My Journey, Part 1

This first week of the series, I will be sharing my Enneagram journey. I identify with Type One–The Perfectionist. Here is a little background into my story…

Growing up, I was the pleaser and perfectionist of my family, always striving and performing. Class president, homecoming queen, cheer captain, principal’s pet, you name it. I thought that I had to be perfect in order to be loved. Constantly seeking to be the best at everything, I let perfect become my identity.

This led me down a path of self-destructive behaviors, which ultimately turned into an eating disorder–that we all know as anorexia–when I was 19. (You can read more about that here.)

After recovery, I found myself stuck in a constant state of comparison, always measuring myself against everyone. When I didn’t feel like I measured up, I was pretty hard on myself. Whenever I made a mistake, I felt like I had failed and “ruined everything.”

The internal critic was very loud in my life.

This quote sums up a type one:

Ones need to be perfect. They chase perfection because they have this vague unsettling feeling that if they make a mistake, someone is going to jump out to blame, criticize, or punish them. They compulsively strive to fix all that’s broken in the world. But the work is never finished. –The Road Back to You

 

This is part of a 31-day series: The Enneagram. To read all posts, head here.