20 Mar 2014, 9:06 pm
20 Mar 2014, 10:32 pm
MissMaria
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 6 Mar 2014
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 59
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20 Mar 2014, 10:59 pm
1. Anxiety or stress about things not being as you expected them to be and this includes anything from ordering food in a restaurant and not getting exactly what you wanted to working on something and it not turning out how you expected. These type of "perfectionism" is often connected to meltdowns.
2. The expectation that you should very competent and do everything exceedingly well all the time. This tends to result in frustration and self-esteem issues when the person is not able to cope effectively with mistakes, failures and their own limitations. This type of "perfectionism" is often connected to depression.
The first is about outward expectations--how you expect the world to be; the other is about inward expectation, what you expect of yourself. Not surpring that the first often results in meltdowns--an outward display of negative emotion--while the second results in depression and self-esteem issues, a turning inward of negative emotion.
From my own experience and my experience as a special education teacher, I see both of these are presentations of an executive functioning deficit, usually called "executive function disorder." I have this, and I experience both forms of "perfectionism" to varying degrees, with the 2nd type being far more dominant. When I was dx'd several years ago, I was told that the 2nd of these--the strong, unyielding need to be competent--was predominately a trait of Asperger's and that people with HFA often experienced the 1st type to a stronger degree than the 2nd. However people no longer bother with these distinctions, limiting Asperger's to simply "HFA without language delays" which is unfortunate because I found being educated in these distinctions very helpful in understanding why I felt the things I did yet at the same time didn't do things like have meltdowns. While I do experience the 1st type to some degree, I experience the 2nd type far, far stronger, and yes, I have big issues with self-esteem and depression.
But suffice to say, MANY people on the spectrum have executive functioning deficits that lead to one or both of these issues with "perfectionism." Executive functioning is what controls and monitors our emotions, and "perfectionism" is in essence an inability or severe difficulty with overriding negative emotional responses when we are disappointed by something or by ourselves--and difficulties with overriding negative emotions is a chief symptom of executive function disorder.
Executive functioning deficits are not just found in people on the autism spectrum, but also in people with ADHD, OCD, certain personality disorders, many learning disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar disorder. It's a very popular cognitive deficit.
^this. This entire post, most especially the distinction between outward and inward expectations.
I deal with it at work by setting time-sensitive goals: by end of business today, by week's end, in two weeks, at the end of the month/quarter/fiscal year/calendar year, etc.
If it's a self-paced project, I break it up into "this is what is 'good enough' the first time through," the second, third, etc. It's not unusual for my first draft to be better than someone else's finished product.
In my personal life, just crown me the Queen of Procrastination and get it over with.
LtlPinkCoupe
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21 Mar 2014, 1:15 am
I was incredibly perfectionistic when I was a little kid, especially in art classes at my special needs school. I wanted my art projects to turn out just the way the art teacher's examples did, and if they didn't....if I glued something down in the wrong place, if the scissors didn't cut the right way, if I overshot the amount of glue I needed....oh the drama that ensued! 
What helped me, though, was this small banner the art teacher had hanging in the corner of her room....it was decorated with different felt shapes and had the words "There Are No Mistakes in Art" spelled out on it. My mom also had this cute book called "A Big Mistake" that related the story of an anonymous art student who describes (in verse) how he/she was able to turn a mistake on his art project into something that made the finished product turn out even better than he expected. I have memories of her reading it to me on the city bus on the way to school. 
In fact, here's the book on Amazon, if anyone's interested: linky
It's interesting because my not-quite-NT youngest half-sister has been having some perfectionism issues herself, lately....except hers have to do with practicing the French horn. She wants to play just the way her teacher does, but because she's so young and still has much to learn about the French horn, and her teacher has been at it for decades, this simply is not attainable for her....that is, not within the short time frame she wants. While I was at my parents' house for Spring break, I offered to talk with her about my own experiences with extreme perfectionism, but wasn't sure how to go about it without making her feel worse, or making her feel like all the hard work she's already put into practicing doesn't matter. But maybe if we could find my old copy of "A Big Mistake...." I dunno.
12 Feb 2015, 5:03 am
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LokiofSassgard
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12 Feb 2015, 11:26 am
nick007
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12 Feb 2015, 8:23 pm
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13 Feb 2015, 9:22 am
13 Feb 2015, 9:39 am
I´ve really fought FOR my perfectionism, because I think it´s valuable in many situations - and lately against it in the sense, that I try to evaluate, when it is vital and when a little slack would be ok. The latter took me a longer dispute me vs. me, before I could allow for it (forgive myself 
).
It has taken some weight off, that I can minimize the importance of precision here and there, - but I must look out not to loose it...the perfectionism 
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