The following experience you’re about to read has been one I’ve been fighting with over and over. It’s a story I’ve been debating on whether to share or not time and time and time again. And truthfully, I’m still not even sure if sharing it is the best decision.
One of my fears in telling this story is that it doesn’t garner open acceptance, but only scorn and ridicule. That it causes all of the respect and merit I’ve hoped to achieve over the years to be erased in but a single sobbing stroke, and replace it with contempt and judgment in its wake.
But beyond the perceived risks to reputation and credibility, revisiting this moment has been an immensely painful burden. Many a time have I set out to bare my soul to form this text, and felt the urge to cry. Or throw my device in a fit of repressed rage.
Other times, my mind would repress the memory, forcing it away from me, or whip up a frenzy of heavy, deep-seated resistance to accessing it. Others still, My inner voice would scream at me to avoid the event, or to not make a fool of myself, or to convince me that all I’d do is come across as whiney. But no matter who reads my story, I need to honor my truth.
This is a story of trauma. Not one to the body, but to the mind, and to the psyche. It chronicles an event that led to a complete nervous breakdown, and through that breakdown, a breakthrough to one of my deepest wounds. Though my pain might not be what you expect, it is my story, and I expect it to be honored through compassion.
Who knows, maybe you might relate…
The Breakdown
My tale begins during a time of financial hardship.
The pressure to earn more money was upon us, and the household had needed more income to meet the rising tide of fiscal demands.
At the time, I had been between jobs, and had little faith in my skillset to do anything other than call center work. That all changed when someone in the family recommended that I apply to a temp agency they’ve used, and feeling as though I didn’t have any real options, I followed through with it.
Uneasy Waters
I applied to the agency like any other job, but there were more than a few concerns I had along the way…
As an entirely new experience, I was to be employed as an independent contractor, and not as an employee for any opportunity I chose.
Additionally, out of all of the available clients, I felt like a decent fit for only one; the others involved specialized experiences and interests I simply didn’t have.
As for the training, the pay wasn’t fully clarified up front. All I knew was that the training was broken up into phases, and that the first phase of training spanned many weeks. And if that wasn’t enough, neither the training, nor the background check were free either. Both incurred separate fees.
Despite my reservations all around, I decided to give it a chance. People I trusted had vouched for and recommended the company, so being the hopeful optimist I was, I tried to look on the brighter side of things.
I thought that maybe with all of the training, I would feel entirely prepared and ready to tackle the job full-time. And if my past work experiences were any indication, the training period wouldn’t be too stressful… or so I thought.
Emotional Decline
Ultimately, it had seemed the company was legitimate. Sure enough, I began training for the job, and everything had checked out.
What I didn’t know, was that the training itself was a little too rigorous. The entire scheduled shift was entirely instructor-led, but also required its trainees to complete large sections of work independently, daily, outside of the scheduled training hours.
The expectation was that the trainees themselves were to do the “self-paced” learning after the shift, then the next day, the training would recap the individual training, add in more concepts and excercises, and send the trainees off with another list of things to do all over again.
I didn’t like or agree with the process at all, but I felt my hands were tied. We needed more money. And since I had already invested money into the process of training, I felt I had to stick with it and keep going…
As the days went by, my morale drained more and more. The scheduled training consisted of a lot of information to process and memorize, while the individual training and “homework” blurred the lines between work and life. I would spend several hours trying to catch up and memorize all the material, only to force myself to wake up early, attend training on time, and do it all the next day.
I had noticed I started losing more of my free time in the process. I had to turn down offers and invitations to things I wanted to do, because I had training to do off the clock. And during the times off-work I had tried to rest and do things I wanted to do, all I could really focus on was an inner voice nagging at me to do the day’s individual training, which often took about as long as the scheduled training did.
The stress of having to work through an ever-growing list of daily learning activities got to me, and I noticed I had started getting intense headaches. Then came the persistent sense of drowsiness and fatigue. And even more disturbing, was a growing sense of apathy and anhedonia. I became less enthused with life, and the things I used to enjoy doing just felt like a waste of time. What was pleasurable became void, and what was void became my life.
All that mattered was me keeping my head above water and doing the daily learning so I didn’t fall behind…
It had gotten to the point that I started to entirely dread picking up my computer and logging in for training. At the time, I had thought that it was just the normal, job-hating blues, so I didn’t have any right to complain. And yet, I was always so tired in training. I would have to sleep immediately after the training, but would then get mad at myself for sleeping, only allowing myself just enough time to do the individual work all over again.
I didn’t know it then, but my body had been screaming at me all along. The stress, the headaches, the sleepiness, the apathy and the loss of pleasure, they were all signs of an even bigger issue lying just under the surface…
The Breaking Point
This process continued for a full month. And while I was putting my entire body to the grind, I still had yet to recieve a single paycheck. All of this was still just training.
