Every once in a while, I read an article that stops me in my tracks.
This piece by Ravit Rose 🌹 Everything Divorce did that to me today.
Let’s start with an admission: it took me a very long time to recognize that I have been carrying around a mental health struggle my whole adult life. That was anxiety or, more precisely, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder; see https://bit.ly/4fldWjQ). This is not the feeling that shows up before a mediation, motion or trial and then politely leaves once the court date has passed. I’m talking about anxiety that runs through my veins constantly, quietly shaping everything I do.
My anxiety shows up when I’m brushing my teeth, folding laundry and paying bills. It shows up when I notice that my pressed shirt has a wrinkle. And it doesn’t stop just with me. That’s the part I’ve had to sit with most of my adult life. This same anxiety bleeds into how I expect the people around me to behave – my wife, my children, my team at work, even my friends. I set a bar, often without realizing I’ve set it, and then I quietly resent anyone who doesn’t clear it.
As you can imagine, this has gotten me into a fair amount of trouble over the years. Relationships strained, and people who love me feeling like they could never quite measure up to whatever invisible standard I was holding that day.
That’s exactly why Rose’s article landed the way it did. She writes about perfectionism not as some admirable trait – not simply “having high standards” – but as something rooted much deeper: FEAR. Fear of failure, of criticism, of rejection, of losing control.
Reading that reframing was uncomfortable in the best way, because it named something I’d never quite been able to name myself. My need for control was never really about the folded laundry or the pressed shirt. It was about managing an anxiety I didn’t know how to sit with any other way.
What struck me most was her case study of a woman named Donna, who arrived at therapy fully put-together – hair, makeup, outfit, all precise – while quietly unraveling underneath. Donna’s marriage had ended, and she was left grappling with panic attacks and a nagging sense that the divorce wasn’t just a loss, but proof of some personal failure. Rose describes how Donna’s need for a “perfect” home and family had slowly suffocated her husband and children, and how the less secure Donna felt in the relationship, the more rigid and demanding she became – which only pushed everyone further away.
Reading her story felt uncomfortably close to home. I recognized the pattern immediately, because I’ve lived a version of it.
Rose goes on to lay out the traits that tend to travel together with this kind of perfectionism – things like an intense focus on details, tying self-worth to achievement, being highly sensitive to criticism, struggling to relax or be spontaneous, and holding impossibly high expectations for both myself and everyone around me.
I read that list and felt seen in a way that was almost unsettling. It wasn’t a diagnosis handed to me from the outside. It was a mirror. This is why I’ve worked so hard over the years to temper my anxiety with very conscious behaviour. Healthy eating, regular workouts, guarded sleep times, lots of social activities, weekly yoga and daily prayer are all part of my daily routine.
If any of this resonates with you, I commend you to read the article at https://www.irooze.com/divorce-articles/the-truth-about-perfectionism-no-one-told-me-until-my-divorce
Thank you Ravit Rose 🌹 Everything Divorce
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