Towards (im)perfection..

I had a fabulous conversation with a dear friend last night about how we tend to hide or stifle our true selves and our gamut of real emotions within our primary relationships in order to sustain that pedestal ideal of perfection. I personally learnt a little while back that I am an HSP; for those of you that are unfamiliar with this acronym it translates to a ‘High Sensitive Person’. In short this means that I am deeply impacted by the emotions of others and tend to absorb all elements of emotion, energy and any kinds of ‘feels’ around me at any given time.

This also makes me quite emotionally reactive and at the best of times I feel as if I am reacting to someone else’s feelings as opposed to those which are true to myself. When I was on my own in the past I didn’t really go into the details of explaining this to people, which most probably means that I was misunderstood with the way I conducted myself and how easily I was hurt so often. In this way I was able to shield myself and hide that part of me as best I could when I retreated from the world at the end of each day. It meant that I always held something of myself back and never let anyone truly see me.

As most of you would know, all of this changes when the right person comes into your life for whom you are willing to shed away all of the armour that once surrounded you. But within this sentiment there is still a preserving notion of wanting to present the ‘best version of yourself’ to this person all of the time. Of wanting to keep up a rouse of being that perfect human being, girlfriend, partner, wife. Of feeling as if you don’t want to burden that other person with the nagging doubts or deep seated emotions that have been at play within your psyche for years.

It becomes that question of how much do you reveal when you are feeling hurt or betrayed or jealous in some way; and not because of the circumstance or the last experience at hand with that person, but because it has triggered something from your past which makes you insecure. How much of your emotional history, your upbringing do you reveal without shifting all of those insecurities onto your partner and thus somehow tainting what you have?

Why is it so difficult to identify and admit these things to the one we love the most? Why is it so hard to voice our needs to this person and admit to them and ourselves that we are not perfect? Personally I know that I analyse past interactions and play them in my head over and over enacting different scenarios each time. I often chastise myself for the things I should’ve said or for the things I did say in which I should have delivered those words differently. I look back and feel guilty for presenting true emotions and reacting to things in a raw and honest way. I struggle to convey the things that hurt me and when pressed with why I cannot verbalise these things I can only express it through using the metaphor of having something so deeply stuck in your throat that it just won’t come to the surface, as much as you try.

A part of all of this is me admitting to myself that it is absurd to expect perfection of myself within the eyes of someone else. Perfection does not exist and it’s lofty ideals are beyond unrealistic. I’ve started to understand that instead of suppressing those emotions, of feeling shameful for my emotional sensitivity that I should identify these things and accept them. I’ve begun to see that it’s important to not swallow those feelings in order to preserve face within my primary relationship, but instead to voice them, to express my feelings to ensure that I do not react in the same way down the line when I am inevitably triggered again.

I now understand that feeling things deeply is not a weakness; that shedding tears is not testament to a feeble character. Putting anyone on a pedestal is not a healthy thing to do and when that comes to ourselves, it’s even worse. There’s a part of loving someone, and having them love you back that entails showing your true self to them. It means not pretending to smile when you are hurting inside or bothered by something just to keep up the pretence of a utopian perfection. We are all flawed beings but it’s these things that make us entirely unique and loveable and they are to be therefore shared with those we love.

Sx