How the desire to be perfect is killing us

if you were to look up

the definition of perfection in the

dictionary

it would state lacking all faults or

defects

or satisfying all requirements

now in december of 2013

i was 26 years old nine months pregnant

happily married and awaiting the birth

of my first son

my parents were going to be grandparents

for the first time

my siblings were going to be aunts and

uncles for the first time

everyone was so excited so thrilled

you could say at that moment my life was

pretty perfect

but this story isn’t about me it’s about

my sister madison

now madison is the third child in our

family of five kids

so she’s directly in the middle and

she’s kind of your typical middle child

she didn’t require a lot from my parents

she wasn’t really needy

she kind of stayed to herself was pretty

introverted and

quiet she loved to go outside and

explore ride her bike and search for

bugs play in the dirt

she wasn’t really the kind of girl that

was going to play dress up a lot

or play with barbies uh

and she was just easy the only thing

that she really required from my parents

was

she liked being around them uh if my mom

would leave the room she quickly

followed after her

she liked to be able to see her at all

times and she really gave the term

separation anxiety a whole new meaning

so when madison was five years old in

our town you’re allowed to start playing

rec sports

and she decided that she wanted to try

soccer

so my parents signed her up and now no

five-year-olds are actually good at

soccer

you know they kind of just group

together and run after the ball

uh and madison was no different and she

was happy to do that

happy to go run after it happy to play

as long as one of my parents was holding

her hand

so there are my there’s my dad holding

her hand you know running around the

soccer field with her but after a few

years she kind of broke out of her shell

and she started to realize that not only

was she

enjoying soccer she was actually really

good at it too

so she joined about three teams

wreck travel and then by the time she

got to high school

she decided she wanted to play soccer at

high school as well

and i think it really broke her out of

her shell she became

best friends with her teammates she was

able to make these lifelong friends

and it made her

give her gave her a little bit more

confidence you know she wasn’t this

introverted middle child another one of

those kids from that family

she started to make a name for herself

so in high school she was varsity girls

captain of the soccer team

she was named athlete of the week of the

bergen record

she was constantly on covers of

newspapers

articles written about her and i think

it was really her time to shine

she was funny she was silly she was kind

she was friends with everybody and she

really

made a name for herself so

when the university of pennsylvania came

calling

uh and asked her to come to their school

she was thrilled the ivy league this was

it this was my big break

this was what i’ve been working my whole

life for it’s what she was telling

everyone

but there was a little bit of a catch

they didn’t want her to come to the

university of pennsylvania to play

soccer

they wanted her to come to run track

and track was just something that

madison had started in high school

to stay and cheat for soccer in the off

season but she ended up being really

good at it

she was really naturally naturally

athletic so she picked it up pretty

quickly and started winning awards for

that too

so while she was a little apprehensive

to go to a college and ivy league

college and run track for them

she thought you don’t say no to the ivy

leagues

and so in the fall of 2013

my sister packed up and went to

philadelphia

and she started her trek at the ivy

league schools

and she was so excited she was

constantly telling everyone this is what

i worked so hard for

i can’t wait to get there i can’t wait

to meet my teammates and see the locker

room

see the track meet my roommate see the

dorms

meet my professors she was thrilled

anyone who used to come home

and say that they didn’t like college

madison was confused what’s not to like

about college

so when she got there and things started

to go downhill pretty quickly for her

she was shocked we all were none of us

ever thought that madison would have a

problem at college

but we found out that she was starting

to lie to her coaches

so she could stay home not go to

practice

or lie to her coaches so she could come

home

and pretty quickly we realized that she

didn’t really love college it wasn’t all

that it was cracked up to be for her she

wasn’t happy she definitely wasn’t

thriving

you see madison’s issue was she was a

perfectionist

she strived for perfection in every

aspect of her life

and in high school that was pretty

attainable you know she was

on the cover of newspapers she was

getting a’s in every class 4.0 gpa

doing everything she could to succeed

friends with everybody beautiful

popular it wasn’t that hard in high

school but at an ivy league college

at upenn she wasn’t perfect she wasn’t

even looked at as perfect

she was one of many

and the problem with that is perfection

is not always

attainable she couldn’t always achieve

that in college you know she would run

