The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control—Katherine Morgan Schafler

I've been on this kick of reading psychological self help books. So far I've read:

When I was going through a break up and I considered solo polyamory this year:

• Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern, 288 pages

• The Anxious Person's Guide to Non-Monogamy: Your Guide to Open Relationships, Polyamory and Letting Go by Lola Phoenix, 208 pages

  
  

When I found myself completely devastated following a break up after a year and a half long relationship:

• Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab, 304 pages

• Getting Past Your Break Up: How to Turn a Devastating Loss Into the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You by Susan J. Elliott, 272 pages

• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Find—and Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller, 304 pages

  
  

  However, I am currently working on:

• I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman with Hal Straus, 336 pages

• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz, 160 pages, a book commonly recommended to me by several friends and acquaintances.

• and finally The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power by Katherine Morgan Schafler, a book for me and my ongoing need to make sure several aspects of my life are perfect for me.

I plan on going into my thoughts and opinions on each of these books in the future. However, lately I've found myself stuck on the Perfectionist Guide. I haven't finished it yet, hell, I haven't even made it past the first chapter yet but I can't help but share my thoughts on the part I've already read.

I find myself internally distraught and shaken when things don't turn out exactly as I imagined. Whether it's the look of a new couch in my space, how a coffee shops aesthetic compares to its aesthetic displayed on social media, or an outfit coming out completely wrong compared to the vision I had in my head. Tiny disappointments feel bigger than they should. I truly chalked it up to being a perfectionist—or maybe my Libra Moon—probably both.

But my spirals don't stop at aesthetics. I have continuously found and find myself spiraling when people misunderstand me. When a story about me floats around—twisted, misquoted, or wildly inaccurate—I feel gutted. Not necessarily because it makes me look "bad," but because someone is circulating a version of me that doesn't exist. That feeling—the urge to set the record straight, to clarify, to be seen as I am—has haunted me. Although, these spirals were never something I connected to the term perfectionism.

Following the introduction of Schafler's book, you're immediately met with a quiz: Which type of perfectionist are you? I was completely excited in finally finding out more about this part of myself—only to end up in disappointment and almost a sense of sadness.

The types of perfectionists are as followed:

"1. Intense Perfectionists are effortlessly direct and maintain razor sharp focus on achieving their goal. Left unchecked, their standards can go from high to impossible, and they can be punitive with others and themselves for not achieving impossible standards.

2. Classic Perfectionists are highly reliable, consistent, and detail-oriented, and they add stability to their environment. Left unchecked, they struggle to adapt to spontaneity or a change in routine, and they can experience difficulty connecting meaningfully with others.

3. Parisian Perfectionists possess a live-wire understanding of the power of interpersonal connection and hold a strong capacity for empathy. Left unchecked, their desire to connect to others can metastasize into toxic people-pleasing.

4. Procrastinator Perfectionists excel at preparing, can see opportunities from a 360-degree perspective, and have a good impulse control. Left unchecked, their preparative measures hit a point of diminishing returns, resulting in indecisiveness and inaction.

5. Messy Perfectionists effortlessly push through the anxiety of new beginnings, are superstar idea generators, adapt to spontaneity well, and are naturally enthusiastic. Left unchecked, they struggle to stay focused on their goals, ultimately spreading their energy too thin to follow through on their commitments." (The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control, p. xxv)

   (Schafler offers an online quiz here: https://www.perfectionistsguide.com/quiz) 

   
   

Share your number one result!

• Intense Perfectionist
• Classic Perfectionist
• Parisian Perfectionist
• Procrastinator Perfectionist

See All Options

You could imagine my being upset with not only finding out what kind of perfectionist I was but that I was also multiple different kinds. I ended up with 43% Intense Perfectionist, 29% Parisian Perfectionist, 14% Classic Perfectionist, and 14% Procrastinator Perfectionist.

The intense and classic perfectionist results made immediate sense to me. I am extremely detail oriented, very focused on my goals or any goal I put my mind to, think and hope I am highly reliable, consistent, direct, and stable. When I don't find myself meeting the standards I set for myself, I sit in disappointment. The second a routine changes rocks my world, I am immediately disoriented. Any time I've ended a relationship, moved, got a new job—I find myself in tears for weeks until the change has fully become a new norm in my daily routine.

