Am I a Bad Person?

The core of perfectionism is the sense that one is a bad person, a state which one believes to be so extreme that it can only be remedied by an equally extreme one. Since “bad” is such a broad term, it encompasses many misdeeds. One feels “bad” when they’ve emotionally harmed someone. They feel “bad” when they give in to laziness. They feel “bad” for being unambitious on any particular day. They feel “bad” for not going “above and beyond.” They feel “bad” for having needs. And they feel “bad” when they don’t feel good enough, for good only implies perfect. Bad means guilty and disgraced. Bad means not trying hard enough to be moral or even successful.

“It depends” is a refrain used in therapy. Our patients may ask, “Am I a bad person for…?” Perfectionists, as we commonly understand the term, subscribe to the doctrine of absolute perfectionism, or the belief that one has to be perfect everywhere, all the time, and to everyone. Implied is the notion of consistency and the underlying assumption that one either is or isn’t a good person. And what is a good person? Someone who is all of the things, of course. Consistency removes the anxiety of being a fraud or hypocrite. And consistency is an easy way to measure one’s goodness. Yet, life’s decisions, more often than not, are extremely messy.

Lumping every potential choice into the good/bad dyad means that we sometimes and unwittingly make bad choices while believing we’re making good ones. Take success, for instance. Believing that success indicates goodness can mean becoming a workaholic because working is good. What happens when one feels drained and doesn’t want to work? Well, they may consider themselves to be lazy, which is “bad.” So, despite health issues and strained relationships, they continue to work because working implies independence, productivity, and contribution, and the belief is that good people embody those qualities all of the time—again, “consistency.”

The way we treat others can also become confusing. An absolute version of morality indicates that we need to treat people equally. Yet, reality demands an alternative. Different people have different needs and varied sensitivities. So, when one asks, “Am I a bad person?” my response may be, “How do you think the person you have in mind would feel?” The former question, which is more self-centered, places one’s focus on some ideal, the embodiment of which may be desirable only to the perfectionist. The latter, however, causes one to take into account whether the other individual expects the perfectionist to live up to an ideal.

Perfectionists struggle with theory of mind, or the sense that others have their own standards and expectations for themselves and others. So, their ideals may differ from those of the perfectionist or, again, confusingly, they may not even take their own ideals too seriously. Simply because the perfectionist believes they broke a sacred rule doesn’t necessarily mean they caused harm. The opposite is also true—even though one is consistent, morally, harm may ensue from one’s decision to follow a rule or attempt to meet one’s own standard. History is full of examples.

While the question of “Am I a bad person?” may motivate us to engage in acts that make us feel good about ourselves, it may also push others away. Instead, we may decide to become more curious about others’ needs and how we affect them. Can trying to be a good person, in reality, harm other people? By trying to be a good person all of the time and to everyone, is it possible that I’m neglecting my responsibilities to any of them individually or failing to consider their values? And do others want me to be perfect?

The last question may be the most important one because, returning to the idea of a limited theory of mind, perfectionists fail to note that people often don’t expect perfection from others because they don’t wish to be held to those types of standards, nor do they value them. For the most part, people want us to act out of desire and pleasure rather than duty. Most don’t want to carry the burden of knowing that they were somehow a burden on you. Yet, paranoia and cynicism, stemming, in part, from past expectations, contribute to the sense that one is constantly being harshly judged by others despite no evidence or evidence to the contrary, which is often explained away as kindness—“No one is going to tell you they hate you because you’re an asshole.”

Psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams, on this topic, wrote, “…self-defeating people live in a state of dread, almost always unconscious, that an observer will discern their shortcomings and reject them for their sins. To combat such fears, they try to make obvious both their helplessness and their efforts to be good.” (Often, perfectionism is the philosophy and masochism, defined as self-punishment, is the method of enforcement.) One has to realize, however, that these efforts are more about them than others, and learn to trust that others prefer one’s honesty and curiosity above their tendency to self-sacrifice, at least most of the time.

We may also add: The golden rule, treating others as you’d wish to be treated, should be as valued as the belief that we should try to treat others as they wish to be treated. While neither rule is wholly general, it’s up to each of us to consider others’ needs fairly, in the context of what we can and want to do. Morality is complicated, and being good is impossible, for there are several versions of what that entails. (We can only universally agree on not discriminating against others based on gender, race, disability, or religion.) Luckily, however, the same can be said for badness. We can try, as best as we can, to just be decent people who are honest and curious.