Attacking Atelophobia: Pushing Past Perfectionism

By Jehn Kubiak

Perfectionism. A simple word, but a simply unattainable thing we still strive for. It's a nearly inescapable trap many have fallen into, and they have lost themselves in the process. Does an escape route exist? Can a person truly stop trying to please other people or criticize their shortcomings? Can anyone change cultures that demand extreme excellence? Yes-but it's a journey of self-awareness, exploration, and learning from others with similar stories. This journey starts with attacking the fear of imperfection-atelophobia-and learning to push past failure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644718834

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Attacking Atelophobia

Pushing Past Perfectionism

Jehn Kubiak

ISBN 978-1-64471-882-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64471-883-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Jehn Kubiak

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Preface

In December 2017, God told me I needed to share my health journey in a book—and I published that book, God’s Grace Through Gastritis, GERD and Grit, in July 2018. I wasn’t sure if I’d become a one-hit wonder, but then my parents and professors told me, I’m looking forward to your upcoming books. I could’ve taken that as pressure, but I realized that was an invitation from God to write more books that would inspire others and help them in their healing journey. As I planned the topic for my next book, I asked myself, what would help others the most? What has been the most prevalent struggle throughout my whole story? I thought back to my past three therapists and two PCPs and remembered two words they often repeated: performance anxiety.

All these mental health and medical professionals saw an intense personal struggle with perfection and people pleasing that they knew was certainly unhealthy and abnormal. One of my doctors even thought I had OCD because I literally couldn’t pull myself away from my school assignments (actually, I’m three weeks ahead in my graduate studies as I write this). A couple of them even asked me why I was so anxious about grades or what others thought. I didn’t have an answer for them until last spring, when I thought I completely defeated this monster called atelophobia, defined as a morbid fear of imperfection. Throughout my (conscious) battle with anxiety over the last two years, I discovered that anxiety is uncontrolled fear.

This past summer, I encountered a situation that made me realize I truly wasn’t over my performance anxiety. Although I worked through most of my false beliefs and triggers, there was one I still believed: that I wasn’t a good person if other good people didn’t like me. I eventually realized that all people make judgments, and some of those come from false information. Taking all these things into account, I knew I had to delve deeper into my affinity for psychology and really understand atelophobia. Since then, I’ve processed, reprocessed, and researched everything about it so I could write this book for others who have struggled with a fear of never measuring up, or a need to perform for others. And don’t get me wrong—I definitely still struggle with low self-esteem and the urge to be the perfect person, to do everything perfectly. But I’ve also learned to cope with imperfection and hope my readers will as well. To God be the glory with how he uses this story.

Part 1: Personal Struggles

Chapter 1

What Is Atelophobia?

When you hear the phrase performance anxiety, what comes to mind? Do you think of an artist becoming nervous before a concert, or an athlete becoming anxious about a game? Most people would choose one of the two—or something similar—as their answer. However, let me introduce a totally new side of performance anxiety: the one that comes out of a fear of imperfection. And that leads me to what the first word in this book’s title, "atelophobia," means. Atelo- is the Greek word for imperfection, and you probably already know that phobia means fear. Thus, we have atelophobia.

When I say fear of imperfection, I’m not thinking of simply not getting good grades—I’m thinking more along the lines of working on a two-page paper for six hours, skipping meals, and obsessing over every painstaking detail.

As I reflect back on my childhood, I don’t ever remember caring about others really liking me or feeling like I had to try overly hard in school. However, everything changed once middle school hit. Even though I love music and still play in Symphonic Winds at Biola, I believe that my fear of imperfection truly started in middle school band.

How can you distinguish the difference between a pursuit of excellence and atelophobia? Here are some symptoms and common characteristics¹:

Feeling anxious after thinking about or dealing with imperfections.

Doing everything possible to avoid imperfection.

Inability to function normally due to high anxiety.

Knowing that you have unreasonable fears but feeling powerless to control them.

Having obsessive thoughts.

Difficulty thinking about anything except fear.

