contexts, differentiating them from the dangerous ones, individuals with high levels of anxiety, and accompanying obsessions with security, tend to conceive of vulnerability as a general weakness. Safety exists solely in their minds.
Perfectionists believe that perfection is perfection everywhere. Thus, much of the work in therapy entails cultivating an understanding of the duality of a trait, learning to see it as beneficial (being a perfect fit) in one environment while flawed in another. This was really hard for me to grasp. In the rigidity of my mind, I thought weaknesses were weaknesses everywhere. I never felt safe with anyone. As a kid, I was ridiculed for my interests by other children, which is fairly normal and not something that bothers me much anymore. But, I was also ridiculed at home, much of the time implicitly, which I guess is better than the alternative. So, forming a nuanced conception of adaptation, of safety, of trust, wasn’t in the cards for me, at least not then. When your world feels emotionally dangerous, the world will inevitably reflect it.
Like many of my clients, I was astounded that I even found myself in therapy. Revelations were scarce, as I expected the same blowbacks I believed I was numb to. So, as you can imagine, it came as a surprise when I learned that vulnerability was a strength, at least in some scenarios. But which ones? How the fuck could anyone think of my whining as a strength? Or deciding to back down when disrespected? Who lived in these picturesque worlds? Rules, those applicable everywhere, kept me safe. But, I couldn’t fathom how they harmed me. I used them to sabotage my treatment and all of my relationships. My partners and friends didn’t think I was tough; in reality, I was the biggest coward they knew.
So, the fundamental question is: when is vulnerability not what it seems to be? The answer, shockingly, is simple, but not easy: you have to ask. Just as we inquire about our parents’ expectations, we can also do so with our friends, therapists, and lovers. When my therapist asked me what I wanted out of therapy, I, in turn, asked her what she expected from me. I didn’t enter treatment willing to share much of anything. But she reassured me that she wanted to know more about me and was almost certain that none of what I felt or experienced would harm her perception of me, but withholding did, at least in my assessment.
During my treatment, I was in graduate school learning about attachment styles; essentially, differentiating between different contexts. The insecure attachment style, I learned, represented my mental map of life; it meant that what existed outside of conquest and manipulation signified prospective loss. When predominantly insecurely attached, everything is carefully controlled, including one’s reputation. On the other hand, and this blew me away, the secure attachment style not only tolerates but welcomes one’s vulnerability. It may criticize your choices, but doesn’t shame you for who you are. Nor does it disqualify you for your flaws. If anything, and what was to me a paradox, those flaws bond you to those whom they’re revealed to.
Further, being securely attached to your life, feeling it’s good enough, allows you to risk failure and rejection. Contrary to our intuition, feeling insecurely attached to it makes risk much less likely, since, like the child clinging to a neglectful parent, you prefer the trauma that you know, predicting a sense of devastation in discovering that there isn’t something or someone out there to rescue you. In fear and loathing, fantasy sustains you, no matter how unrealizable the dream. And, for the insecurely attached, therapy can feel like a fever dream.
In psychoanalysis, transference is the process in which feelings and expectations from the past, usually those related to a caregiver, are experienced in the present, normally related to one’s relationship with the therapist. My initial attachment to my therapist was far from secure. And it took what felt like forever for me to trust her. Psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams writes that analysis is a “mutually loving process in which the therapist’s subordinated subjectivity fosters an actualization of love along with an actualization of self in patients through a natural progression of desire, belief, and hope… I think the therapist’s love is experienced mainly in processing the repetitions. The client may feel hurt in ways excruciatingly like his or her childhood suffering, and yet the therapist, unlike the early love objects, tolerates the client’s pain, knows that the interaction feels horribly familiar, and by empathy and interpretation contributes to the client’s capacity to distinguish what has happened now from what has happened in the past.”
As I attempt to do with my own patients, my therapist, with her honesty (as when she called me out and told me that everything I did was a “fuck you to psychology”) and patience (sitting through my mini-tantrums and bitch sessions), provided me with the space I needed. Though I was certain she saw me as a child (and I don’t blame her), I became almost certain that she conceived of all of the possibilities in front of me. Risk begets more risk, as cowardice begets more cowardice. The more I opened up to her, the more I told my friends. The more I shared with them, the more I allowed myself to share with the women I was dating. If context is king, then my rules were little more than the court jester. Unfortunately, no one was laughing.
Leon's Existential Cafe 