Growing up under the influence of a narcissist, I learned perfectionism long before I learned safety. It crept into everything I touched. Everything had to be perfect—correct, exact, pretty. I didn’t realize how deeply that need had rooted itself until one day, while journaling, I noticed my handwriting was messy. I hated it. Every misspelled word sent me spiraling. I didn’t care how long it took; it had to be perfect. It had to be pretty.
At the time, I was journaling constantly. My handwriting needed to be loopy, smooth, and beautiful. If it wasn’t, I tore out the page and rewrote it until it met my approval. My journal—of all things. Something no one else would ever see. I kept them hidden, yet they still had to pass inspection before I could move on with my day. To me, perfect meant exact. Polished. Controlled. Anything less left me unsettled.
That obsession followed me into my next challenge: writing publicly. I tried several blogging platforms, but each one felt messy or complicated, never quite right. None of them reflected my style. I wasn’t going to be satisfied until everything looked perfect. Writing was the only place where I felt a sense of control in an otherwise chaotic life, and I was determined to do it right.
So I built my own website.
I labored relentlessly over its design—the layout, the spacing, the colors. I poured hours into perfecting the container before allowing myself to pour anything into it. My stories themselves were anything but pretty. They were messy, complicated, chaotic. But the place where they lived had to be exact. After a week of obsessive tweaking, I finally reached a version that satisfied me. Only then could I write again.
Writing is how I cope. It’s how I heal from the many battle scars I carry. The thoughts and memories that spill onto the page are honest, raw, and often ugly. I convinced myself that if I were ever brave enough to make my writing public, it would have to be perfect. Anything less felt unacceptable. I believed no one would read stories of chaos and disaster if the container was as ugly as the words themselves.
Pretty stopped being a preference and became a necessity.
It showed up everywhere—how I dressed, how my home looked, even the organization of my cupboards. Everything around me bore the mark of perfectionism. Order on the outside, no matter what was happening within.
Pretty became my disguise.
Inside my mind, thoughts, memories, and ideas collide in constant motion, all fighting to be heard. But when they come out, they have to look nice. The truths they carry may be uncomfortable, even ugly, but their presentation must be controlled. Polished. Acceptable.
Pretty is the way I learned to survive.
Pretty kept me alive, but it never kept me safe.
K.
I'm Still Here. Somehow... 