The headaches had persisted, and had gotten to be so bad, that any time I tried to think about anything related to the training, I had a deep, splitting headache. And it didn’t stop there. There was a dull pressure and immense brain fog in my head whenever I tried to quiz myself to retain what I was learning. It was as though my mind literally blanked itself out when trying to recall any of the material.
The drowsiness had reached all new levels, too. I was yawning uncontrollably even just logging in for the training in the morning. And whenever I didn’t immediately have to interact in the class, I passed out on the spot. I just couldn’t stay awake at all. All my energy was spent.
At this point, I didn’t even see the point of living. I wasn’t suicidal, but absolutely nothing sparked any emotion in me anymore. I was just flat. My precious games didn’t do anything for me in the slightest anymore. Nor did the one TV show I looked forward to watching. Well, at least when I had the free time to catch up on watching it.
All the goals in my life just felt hollow and vain. All the dreams and aspirations, worthless. Things I once looked forward to buying with the money I got from the job, didn’t even look appealing in any way.
Nothing excited or encouraged me anymore, and I hated it. I could see the shell of a man I was becoming, and I was aware of just how much I had wanted all of these things in the past, and the dissonance I felt in the present. I became a prisoner within my own body, watching myself decay from the inside out.
Even worse was me forcing myself to pretend to be happy and upbeat for the rest of the class. I felt nothing. And yet, like the world’s finest magician, still had to conjure up a decidedly false persona just to continue the class.
I started to become aware that this wasn’t normal. It was a burnout. No, even worse than a burnout. It was a nervous breakdown in full force.
I did my best to keep going. I’m not a quitter. But I knew that this job was quite literally killing me. I stuck through this phase of training to the very end, and was finally about to move up to the next, which involved taking live calls.
Unfortunately, it was at this next phase of training that I would finally be paid. I knew I wouldn’t see any check until weeks after the fact. But doing all of this work, only to have to field calls from real customers, and still not get paid until at least a week of active work in the process? That’s where I drew the line.
It was an insult to me to give free labor without any compensation in return. And I’m sad to admit that it took that long for me to even put my foot down.
But what ultimately swayed my hand, was the fact that my birthday was approaching. And since even that next phase is still considered to be training, it was imperative that I attend all of it, too.
My birthdays had never felt special in recent years, but knowing full well that I would have to force myself to get up early, commit to unpaid labor, be critiqued for it, and then log off the shift, exhausted and apathetic during the one day celebrating my existence? Unacceptable. I may not have felt any joy in my life at that time, but I still had an ounce of self-respect.
I was ready to quit. But due to the circumstances, I wasn’t sure I truly even had that option.
Liberation: A Second Opinion
Seeking advice, I called my mother and explained the situation to her. She had seen the change in me, and saw how damaging the ordeal had been. Her response?
“If the job is really making you feel that bad, then quit it. A job shouldn’t be that bad for your health. It isn’t worth it.”
Getting that confirmation was liberating. And while I still felt a hesitation to quit, I knew that staying at a job I didn’t like, that was eating me alive, wasn’t better. I logged in the next day, politely told my instructor just how much my health was deteriorating, and said my goodbyes.
I would not be going to the next phase, and I was glad.
I spent my birthday and the weeks after trying to recover. To let my mind rest, despite the throbbing headaches and blanking out. To let my body finally recover from all the irregularity and emotional toll that event took. To try to claw my way back to some ounce of feeling by just indulging in the things I wanted to do, and trying to set my mind to more productive things.
Over time, the feelings and passions came back. The headaches disappeared. And while my body was still tired overall, I granted it as much rest as it needed until it, too, returned to normal. But the scars from that event have not healed. They linger even now. And all of the insecurities around myself and my skills didn’t dissipate, either. They grew louder.
While still in the throes of my physical, mental and emotional recovery, I talked with my mother once more. About just how worthless, talentless, and useless I felt. She had asked me why I felt such a way, and I unloaded all of the repressed pain and struggle I endured.
I spoke of just how much pressure was placed on me to succeed. I spoke on the burdens of having to constantly do well in my classes, despite hating them with every fiber of my being. Of feeling inadequately learned despite the years I devoted to a potential career path.
I spoke of feeling the societal (and familial) expectation that the very second I chronologically became an adult, I had needed a plan on the one way of life to live, for the rest of my life. Of feeling as though the whole world expected greatness of me, and would just as quickly discard me if I didn’t live up to that expectation soon enough.
No matter what I did, it never felt like I had done enough, or knew enough, to step boldly into the world. What my mother had said next helped me to understand why.
The Breakthrough
“I’m sorry. Maybe we pushed you too hard in life. Maybe that’s why you have perfectionistic tendencies.”
