Either perfect or sick
Since I’m taking this quote so out of context, I feel like I should provide some background. From the episode recap on tv.com:
House notices Jeff (the patient) and is intrigued by the fact that Jeff is unceasingly nice. He calls in the team to diagnose Jeff, but they’re skeptical that anything is wrong, and suspect House is just trying to prove someone can’t possibly be so happy.
House immediately dismisses the arguments about how maybe Jeff is just that happy and perfect, and responds:
House: You’re either perfect or you’re sick. In my experience, “sick” is much more common.
I thought this comment was really interesting, given all the perfectionistic people that I’ve been in treatment with (myself included). I’d be lying if I said I wan’t extremely concerned with appearing “put together” — aka: not having any issues. There’s definitely a higher-incidence of perfectionism among individuals with eating disorders, but had never thought about it the other way — that people who appear “perfect” are more likely to have mental illness. Okay, so this is not research and not exactly what House is implying, but think about it:
- the most mentally-healthy people that I know are not perfect. I don’t know if they even want to be.
- probably a third of the people that I’ve been in treatment with are extremely perfectionistic.
It’s ironic that society dictates such a goal of perfectionism — perfect family, perfect career, perfect house, perfect weight, etc — while actually being “perfect” could definitely be a sign of being sick. It’s human-nature to fail, disappoint, have issues, have flaws, and make mistakes. Fighting human-nature can’t be healthy.
This kind of came up in one of my therapy sessions not too long ago. We were talking about recovery and how you can never tell who is and isn’t going to get better (in the near future). Some of the sickest girls (physically, mentally, and emotionally) that I knew in treatment are doing awesome now. However, the friends who seemed so functional and fine are still in and out of treatment. Maybe these scenarios are the exception to the rule, but you really just can’t tell.
My therapist’s response was really interesting — she said that being put-together is a bad prognostic factor in treatment, because it means that you’re not being open / honest and engaging in the process. I had never thought of it that way, and her theory really ties together perfectionism and illness. I can’t say that I fully believed her at the time… but that was before HOUSE said it. If House says it, it must be true (kidding).
I’m not saying I’m going to pick out my top 5 most-perfectionistic and non-eating disordered friends and start worry about their wellbeing, but it’s definitely something to think about.
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I think I saw this episode. That really interested me as well… I wonder if all the “perfect” people are really twisted. Oh, man. Sometimes I think I overthink this but then I don’t know.
Wei-Wei,
While it’s ironic, it’s also kind of comforting to think about. Maybe I’ll feel less-conscious around “perfect” people, since I can tell myself “the can’t possibly be that perfect — they must be sick.” It might not always be true, but it does make me feel better….
This is scary, are you sure you aren’t actually reading my mind?? I actually said to someone on twitter yesterday that all I want is to be “perfect and carefree”. To which someone responded that those two things are typically mutually exclusive. As much as I hate to admit it, he was probably right, you really can’t be carefree when striving to be perfect.
I guess that’s is the same thing with recovery. Recovery and being put together all of the time are sort of mutually exclusive. Unfortunately (and as much as I would like this to not be the case) recovery is sort of a messy process that is seldom, if ever, linear. Given that, it is impossible to do it perfectly or to be “put-together” for the majority of the process.
Logically it makes sense. If you are cleaning out a closet or a cabinet you have to take everything out, make a bit of a mess so that you can ultimately have an organized and uncluttered space. I guess cleaning our our psychological closets in therapy is also like this. Sadly, although logical, it isn’t exactly an easy or pretty process for those of us who like perfection…
Emily,
You’re so right about the carefree and perfect thing. The more I think about it, though, the more I feel that it’s easier to be uncaring and “perfect.” If you “don’t care” about something, then it doesn’t matter when something goes wrong — or it doesn’t even appear to be wrong. Hmmm.
I faced this issue in a weird way in church. When I started going to church, I was reeled in, in part, because I was so vulnerable and sick and desperate for relief from depression. I coped with my depression by believing it was my punishment for being a terrible awful person. That kind of gave me a way to “work” my way out of my depression by being perfect (this didn’t really work because the whole set-up was a fiction). At church, my peers also believed that they should feel desperate for God and depraved without. They did not honestly feel that way and felt guilty for that. They saw that I did honestly feel that way (guilty and desperate) and they saw that I was generally obedient (trying to work my way out of punishment), so they put me on a holiness pedestal. It was weird to have them elevate me like that. But it became more twisted when they started to compete with me, claiming that they too felt worthless and desperate. In their mind, they believed they should feel worthless, even though they didn’t, but this meant that the fact of the matter was that they felt worthless, but were denying it and deluding themselves into feeling okay, or caving in to Satan who made them think they were okay. Therefore, they would proclaim that they felt worthless and call it “authenticity”, while admitting to their actual feelings of being okay meant that they were hiding behind a facade of strength. It was terribly twisted, and all because my take on mental illness made me act and feel in all the ways they idealized, i.e. “perfect”.
Haha Emily said that to me
I have never been a perfectionist (in the kind that seriously is paralyzed with that), but I do think however there are MANY shades of grey (no pun intended lol) in this. I have different personas, ie business person, girlfriend, daughter, and I am VERY different in all, and makes me want write about how personality and perfectionism arent necessarily transferable to all areas of life.
From what I understand, perfectionist struggle with anger more than most and as a result have more struggles with depression than most groups. Those with depression struggle with food as it also represents life or control. But many layered and a bit more complicated that just rearranging the books in your library in topic, alphabetically or your canned goods in cupboards by size or colour. Sheri