these races and she’d come in third and

all of us would say you did such a good

job you got third place that’s amazing

but to her it wasn’t it wasn’t enough

and so she was struggling she was lying

she was coming home on the weekends

and she was also constantly looking at

social media

and social media is one of the worst

things that you can do

because as a perfectionist you might sit

there and think oh perfection striving

for

for perfection is amazing what’s so

wrong about that

well studies show that if you strive for

perfection or perfectionist

it can cause anxiety depression

and even suicidal thoughts in extreme

cases

so then when she was adding social media

especially instagram to the mix

it was also just causing more problems

now empathy is one of the solutions

to anxiety and depression social media

is basically the opposite of empathy

it’s just all about comparison and

judgment

and madison was logging on at night

hoping to see that

you know maybe maybe my friends from

high school or even my college

friends or even my teammates maybe

they’re struggling a little bit too

but she wasn’t seeing that nobody really

puts the truth on

social media it’s all kind of smoke and

mirrors

so all she was seeing was her friends

having this great time at college

going to parties landing great

internships having so much fun making

all these new friends

and it just left her feeling more alone

more isolated

like she wasn’t perfect

so by the time she came home for

thanksgiving break

my family and i really noticed a change

in her she had lost a ton of weight

she wasn’t laughing anymore she wasn’t

smiling anymore

she wasn’t the happy madison that we

knew anymore

and so we started her in a pretty

intense therapy at home so she went a

few times over thanksgiving break

and by christmas break we had her in a

pretty regular schedule with it

so by the end of christmas break when it

was time to go back for spring semester

we all kind of felt pretty good about

her going back like this was going to be

her new fresh start and we

my dad drove her down she even wanted to

go back a few days early to watch her

friend

play basketball for the princeton team

so

he dropped her off he had dinner with

her he even stayed a little after dinner

to make sure that she was doing okay

you know you’re going to meet your new

therapist in a few weeks at school you

got those appointments made

and she assured him that she was good

she had her appointments made she was

feeling good and we all felt including

madison

that this was going to be her freshman

start spring semester

so my dad left and went home and

about 15 days later on january 17

2014 just 17 days after i gave birth to

my first son

we got a call that madison had died

we were in a state of shock we couldn’t

have understood what happened

and then when we found out that it was

suicide that she had taken her own life

and done this to herself

we were even more blown away you see

this ivy league college

madison couldn’t be perfect anymore she

couldn’t obtain that perfectionism that

she had

in high school and if her life couldn’t

be perfect anymore

she didn’t think it was worth living

anymore

and you know it reminds me a lot of this

bible story out of the gospel of luke

and i don’t think that you have to be a

christian to really take something out

of it

you see in the story there’s these two

sisters

mary and martha and they invite jesus

and his disciples into their house and

they’re on this long journey they say

come over rest we’ll make you a meal

you guys can have a nice rest on your

journey and they come in

and martha’s getting the house ready

making the meal clean everything making

sure that everything looks perfect

and where’s mary sitting at jesus’s feet

that’s all and you know martha’s

starting to get really annoyed

like i’m doing all the work here i’m

making sure that dinner’s ready and

making sure that everything looks

perfect

and what are you doing and she actually

gets so annoyed eventually at her sister

that she says to jesus

she’s not helping me at all tell her to

get up and help me

and jesus’s responses

martha martha you have chosen to do so

many things

to make everything look perfect your

sister mary has chosen one thing

and it is the right choice and you know

i think that so many of us can relate to

martha though in this story

how many of us want to make sure the

house looks perfect we look perfect

our instagram feed looks perfect enough

filters enough smoke and mirrors

but you know jesus had the right answer

there if you’re just constantly

striving for perfection you’re never

gonna get it

because what does that do it just makes

you strive for the next thing to be

perfect

you’re never gonna achieve that goal

perfect people are never happy

because once one thing ends it’s on to

the next thing

how can i achieve that next goal how can

i make myself better how can i

get to be perfect

and that’s where madison was i think

college was really the end to madison’s

journey because she noticed that she

couldn’t obtain that perfect

that perfectionism anymore she couldn’t

do it anymore

and if she couldn’t do it she didn’t

want to live anymore

so i challenge you guys to ask yourself

the next time you find yourself

aiming for perfection striving to be

perfect

is it really worth it thank you