I also have perfectionism & it has limited my life in so many ways. One of them is that I dropped out of college in my junior year, because I was going to get a B in a class. I couldn't stand not having a 4.0 so I gave up. The stress was too great.

Now I don't try things, because I'm afraid I won't be good enough. That makes me a bit of a loser. I'm isolated.

My daughter has the same perfectionism, but she has been able to be "perfect"--top of the class in high school, college & law school, working on high profile cases, getting allocades from everyone, but she still doesn't feel like she is good enough. She's afraid that "they" will find out she is really not as bright as she appears, that she'll make a mistake, that she will be revealed to be a fraud.

I can't seem to get her to believe in herself. So either way you go--doing nothing--or totally excelling--it seems you can't get rid of these feelings of having to live up to some incredibly high standard. I don't know what the answer is, but I hope you can tackle this problem before it severely affects your life.--Suzy