When I’m depressed, perfectionism rears its perfectly ugly head. Because I can never do things perfectly, this can result avoiding responsibilities. In turn, it makes me feel bad about myself even more, further fuelling my depression. It’s a negative feedback loop that perpetuates itself, perfectly.

Can any of you relate?

I found this definition of perfection somewhere: "Perfection is an ideal that is held or a perception we have that something or someone is free from flaws and faults."

Like beauty, perfection is in the eye of the beholder. It’s entirely subjective, although some would disagree. For example, there might be an objective measure of what a "perfect" airplane takeoff looks like or what constitutes a perfectly clean window. But those standards still have been subjectively chosen.

Herein lies the dangerous dilemma: We have a vision of perfection, but, practically speaking, perfection is impossible to attain, because our very nature as human beings is to be flawed. As humans, we are perfectly imperfect and always evolving, always a work in progress. Not to get too philosophical here, but if we’re always evolving then the state of being perfected can never happen.

Yet when I’m depressed, I still fall under the cruel........

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