Anxiety Disguises itself in Innovative Ways. Perfectionism is Just One of Them.

A few years and an entire pandemic ago, I was traveling around the country (and in Canada) on tour for my memoir Little Panic (about growing up with an undiagnosed panic disorder and how recognizing something was wrong with me without knowing its name shaped the course of my entire life).

I spoke to thousands of people, engaging with audiences of all ages about anxiety and other mental health issues and taking questions.

I stressed often, and as gently as possible (not my strength, tbh), that anxiety often comes from inside the house. Meaning, of course, that children aren’t born anxious—they learn how to become anxious by watching and modeling the behavior of their anxious caregivers.

During one particular Q&A, a woman was beside herself because she swore, up and down, that she wasn’t anxious, and neither was her wife. She was, she told me, as she picked feverishly at her cuticles, a perfectionist.

Could it be that her perfectionism was creating her child’s anxiety? Was it possible that her perfectionism read to her child as anxiety, and that’s why her child was so anxious all the time even though she, the parent, was not anxious at all, but in fact simply just a perfectionist?

Yes, yes, she decided, answering her own question—it was definitely perfectionism. Thank you so much, she said, sitting back down.

I hadn’t actually said a word.

When the Q&A ended, I sought out the perfectionist. There was something significant I wanted her to know, and it was this: Anxiety disguises itself in pretty innovative ways. Perfectionism is just one of them.

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