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