Feelings of depersonalization.

Feelings of losing control or craziness.

Fear of fainting.

Persistent worrying about upcoming events that could deal with imperfection.

A desire to flee tough situations that deal with imperfection.

Feeling anger, sadness, guilt, or fear when thinking about the past.

Atelophobia usually occurs as a result of a traumatic event, especially those from childhood.² Bad memories of respected authority figures, such as teachers and parents, consistently pointing out flaws and weaknesses may make someone feel the urge to prove themselves, and thus, they loathe imperfection. In turn, this hatred causes people to despise their past mistakes, and they end up on the never-ending hamster wheel of self-hatred. Atelophobia can also manifest in other perfectionistic tendencies, such as home cleanliness and organization.

Atelophobia creates anxiety, so it’s not surprising that many atelophobics suffer through anxiety disorders—I personally have nearly recovered from panic disorder. However, I had several panic attacks when I first found out about my anxiety disorder because I would not turn from my perfectionistic ways. We’ll get to that in the next chapter, but right now, I just want to explore what atelophobia is. Anxiety is generally an overreaction to fear, which is caused by high levels of cortisol, and therefore, atelophobia creates anxiety. As a result, the traditional anxiety symptoms will often follow: rapid heartbeat, sweating, nausea, hyperventilation, panic, feelings of powerlessness or loss of control, and more.

Those who suffer from atelophobia will try to compensate with extra performance, whether that’s through earning perfect scores on assignments, being the perfect employee, or even being the perfect child. Remember when I said people generally become atelophobics due to an experience with authority figures who highlighted their flaws? Here’s where that comes into play: atelophobics will often carry out this extra performance specifically for those authority figures. For instance, I realized my atelophobia came from teachers who never praised my work in school, even if I received a 98 percent in their class. So during my undergraduate education, I constantly obsessed over every single assignment and looked for positive comments my professors left on my papers. I also often yearned for compliments from my supervisors at work and made sure I always over-delivered so they would say, "You’re valuable here." The majority of my supervisors have noticed my hard work, but when I had one that didn’t, I actually became angry—especially when they noticed everyone else’s work except mine. What in the world is wrong with me? Here I am, doing more than them, and yet they receive all the praise?

Those thinking and behavioral patterns result in a deadly cycle of performance and desire for affirmation. With this in mind, a lack of affirmation results in a higher amount of perfectionism and anxiety. That’s why atelophobia results in an approval addiction. Perfectionists often believe they have to remain perfect—otherwise, they are not worthy of love.³ If they do not receive affirmation, they fall into a trap of guilt and/or shame, which further fuels their praise addiction and anxiety.

Due to this cycle, atelophobics develop self-defeating inner dialogues and negative self-assessments⁴:

Rigid all or nothing thinking: either I succeed or fail.

Overgeneralizations rule behavior: must, should, always, never, etc.

Exaggeration of negative personal attributes instead of focusing on the positives.

Unreasonably high goals that are either hard to meet (leading to shame and guilt) or full of avoidance/procrastination to protect oneself from failure.

Defensiveness about feedback and resistance to suggestions.

Goals and projects intertwine with self-esteem; the outcome dictates how a person feels about themselves.

Need for approval, especially in close relationships.

Exhibition of people pleasing behaviors.

After looking at this list, we can see two common themes: (1) proving oneself worthy of affirmation to satisfy a desire for affirmation and (2) punishing oneself for failure to receive that affirmation. Some of these inner dialogues come from an anxiety of losing control—if we can’t make people like us, then we must find out why we cannot please that person, despite all our efforts.

Dr. Peter Day from Plymouth University performed a study with art students, who described how they felt after critiques.⁵ Many of these students said they had fears of poor time management and heavy workloads, falling behind, or of new and unknown things. Some also felt stress and anxiety as a result of failure, which led to the following fears: loss of respect and/or face, loss of personal confidence and the ability to achieve, and not being good enough. Does any of this sound familiar to the list above? Definitely.

If you have a mental illness,