TRAUMA AND PERFECTION | DR. KIM SAGE

This is a short video just to share some love around how to be more mindful of how perfectionism shows up in your life, often as a result of feeling the need to be perfect in childhood.

What is one thing that will never be perfect, and you can begin to work on accepting today?

xo

******FOR MORE INFORMATION ONLINE COURSES AND FREE CHECKLIST:

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Please check out my courses (LINK ABOVE):

1. BORDERLINE AND NARCISSISTIC PARENTS: HEALING AND DEALING WITH YOUR TRAUMA

(*This course is designed specifically for you if you were raised by parents who had Narcissistic, Borderline or significantly Emotionally Immature parents.)

2. RE-MOTHERED: TRANSFORM YOUR WOUNDED INNER CHILD INTO AN INTERNALIZED, LOVING "MOTHER"

(***This course is designed to help you learn to heal your inner child AND your inner parent if you experienced a complicated childhood or challenging relational wounds).

3. IDENTIFYING CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND NEGLECT (FREE COURSE)

CHECKLIST IS INCLUDED IN ALL 3 COURSES!!

xo

* Additionally, I am only able to work with California residents for weekly therapy once available. If you are interested, please also add in a few brief details in your email including your reasons for seeking treatment, current diagnoses, concerns, etc.

[sarahbellows]

I’d like to work on my belief that I have to have a very successful career in order to be loved.

[karengawin]

This is such a helpful point! Thank you. It’s a child’s fantasy to think that our adult life can be perfect to make up for our childhood…

[laurenbrogan]

The part of myself I need to accept is the anxious part of me that needs a lot of reassurance. I have stories that I am a burden, people will leave me, that I am too much around the anxious parts of myself

[xfishyss]

Accepting that I didn’t have a perfect ending to my senior year of college. My family members close to me died and it took a major toll on my mental health. I did what I could to finish the year out and graduate. Did I achieve all my goals, no. But I did the most important thing and that was completing school work to get my degree.

[allwellandgood]

I really needed to hear this today, thank you 🙏 Believing I have to have the perfect marriage and family life so that my kids don't experience anything negative. I've got to let that go. It's such a weight off my shoulders and heart to hear that that is 'allowed'! Sounds silly but when I think about it, that's what I've been holding on to for so long. But it never will be.

[Waldemar_la_Tendresse]

OMG! I've read literally dozens of psychology books, more or less involuntarily and out of an inner drive to understand some things, but this short video just made me understand for the first time what trauma and perfectionism have in common, or rather how the latter grows out of the former. Thank you.

[QueenLeo-mtnp]

Thank you Doc...you gave a beautiful soul

[randomcrap]

DOUBLE PUPPERS!!!! 🥰 Ok, watching the whole video now. Brb...

Back! I feel like I have gone about my entire life with a sort of all-or-nothing mindset because that's definitely the way my mom treated me. If I was serving her or making her look good, I was the best kid ever. If I had needs that inconvenienced her or didn't automatically bend to her will, I was horrible and she hated me. So I get really discouraged and give up very easily any time I don't do something perfectly, especially with food. I have struggled with eating disorders, mostly binge eating, since I was 9. Being fat was not something my mother supported and would often stand me in front of a mirror to teach me how to suck in my stomach and shout at me that she wasn't going to buy bigger clothes. Being fat meant she didn't love me...I was a disappointment. I am obese now at 38 and tend to yo-yo because I set an unrealistic goal of losing like 150 lbs and "being lovable" again, and I will do really well for a while, but the second I have a slip day, my mind instantly says "oh, you fucked it all up. May as well REALLY do the thing now." And then I will have a 3 month long binge fest again to "punish" myself.

I read Jeannette McCurdy's book over the summer and one of the doctors she saw for her eating disorders told her something along the lines of "slips happen. everyone has slips, but don't let your slips become slides." I really want to work on that. On recognizing that food is self compassion and not punishment, this path will never be perfect and neither will my body, but I am still worth the effort and just because I slipped doesn't mean I have to punish myself with a slide.

[meanimeconingles]

I'm only liked if I do what my parents want me to do. I'm 30, been molested by an uncle. I'm a truth teller, sad most of the time, don't trust no one. I self isolate.

[janepoppet]

An indoctrinated and internalised belief that 'I'm not good enough'. A constant Jackie of all trades, never master of anything, unlike my narcissistic parent who (not only repeatedly put my dreams and ambitions down) literally told me "You've got be a special breed like me to do something like that". Now working through years of trauma, the conditioning which has led me to people pleasing habits that I realise now aren't healthy and have affected my interpersonal relationships over the years, and discovering who I am innately. My new mantra 'I can do this (the things I want to do with my life) or in the very least try". Took me to 53 years of age to go no contact with my parent. Recovery is brutal somedays but I've noticed more recently their voice isnt in my head like it use to be. 💞

[atwistedbunch]

Thank you so much for this content. It has resonated so deeply within me and the questions you have posted have so much value and offer such depth of insight. Thank you so much ❤️ ❤️

[Kintsugi]

Thank you for this. I really needed to hear this

[divinelotus]

Hi :) First of all, thank you for your insight and the way you explain on the things. It is tremendously helpful and it is like you are talking about what I am feeling.
I have realised that I struggle with perfectionism and I delay things I need to do (procrastinate) because I sort of 'want to do it when everything is perfect, or when I can do it perfectly, or when there is the perfect moment to do it. I know this is a trauma response but I am having difficulty in understanding the whole picture and how I can heal that need to be perfect. Can you please provide some insight?

[lindsay]

What does being perfect have to do with the flight response?

[arvinchadda]

I would like to work on healing my inner child.

[restlessmosaic]

The child's fantasy was nearly explicitly what I was taught was real, and anybody saying "I'm not perfect" sounded to them like an excuse and weak.

ANY difference that needs talking out feels like I'm a failure, because they never needed to talk out differences. (I know of 2 incidents in 33 years where they didn't see eye-to-eye. Just 2.) Any even if I can talk through the difference, the child's fantasy shows up and makes me sad that life has differences, and then I get glum because I feel like there's nothing better to do than wait for the next difference.

I don't recommend any of these feelings.

[JDforeveralone]

3:40 dont think I will ever be able to say that to myself after having lost my daughter thru suicide.
Growing up with undetected ADHD which developed into BPD with comorbid psychotic breaks.
Did I do the best i could?
Dont think so.