all those rage, and i'm still here?

thirty - three

"Perfectionism's potion."

It's just grades. Stop getting upset. You're fortunate because it's higher than ours."

There's that feeling again. It's when my heartbeat accelerates, there's a lump in my throat, and my palms become sweaty. My insides felt like they were being turned, and I could bawl my eyes out any moment. I breathed deeply.

Don't start. Don't ever try.

Does it make you wonder how it would feel if you could just explode?

Because, god, that would be satisfying. I often visualized it. How did it feel to break through to your usual self? To break things. To take your anger out on someone. To throw things at them. To scream every single sharp word without thinking twice. To recklessly cause trouble without thinking too much. I wish I had been like that. I wish I hadn't been born careful. I wish I wasn't too timid and fearful. I wish I could just have been more carefree.

I feel like even showing emotions nowadays isn't even appropriate. I could only look at my friend's jokey face. I wish I could punch her. I truly do.

But I'm torn between doing that or acknowledging the perfectionism in myself.

Perfectionism was poison in my whole system. It had spread throughout my body, leaving not one part free from its lethality. I'm bruised, but I keep on going, knowing that it felt like a grip in my throat, telling me that if I mess one thing up, I'm a piece of sh*t not valuable to living.

I witnessed the late nights when I killed myself studying some difficult biology terms. I had to memorize and analyze every single physics topic I felt like crying over because math had often been hard for me—even if I wasn't good at the simple details, no matter how many times I read something, I forgot a single word from the whole passage. I kill myself studying because it stinks more to fail. I know it myself because I've been nothing but a failure in the eyes of the people around me.

The toxicity of perfectionism was more lethal when I was in my last year of high school. I wanted to be at the top. I wanted to prove to everyone else my capabilities, even if it meant killing myself for working hard. Or it won't feel fulfilling. It won't be enough if I don't become burned out. I have to be burned out to validate my hard work.

Sometimes, people just have to slap it into your face that you're luckier than them, and it's better to be grateful for what is given to you—the bare minimum stuff. But if there's something higher, won't you naturally aim for it?

Take a wild guess at the ending of that story. My power-hungry self still killed me in the end. I wasn't happy with my considered 'failures'. I had drowned in my perfectionism. No matter how hard I tried, I was still pathetic. I still had to try harder and aim higher. I wasn't satisfied. And the more I was in that state, the more dissatisfied I was with myself. In short, it was so much easier to be entrapped in depression.

I lived my life critical of myself. I blamed myself for my shortcomings and for everything I did not have any control over. I hated myself. I could not point a finger at anyone who made me like this because my past was nothing but a blur to me.

I healed myself from all the pain; I didn't know where it originated.

Recently, everything seemed to make sense. I realized that my perfectionism stemmed from my people-pleasing tendencies.

Everyone told me I was a failure. You know that feeling when you're the eldest? You have to be excellent, but I was withdrawn from the world so easily that my siblings had to fill in that expectation. In high school, I had been told to always have higher grades after the card had been released–not once acknowledged if I did a good job or not. My traumatic experiences in friendships caused me to give too much because I didn't want them to feel the same way I had before. I had to always maintain looking perfect physically just so I could feel beautiful in my body. I had always tried to become better academically just so I could become a person with intelligence.

To be useful in the eyes of everyone.

After I matured so easily and came out like nothing happened in my broken youth full of depression, I started to function through the unconscious desire to be perfect.

I had often wondered why, even if I do love my family, I still get suffocated from time to time. My home isn't home at all. Like I still wanted to escape. And recently, it was like an epiphany.

There was it. One mistake, and it's continuously told into your face. With one mistake and their reactions and words, they forget that it affects others. One mistake, and all your efforts for them seemed to just dissipate in one go. One mistake, and you're made fun of when you react too much. It was annoying. Because that one mistake was the reason why I had to tell myself that everything I needed to do should be perfect.

I wasn't perfect.

Do they all know that? I'm flawed, I'm pathetic, and I'm horrible. I still suffer from everything everyone has put me through. I still forget the faces of the people who hurt me. I still wonder why there is so much pain within me. I still get triggered every time. I'm still not at peace.

These reasons are why I heal. I heal from all the pain of all the people in my past projections. I still heal from all the pain projected to me by the people who lacked self-awareness their whole life and blamed it on me, being entirely 'petty'.

Certainly, my perfectionism developed when I fed into it, but sometimes it's worth analyzing where it originated.

But then again, I had to fake my smile for the world.

"Of course, I understand. It's just grades."

Knowing me, however, I don't like losing. I shouldn't live with my perfectionism; I'll put it to good use, yes, but I'll stab off the residue energy from the people who made me the puppet for their desires for years.

It'll still be difficult for all of you.