Leon’s Existential Cafe

You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

The perfectionist, to appropriate advice from existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, “needs to give up hope for a better past.” The added layer to this is the deep sense of specialness the perfectionist feels from being mistreated as a child. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

Feeling immense pressure to feel extraordinary gratitude and perform, the child of perfectionism may then avoid the perfectionistic parent, accepting the obvious impossibility of ever making up for the perfectionist’s poor upbringing. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

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You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

It isn’t an oversimplification to say that perfectionism, at its core, is about a deep and irrational need for emotional and often even physical security. But there is a deeper story, which goes back to the perfectionist’s childhood. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

The perfectionist both believes their diligence should result in a utopian existence (i.e., conditional love) and also believes they were owed it in childhood (i.e., unconditional love). The tragedy is the perfectionist doesn’t know what they believe. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

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You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

The perfectionist, to appropriate advice from Irvin Yalom, “needs to give up hope for a better past.” And, to give up hope of discovering "why them?" as opposed to another. The added layer to this is the deep sense of specialness the perfectionist feels. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

You Must Give Up Hope for a Better Past Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

Many perfectionists remain stuck trying to answer the question of “Why me?” while simultaneously feverishly attempting to curate their present circumstances as a way of fixing the past or receiving a payment for the debt of childhood trauma. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

If anything, the person with bipolar disorder tends to desperately hope for their environment to make them feel good. The crash occurs each time it fails to. Nothing is as good as it seems is the mantra we tell ourselves, not to degrade but to appreciate. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

This article is for and dedicated to Donald Trump…

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Perfectionism Has No End to It Perfectionists struggle to define what makes one lovable and worthy, so they search for external validation while also unfairly discounting it.

Perfectionism is an excuse to avoid risk. Psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams notably remarked, “The obsessive-compulsive uses words to conceal feelings, not to express them." And, as long as we’re perfecting, an extreme form of doing, we’re avoiding feeling. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

The common understanding of bipolar disorder is meaningfully wrong. It isn’t the environment that tends to make one feel good; it’s one’s own mind. And it often isn’t one’s mind attached to an immediate reality, directly illuminating it with radiant colors. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

In Bipolar Disorder, it often isn’t one’s mind attached to an immediate reality, directly illuminating it with radiant colors. In contrast, it’s one’s mind injecting the present with the steroid of possibility. The euphoria stems, mostly, from hope. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Moral Perfectionism and the Selfishness of Shame Moral perfectionism is associated with excessive pride, which often blinds us from others' needs while making us falsely believe that we're good and thoughtful people.

Jonathan Shedler astutely wrote, “Guilt is self-referential. It’s one part of the personality attacking another. The hurt person is secondary.” Moral perfectionism is, therefore, less about compassion and more about pride. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

As someone with bipolar II disorder, I can tell you that it’s difficult to enjoy much of anything for its own sake. When depressed, it feels as though nothing matters, so I dwell on the past. And when elated, I’m waiting for some great experience or reward. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

The expectation of a reward is increased because I idealize, and the reward itself is hardly ever appreciated; most of life can’t live up to my fantasy of it. I always just increase the speed on the treadmill, hoping, again, for something to make me whole. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

We disqualify the positive, telling ourselves that because some achievement failed to heal us, then it must be worthless; we catastrophize, telling ourselves we’ll never be happy; we overgeneralize, telling ourselves nothing matters; and we personalize. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Schopenhauer's Advice to Gifted Children Arthur Schopenhauer's wisdom applies to gifted children and young adults, who often obsess over attaining external validation and finding objective meaning.

On Schopenhauer’s vision, Bather Woods noted, “”Value lies not in fame itself,” he wrote, “but in what secures the fame”… The divide between fame and value opens up the possibility of two kinds of injustice: overrated hacks and unappreciated geniuses.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

The euphoria stems, for the most part, from hope. So, the reality, regardless of form, is secondary—little more than a means to an end. As someone with bipolar II disorder, I can tell you that it’s difficult to enjoy much of anything for its own sake. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

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Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

Bipolar disorder is a paradox: On the one hand, we’re overly dependent on our environments to make us happy, and, on the other, our minds can’t seem to access their gifts. We need it while simultaneously rejecting it. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Schopenhauer's Advice to Gifted Children Arthur Schopenhauer's wisdom applies to gifted children and young adults, who often obsess over attaining external validation and finding objective meaning.

Schopenhauer’s wisdom is most applicable to gifted children and young adults, who struggle with living up to expectations and actualizing their innate abilities. Reading Bather Woods’ biography, I knew that past and present patients would identify with it. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

Dopamine is mostly secreted when we’re expecting a reward, rather than due to it. But this trend is amplified in bipolar disorder. So, in my case, the expectation of a reward is increased because I idealize, and the reward itself is hardly ever appreciated. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

The common understanding of bipolar disorder is wrong in a meaningful way. People tend to believe whatever makes most people sad makes the individual struggling with this illness depressed, and whatever makes most people feel happy makes them feel euphoric. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

I’m Bipolar Disorder, this is perfectionism’s overarching goal—to finally achieve something that will allow you to relax, that can be a way off the treadmill (magically halting it), which one mistakenly believes they can just exit. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

The Extreme Fear and Pain of Being Criticized Some fear being held responsible because they fear being blamed and shamed. But responsibility, unlike blame or shame, is fair, just, compassionate, and unifying.

Growing up without the distinction between blame and responsibility, the child’s natural tendency to personalize, catastrophize, and engage in black and white thinking is reinforced, which makes one feel being held accountable is akin to being punished. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

Nothing is as good as it seems is the mantra we tell ourselves, not to degrade but to appreciate. If we fail to heed its warning not to obsess and idealize, the treadmill produces the same thought distortions—the fantastical is slain by the fists of time. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

That is perfectionism’s overarching goal—to achieve relaxing and a way off the treadmill, which one mistakenly believes they can just exit. Yet, the exit is an illusion propped up by the immense optimism gifted by this purportedly sublime pursuit. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Moral Perfectionism and the Selfishness of Shame Moral perfectionism is associated with excessive pride, which often blinds us from others' needs while making us falsely believe that we're good and thoughtful people.

Jonathan Shedler astutely wrote, “Guilt is self-referential. It’s one part of the personality attacking another. The hurt person is secondary.” The question most prominent is, “Did I do the right thing?” It isn’t, “How were my efforts received?” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Chasing Perfection in Bipolar Disorder Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

We know this about dopamine: Most of it is secreted when expecting a reward, rather than when we possess it. But this trend is amplified in bipolar disorder. So, in my case, the expectation of a reward is increased because I idealize, only to feel letdown. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...