Why is "no" the hardest thing to say?

Thoughts on perfectionism and womanhood.

I’ve struggled with perfectionism since I was a little girl. I was the only daughter of my family, and the eldest at that, with two younger brothers whose behavior was written off with a “boys will be boys” kind of attitude. I didn’t have parents who sat me down and told me that I needed to be “the good one,” but I felt it was my duty to fill that role and to present a certain version of myself to the world in order to be seen as the “right” kind of woman. It’s embedded. It’s compulsive. It’s exhausting.

Those of us who were raised female will understand this dynamic without me having to lay it out — and not just because you’ve likely experienced it in your own life. Women are more likely to deal with perfectionism than men are, specifically social-oriented perfectionism over self-oriented perfectionism. In other words, we feel we need to present a perfect version of ourselves to the world, but we’re more likely to be our flawed, sloth-like selves in the privacy of our own homes. One survey found that women are more likely to believe that failing at a task makes us a failure as a person, that we worry more about making mistakes, that we have more trouble saying “no” when a family member makes a request, and that we worry more about what other people think.

For me, it was a kind of death by a thousand little cuts. Nobody ever sat me down and said “you need to behave in ways that run counter to how you feel in order to be accepted by this world,” but that message crept in as a result of growing up in a society that allows women to fail less often than men. I saw the way people reacted to and interacted with the people, specifically women, in my life and then used that to adjust my own behavior.

I remember telling a friend how excited I was to go to summer camp because I’d get to meet new boys, and then being scolded for appearing too boy crazy. I remember, after having to turn down more than a couple of invitations to hang out for dance classes, that my friends told me they were going to stop calling me because I was never available. I remember a family member asking whether I was getting my masters in journalism. I told him I wasn’t, because I had a better chance of learning what I needed to know at a job, so why waste my money on grad school? He later mentioned to my father that I had a lot of opinions, which made me feel like I needed to temper my tone in order to appear — what? Softer? More palatable? Less like a woman with opinions?

Whatever the true message of these interactions was meant to be, I internalized it as this: The “you” that exists within you is not a person that people will like, so you need to go about changing it. And that’s how I’ve gotten myself here: Nearly 34-years-old with self-confidence that is shaky at best and zero clue as to how the world perceives me. I have been brainwashed into believing that if I don’t act perfectly, nobody in my life will stay.

My skin just got hot when I wrote that. Do you know that feeling? This is such an embarrassing admission to make because, I mean, Jesus Christ. Shouldn’t I be over all of this by now? Shouldn’t I no longer care what people think? Shouldn’t I just live my life, and not care, and remember that sticky note that was once stuck in my bedroom mirror: “What’s meant for you will never leave you”?

Even though I know that our world was set up in a unique way to make so many women feel they need to be perfect to be loved, I find myself disappointed in myself for not being able to escape the trap. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I struggle with perfectionism to the point that I see my inability to *not* struggle with perfectionism as a moral failure. Can somebody call my therapist, please?

I think the reason all of this is coming to a head now is because, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m in a pretty transitional phase in my life right now. As I am writing this newsletter, my Zola app is telling me that I’m just 131 days out from saying “I do.” And although I have told Ben that I don’t want to start trying to get pregnant until after November 5 (because if we elect a felon who wants to outlaw abortion nationwide, we may reconsider the pregnancy thing on the whole — a topic for another newsletter) motherhood is coming up quickly in my rearview mirror.

And I don’t want to bring this shit into that new life. I really don’t. I don’t want to raise a daughter to have the same fears about being a flawed human being as I do. I am lucky to have a soon-to-be husband who doesn’t want me perfect, and who is supporting me through the torrential downpour of emotions I’ve been dealing with, and who, on my worst days, is happy when I just tell him what I need so that he can give it to me.

But mostly, I’m burnt out. I’m run down from feeling like I need to say “yes” to everything, because if I say “no” than I have failed. I’m tied of being worried that I’ll be seen as a bad daughter, a bad niece, a bad cousin, a bad friend, a bad employee if I’m not perfect. I’m so tired of packing my schedule because I feel guilty telling the people in my life “I want to see you, but if I don’t sit on my couch stoned and binge Bridgerton for the 10th time I cannot show up for you the way I want to.”

I’m at an age now where it feels like time is starting to speed by. All of my friends have children and partners and busy schedules. My family members are getting older. We live far from one another. I want to see them and treasure the time together while also having time to foster my relationship with *my* partner. That doesn’t leave much time for me to take care of myself, or tune into what I need. I’m like a little kid who wants to eat all of the marshmallows, so I fill my mouth with them to the point where I choke.

And the scariest part is that I don’t even think I know how to take care of myself in that way anymore. I did, once, and I often talk about the six months I spent on the couch in my own apartment wistfully. And I know know that it’s because that was a time where I was centering myself, and my needs, and my desires. It wasn’t perfect, but because I was going through heartache, I wasn’t worried about being selfish. (And I was single — a benefit to not being partnered I truly wish I could have known in my 20s.) But when you aren’t in mourning, and when things in your life are going wonderfully on the outside, how do you do that? How do you put your foot down and say no? How do you ditch the creeping feelings of perfectionism?

I don’t want to be a person who is pouring from an empty cup, because that is not the best version of myself. I understand that. But I struggle with the boundaries of protecting myself, because I have learned to believe that placing myself and my needs above other people is inherently selfish — and that nobody likes a selfish person.

But right now, I need to be a little bit more selfish. To draw my boundaries around myself. To practice self-care — real self-care. Not the “face mask and popcorn for dinner” version of self-care that we’ve commodified in order to sell it to people. But the kind of self-care that’s difficult, that requires you to take a long, hard look at yourself, recognize where you need tenderness, and then offer it to yourself.

I wasn’t taught how to do that. I don’t think most of us were. But I am determined to figure it out so that this cycle of perfectionism has a chance of stopping with me. In order to be the best version of myself to the outside world, I need to be the best version of myself to myself first. And that best version has nothing to do with perfect.