When I heard that, I wanted so very much with every fiber of my being to reject it.
Me? A perfectionist? How could I be a perfectionist? Nothing I do is ever good enough. Everything I’ve ever done has been a fluke or a failure. Perfectionists only ever do great! I don’t do great at all!
But then it hit me. That’s exactly what a perfectionist would say. Hardly anything a perfectionist does is good in their own eyes. And as I revisit the scattered past of my life, I see that I was truly operating as a perfectionist all along:
All through my time in school, I always tried to be the perfect student, sticking to the honor roll and getting high grades.
In all of the jobs I worked, I always committed 110% of myself to the tasks at hand, even when they were overwhelming or not part of my responsibilities. I always had to go above and beyond.
And quite frankly, this last job was no different. I had often volunteered to help others by sharing my notes, or participated in mock environments, even when it drained me. And when the workload became unbearable, I insisted on plugging away, keeping up the pace and “doing better,” even when every ounce of my being was begging me me to stop.
I also realized that my perfectionism was rampant even on my own site. All of my posts had to pass some absurdly high, abstract level of quality. If it didn’t, then it was automatically unacceptable, and held no value.
A post wasn’t worth sharing if it wasn’t as deeply utilitarian as my Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 Treasure Guide, or as info-taining as my History of the Nintendo Switch post. Everything I wrote had to be the be-all, end all of its kind. Smaller posts were filler and simply just not allowed, while informative works needed to answer every possible question that would come up. If I myself did not have the answers, It was a personal failing on my end.
Perfectionism touched every single aspect of my life. And while I didn’t know I was a perfectionist, I could easily clue into why I was this way.
The Curse of “Not Enough”
As I retraced the chain of memories, I found that the earliest point of origin for this pattern in my life was based in my early childhood.
You see, for as long as I could remember, I’ve always been the smart child. Grades always came easy to me, and my immediate family prided themselves on my intelligence. Being smart was just part of my identity.
On the surface, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this; I enjoyed basking in my academic prowess, and enjoyed being acknowledged for it! The problem, however, was that it was the beginning of a chain of “not-enoughness,” in which nothing I did was ever fully good enough:
It wasn’t enough that I was smart, I had to try to skip a grade, too.
It wasn’t enough that my projects just covered the basics, they always had to WOW the rest of the class.
It wasn’t enough that I made good grades, I needed to be in advanced classes as well.
With each set of new challenges, the bar just kept getting set higher and higher. I couldn’t take the time to enjoy the moment and celebrate my success, as the goal kept moving every time I tried to reach it.
No matter what I did, there was always something better to achieve, and during the times I didn’t achieve at all, my mind internalized that there was something wrong me. After all, smart people don’t fail!
And thus, my inner perfectionist had been born.
With so much focus on how smart I was, there was a constant pressure to perform. Anywhere I didn’t live up to my lofty standards, was a failing on who I was as a person.
This was made worse, of course, with the onset of adolescence and “the real world.”
Survival of the Fittest
As I got older, things took a turn for the worst with the ever-approaching end of school and dawn of the working world. It was very much so an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” moment, and I wanted with every fiber of my being to land away from the encroaching flames.
And why wouldn’t I? Growing up, I had seen jobs as a necessity with no guarantees or stability. You were only useful to an employer until you weren’t, and as far as my family goes, nobody was working jobs aligned to a passion, it was always ever just to make ends meet. Sometimes those ends frayed and withered.
But that still wasn’t even taking into consideration the process of competing against numerous other applicants for a job, and being scrutinized about your prior work history, only to have the possibility of being rejected if you “weren’t a good fit” for the position. (I.e., not good enough).
With that in mind, I needed desperately to avoid that bleak fate, and I just knew that my being “smart” was the key to overcoming it. The problem was, I didn’t know how to do it, and nobody else knew either. But, hey, I was smart!™ My wisdom will figure out a way. It had to find a way. Failure just wasn’t an option!
And so the pressure to perform reached a record high. The clock was very literally ticking, and I gave my best effort in everything I did. If I could just try hard enough, then maybe, just maybe, I’d figure out a way of life that wouldn’t kill me from the inside out.
My perfectionism then became a survival mechanism. A desperate attempt to go above and beyond in everything, in the hopes that my efforts would build a brighter tomorrow.
A Crestfallen Legacy
Unfortunately, my best just wasn’t enough.
Through it all, the pressure became too much for me: Life had thrown other complications into the mix, and I began to collapse under my own workload and inner demons. While my grades remained high, they ultimately began to dwindle, adding insult to injury.
I had also learned the folly in seeing myself as intelligent; Being “smarter” than someone else is relative. There’s always going to be someone better at something, in some way, so basing my identity on the relativity of intelligence had been mentally setting myself up for failure all along.
And oh, how painful it was to watch my crutch crumble before my eyes.
