Not the dramatic kind. The version that looks like coping.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been talking about high-functioning survival and the cost it quietly carries. Not the dramatic kind, but the version that looks like coping, competence and keeping everything moving while something underneath slowly gets depleted.
This is a continuation of that conversation, because something this week helped me see one of the ways that cost shows up, especially for people who are very capable at holding things together.
I had a message from one of my Untethered retreat attendees. She said that even though she’d only met me once, my honesty about my own life experiences made the work feel real rather than theoretical. It helped her trust what she was feeling instead of questioning it or trying to perform being ‘fine’.
And then she said something else almost in passing. She told me she had never met anyone with such strong perfectionism. That stopped me. Not because it felt critical or unkind, but because it was true. And it helped me see something I think many high-functioning people miss, including me.
This wasn’t obvious, harsh perfectionism. It was the high-functioning kind. The version that looks like care, responsibility and depth. The kind that shows up when the work matters, the people matter, and letting things drop doesn’t feel like an option.
And the problem is, it works. You don’t fall apart. You don’t crash. From the outside, you look like you’re doing well. But the cost is still there.
It shows up as never quite being satisfied with what you’ve produced, even when others say it’s good. It shows up as replaying what you delivered and thinking it could have been better. As adding more, refining more, pushing harder, not because it’s needed, but because some part of you is still trying to prove your worth or stay ahead of criticism.
This is where Little Miss or Master Perfectionist often steps in. One of many protector states that learned early on that staying switched on and self-correcting was the safest way to be.
On the surface, life keeps moving. The work gets done. But underneath, something starts to feel thinner and more effortful than it used to. This has been my own work recently. Not fixing myself or getting rid of perfectionism. Just noticing when she’s driving and getting curious about what my nervous system actually needs instead of overriding it.
So, if you’re reading this and recognising an over-active Little Miss or Master Perfectionist in yourself, hear this clearly. There is nothing wrong with you. These parts didn’t appear by accident. As nervous system regulation and inner safety increases, they don’t disappear entirely, they just don’t sit in the driver’s seat as often. They quieten. And they stop running the whole show. That’s where real capacity begins.