I grew up in a church going home. Not a Christian home. My home wasn’t filled with prayer or God’s promises. It wasn’t filled with kindness or joy. It was filled with rules & regulations and no matter how much I tried to follow the rules… I could never measure up. I was reminded over and over again that I was bad. Not that I was bad and in need of a Savior. No, I was just bad for being me.
So I tried to be good. When good wasn’t good enough, then I tried harder to be good. Until I reached the point of trying to reach perfection. Once you strive for perfection, then there’s no where else to go except down. Perfection is impossible and it’s detrimental to the soul. It robs you of small joys. It removes pieces of you little by little until you feel that only threads are holding you together. No matter how perfect I tried to be… in my home, it still wasn’t perfect enough.
I grew up with a narcissistic mother and a father who only enjoyed playing. He did discipline though.. and often. I have very few good memories of my childhood. We would go on outings pretty often. Truthfully, aside from these day trips and a couple other memories, this sums up the goodness of my childhood. Mostly I felt inadequate as a daughter, unprotected by my bullying sister, and unworthy to have as a friend.
In my early teenage years my parents separated and then divorced. As a 12 year old when my life already felt uncertain, my hormones were wacky, and I didn’t have a sense of who I was yet, then this brokenness to our already broken home was devastating. The sense of perfection heightened in me.
“If only I had behaved better, then maybe my mother wouldn’t have felt the need to yell at me all the time.”
“If only I had listened better to my dad when he shared with me all the financial woes of our household and swore me to secrecy.”
“If only I hadn’t fought with my sister so much, then our home would have been happier.”
So as I tried to find a new normal within myself, then I strived to reach a more perfect, perfect.
With their divorce, I was no longer just the sounding board for my dad. He shared with me all of his troubles (maritally and financially) as if I was his pro-bono counselor. I was now a sounding board for my mother too. My dad left her for another woman. So she was broken and it was my unspoken duty to raise her up, dust her off, and prepare her for her new life. I was very unprepared to do this thing at the ripe age of 13. My sister was labeled as irresponsible, so she couldn’t be trusted to do this. Only I could and I began resenting my mom more and more. She married another man soon thereafter and I warned him about her. “She doesn’t listen well.” “She likes to yell.” I told him. “She is a hard person to live with.” He scoffed at me and told me he would be fine. He then became verbally abusive to me. He would scream at me how bad I was. That I would ruin his daughter. The truth is, I was a good kid even though they didn’t think so. I did talk a lot, but I didn’t do drugs. I wasn’t having sex. I made good grades in school. I went to church. Their words haunted me and confirmed to me how bad I really was. No matter what, I couldn’t be good enough. I had begged my mom not to marry this man. She laughed at me. Every time I told her what I wanted or needed no matter the circumstance, I was labeled as being silly. Untruthful. She often told me I was funny for it.
Later in my life, I began being sassy and hateful in an effort to push her away. I desperately wanted to find a sense of who I was. My life was instead wrapped up with how she saw me and treated me. So she took me to the doctor and medicated me with anti-depressants claiming it was my father who had caused this in me. This is what a narcissistic does. They cannot take responsibility for their own actions. It was at this time that I began praying for the Lord to let me die. I begged for him to let me get into a car wreck during my commute to work & school. I would cry every time a tractor-trailor truck passed me and I was okay. There were lots of these large trucks on the road that led to my home. I felt it was my only way out, because as a perfectionist then there’s no way I could do it to myself. That would make me look imperfect. However, in my mind, then I could pray for the Lord to let it happen to me. Thankfully, He never answered those prayers in the way I hoped.
I went to church Sunday morning and Sunday night and on Wednesday night. If there was any type of program or function, then I would be there. I stopped helping in the nursery (which I enjoyed), so that I could be in the service. There was some truth I was missing and I had to find it! I started going to other churches too and getting involved there also. The truth must be more apparent at these churches, because I wasn’t finding it at my current church. I went through high school feeling desperately alone, misunderstood, and shackled to my perfection. I applied to and got into a Christian college. I thought that maybe there I could find what I was looking for. There, people would be Christians and they would understand me. They wouldn’t treat me badly. They wouldn’t make fun of me or hurt me on purpose.
I met Andy the summer before I left for college. He was kind to me. He didn’t expect me to be perfect. When I would make a mistake and break into tears begging for forgiveness he would calmly tell me how it was just an accident and I was okay. He made me feel important and loved, for the first time ever. He finished his senior year at college while I started my college career. I was definitely in for an awakening while I was there! I realized that I was still bad. Bad at school, bad at friendships, a bad roommate, and a bad communicator. I struggled through my freshman year and left feeling once again very alone and as if no matter how hard I tried, then I couldn’t do well with anything in life.
Andy rescued me that Summer when he married me and took me away from the chaos of my family. The one that I could do nothing right. The family that made me question my reality at every turn, because I couldn’t possibly feel the way I was feeling. The family who made me feel like I did a good job trying to be good, but really wasn’t very good at all. Andy helped to heal my heart. He told me the truths of God and helped me understand God’s grace and the forgiveness of Jesus. He helped me know that it was okay if I wasn’t perfect and that noone could achieve perfection.
We had been together for 6 years and attending a wonderful church that held amazing truths of God’s Word. One Sunday we had an Evangelist preacher come speak. He talked about his salvation and God’s goodness. I realized then that I wasn’t saved. The Lord spoke to Andy and whispered my name to him. He approached me about this and I was very defensive, because I couldn’t believe this was true. I had felt that I was saved as a young girl at bible camp. I don’t think I truly understood what it meant to be saved at this time. Although, undoubtedly, through the hardships of growing up in a broken home with a narcissistic mother and not-so-present father… the Lord had His hand on me! It was shocking to realize my perfection had gotten me nowhere with God. So at 24 years old on February 22, 2009 I asked the Lord to save me from my sins.
At the moment, it was like I held this small box of perfection in my hands. As I prayed to the Lord I could see this little box I held. I handed it over to the Father and released it to Him. No longer could I do this. No longer could I be perfect enough for Him either. It was only by His grace and the sacrifice of Jesus that I could be saved. I finally realized that my perfection could no longer save me.
A couple years later I began to realize I am still bad. Even though I tried desperately to still be good. I knew I couldn’t be perfect and I knew I wasn’t. I was okay with that. However, I was still really bad at being a daughter, a wife and a friend. I felt that I was a pretty good mom, but that was the only area of life that I wasn’t desperately messing up. I sought help through biblical counseling and the Lord granted me with a lady with such wisdom and strength. For years we walked the path of redemption together. She helped me to see that God’s grace is sufficient. I could never be enough for my parents, because they couldn’t see me for who the Creator created me to be. They couldn’t see my gifts or acknowledge that I was a woman after God’s own heart. I did some work on communication in my marriage too. It took many years of healing, but today I stand before you truly redeemed from the brokenness I once felt.
More than once in my life I have been suicidal. For much of my life I felt worthless; Unworthy of friendship or love. That’s not who God says I am though! Through the salvation of Jesus I am clothed in robes of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10), clothed with strength & dignity (Prov. 31:25) and a child of the one true King (Gal. 3:26) and so now I know that I no longer need perfection in my life. All I need is Jesus! As a recovering perfectionist.... How thankful I am for His redemption over me!