Those advanced classes showed me that my best wasn’t as good as others’ best; There were other people far more capable than I was, and when I saw that I didn’t measure up in the ways I once prided myself in, it felt like an attack on who I was, and a condemnation of my efforts.
Those projects that just had to go above and beyond? I would spend so much time obsessing over how they should look, and how to add so much more depth and information than I really needed to, that I ultimately couldn’t finish some projects at all. I felt worse about it when my work was graded lesser than those that only scratched the surface, despite them finishing the work I had not.
(The irony of the fact I have this exact same pattern even now with my work here is not lost on me, trust me.)
Even in a class I truly enjoyed, one that taught me skills that were transferable to a passion I had, someone had managed to upstage my work, and shown me just how little I really knew about the field I was interested in. I didn’t have the knowledge of how they did what they did, and even with the knowledge and tools I recieved from the class, I didn’t feel it was enough for me to confidently pursue it as a career.
By the time I had graduated, I felt more lost and unsure of myself than anything. And for good reason, too.
I didn’t know it then, but looking back, the lesson I subconsciously internalized from it all, is that I’m not enough, and nothing I do will ever be enough.
I wasn’t good enough to just do school at my own pace. My work wasn’t good enough unless it was better than almost everyone else’s. I wasn’t good enough to keep my good grades, or find a better way to live, and I wasn’t good enough to accomplish my dreams. I was a complete failure. Even my own knowledge had felt so insignificantly small in the areas I relied on it most.
So was it any wonder why I never felt like I fit in? Or why my confidence and self-esteem had been so low? No matter what I did, it was never enough as-is — I was never enough as I was. My best wasn’t enough either, so what hope, what chance did I have? Every instance of failure only proved to me how much I can’t do things, as opposed to what I could do.
And since my mind had been so tightly locked into survival mode, every failure had likewise ruptured my senses of self-worth and competence that much more. After all, so many people were more qualified to have a successful life. They didn’t have to struggle as I did to do and be normal, so there must have been something wrong with me. I was inferior to them, and no longer believed in my talents.
Inferior All Along
Then it hit me. Everything in my life was tainted by an Inferiority Complex. It’s a condition I knew I had, but I didn’t know just how deeply related it was to everything else. It’s all interconnected.
My imposter syndrome? Inferiority Complex.
Not feeling like I belonged anywhere? Textbook inferiority.
My positivity paradox? Inferiority at its worst.
The self-sustaining feedback loop? That’s me feeling as though I’m not enough, which is still inferiority.
Even my perfectionism was an underlying symptom of my “not enough-ness;” i.e., I wasn’t good enough as I was; I felt I had to be and do the best to survive. At all times. And for added validation, it turns out that I wasn’t the only person whose academic perfectionism was killing them. There are other people dealing with it just as I am.
So now, after realizing my inferiority wasn’t just a general feeling, but a persistent theme everywhere in my life, I began to research the ways an Inferiority Complex manifests itself. Seeing the patterns of it expressing in my feelings and self-perception already, I became more open to seeing some of the symptoms as well, this time with a rational, discerning mind.
Two articles in particular caught my attention. One lengthy post that explains an Inferiority Complex in detail by Everyday Health, and a second, encouraging article that provided unique insights, lesser-known symptoms/tendencies, and actionable tips to overcome an inferiority complex, by Ash Playsted on LinkedIn.
Between the two posts, I was floored. Combining both of their lists of symptoms, I had checked nearly every box. If I had to guess a percentage, I’d give it a solid 95% accuracy.
If that wasn’t enough, those articles also helped me see that my inferiority complex was the primary source of many other ailments in my life: all-or-nothing thinking, depression, perfectionism, extreme sensitivity to others’ opinions, excessive people-pleasing behaviors, catastrophizing, and of course, a bevy of cognitive distortions and limiting beliefs.
And yet, there was something deeply healing and liberating about finally having identified my biggest pain point in life; To be able to put a name to the reason I felt so stuck in life, and to have both the validation and the research that I’m not truly defective, but merely suffering the symptoms of an already-known psychological condition.
But, perhaps most helpful of all, is that I now know exactly what I need to start healing in the first place! After carrying the pain for so long, I’m now able to cut through the malaise and solve the problem at its crux.
However, I’m not certain I know how to fully heal from my inferiority complex. It is very, very deeply entrenched within me, to the point where changing my thoughts seems impossible, and most advise feels like wishful thinking or a temporary salve. Prior experiences have eroded my self-perception so much, that I don’t see myself or my “skills” positively anymore either.
So I feel the best possible step now would be redefining who I am, this time without the built-in superlative nature and relativity that using an adjective would bring in defining my worth.
Until then — until I bring about my somber soliloquies of self-reflection to their stirring conclusion, I bring this post to a close.