It was the Parisian perfectionist that threw me through a loop, I was resistant to this idea of myself. I don't think of myself to be a people-pleaser. I am determined to stick by myself, say no when I mean no, stay in when I want to even if my friends are begging me to join them for a night out, I refuse to give people parts of me that I'm not ready to, and so on. To simplify it: I don't overextend myself to meet others' expectations. While I connected with the strong capacity for empathy, I couldn't understand how I fell under this category. Slightly let down, I considered putting the book down that I thought had got me wrong.

But I continued reading and decided to take in what was written in the Parisian Perfectionist section of the first chapter: "Expect to be Graded on This." The first sentence followed by an example of a session with a Parisian perfectionist client, Schafler wrote: "Parisian perfectionists want to be perfectly liked, an "achievement" other types of perfectionists don't prize. Even when everything else is going exactly the way they choose, when a Parisian perfectionist is experiencing difficultly connecting to someone with who they want to connect, it can all feel for naught." (The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, p. 9)

It was like a light bulb went off. I had to take a second to remind myself that no book is ever going to get me perfectly but that I needed to find a way to connect to the book and my results on my own. It was then that I realized, the years of fighting narratives about me and my deep issue with being misunderstood put me directly in the Parisian Perfectionists sphere whether I liked it or not. It wasn't about being liked, it was about people having the wrong idea of who I am.

I read this months ago, after having eye surgery and put the book down and have put reading other books over it but the thought continuously lingered in my mind: Why does being misunderstood hurt so much? How could I change this? How could I begin the process of learning to just let things go and allowing people to believe what they want—so long as the people in my life that love and know me personally loved and understood me—what was the problem?

It's felt like an ongoing battle of wanting to move past this mindset and not knowing how to—up until recently when I decided to put it into practice.

I was having an issue with someone I had briefly dated that I felt had gotten me, at first, but was eventually followed with them completely missing the mark. When they explained their description of me, I was unrecognizable to myself. It nagged at me for weeks until eventually I exploded, I couldn't help but ride on this wired train of "how dare you, someone who hardly knows me, sharing a narrative of me that you came up with based off of our short time together?!" I sent text after text after text, stating how unfair it was and eventually the emotionally charged conversation turned into a dead end phone call full of no answers and no availability to explain myself when I asked questions for clarification.

I called my best friend of ten years, a therapist, across the country and asked her why this was happening, listened to her explain why I knew I wasn't those things and ideas, and begged her to explain why this mattered so much to me. Mid conversation, as she was grounding me from my spiral—it dawned on me—I was doing it again. I began questioning—how can I keep from doing this again? How can I break this process this time?

That night, I made a decision. I was going to try something radical: acceptance. I was going to have to live with the reality that someone I briefly knew had walked away with the wrong story. That I couldn't change it. That maybe they were never interested in the real version of me to begin with. I had to accept that if someone had been building a case against me in their mind without asking me questions, simply put me on trial and deemed me guilty all at once that it was going to have to be what it was. I started writing down all of the people who love me and know me—the ones who laugh with me, and call me out when I need it—they are the ones who hold the truth.

I made a list of those people and thought about how they would describe me to erase the ways I was being described. Not to inflate my ego, but to remember what love grounded in truth actually sounds like. I asked myself why I felt like I needed someone who walked out of my life to understand me, why it mattered.

It's not easy. But I am learning that sometimes, perfectionism doesn't look like color-coded planners or spotless rooms. Sometimes, it's an exhausting need to prove that you're not who someone else says you are. Sometimes, the most freeing thing you can do is let them think what they want. And maybe that's what healing looks like—learning to let the false stories stay unwritten in your mind.

What if the real work of healing isn't proving who we are, but letting go of who we'll never be to someone else?

In my book queue, I plan on my next reads being:

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van del Kolk M.D., 464 pages

• Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Paul T.T. Mason MS and Randi Kreger, 280 pages

• Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall, 288 pages.

• The Cure for Emotional Unavailability: Discover the Source of Emotional Unavailability Heal and Have Positive, Successful Relationships by Stella Smith, 146 pages.

• The Art of Letting Go: How to Let Go of the Past, Look Forward to the Future, and Finally Enjoy the Emotional Freedom You Deserve! by Damon Zahariades, 194 pages.

• Don't F*cking Panic: The Shit They Don't Tell You in Therapy about Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks and Depression by Kelsey Darragh, 368 pages.

If you've read any of these, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts on them.

Citations:

The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power by Katherine Morgan Schafler (Penguin Life, 2023)