BPD
This is a friendly and welcoming community for individuals with borderline personality disorder to discuss their condition and receive support from other like-minded individuals. While intended for individuals diagnosed with bpd, undiagnosed individuals, loved ones, family members, and anyone else who may be interested in learning more about bpd are more than welcome to subscribe.
This community, however, is not the place to seek a diagnosis for either yourself or anyone else. We are not mental healthcare professionals and our advice should not be treated the same as that of a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. You can find mental healthcare professionals on sites such as this one, contacting your health insurance agency, or contacting a mental health clinic or hospital in your area.
Community Rules (please read before posting)
- Posts must be related to BPD
- Be compassionate and civil during your time in this community.
- Do not ask for a diagnosis. We are not mental healthcare professionals and as such can not diagnose you with any acceptable degree of accuracy.
- All posts which contain triggering or troubling content must be marked as NSFW.
- Do not post stigmas or harmful rhetoric about BPD. This is harmful not only to the community but to individuals with BPD.
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Many of us at some point in our lives struggle with being perfect before finally learning that true perfection is impossible because what is "perfect" requires not only an irrational/unrealistic amount of effort, but that what is "perfect" is a constantly moving target. Even if one were to expend the irrational amount of effort and be lucky enough to attain the state of what was considered "perfect", by the time you get there, the definition of "perfect" would be different.
Its a bit odd, but the world of automobile advertising gave us the actual workable path:
The rational effort is the pursuit, not the attainment, of perfection.
This offers a profound shift in thinking. Built into this idea is the perfection is never actually reachable, and that falling short of perfection is not only acceptable, but the normal expected result. It shines a light on the idea that working to improve is the actual goal. If we apply this to ourselves, then we can also introduce that we can continue to try to be better versions of our selves, but that there is no set timeline or schedule that we have to have that improvement. We're not chasing a deadline where perfection is at the end. We're incrementally, over time, setting habits and behaviors that we chose to make us better. The continued execution of those choices to improve is the measure success.
We don't have to have anxiety anymore about not being perfect, as long as we are trying, in some small way, to improve ourselves in our own time on our own schedule. It was quite a freeing realization for me when I put this together for myself and made my minor self improvements points of celebration instead of crises of anxiety because I had failed to achieve "perfection". I am a better person and happier today with massive self improvement over decades because of this shift in thinking.
I swear to God if you were paid by Lexus I'm going to just totally lose my faith in humanity. That said, that was a wonderful piece of writing and I thank you for writing it.
It reminds me of one of my favorite songs, "just wait" "there's no such thing as a failure that keeps trying, coasting to the bottom is the only disgrace."
Its a flawed song, but got me through some real hard times.
I can restore your faith in humanity for a moment. I don't work for in any automotive sector. :)
I wish this idea was more prevalent in our culture.