ERP 166: How Perfectionism and Depression Affect You and Your Relationship, with Dr. Margaret Rutherford
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Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 166, “How perfectionism and depression affect you and your relationship”, with Dr. Margaret Rutherford.
Before we get started I want to invite you to join with me in setting the intention for the Empowered Relationship Podcast… And that is when we tune in, listen to, explore the ideas discussed on these episodes, that we are in the interest of improving our relationship. As we do so, we’re also growing and healing ourselves.
At times this will challenge us to face pain, insecurity and hardship, and at other times it will challenge us to expand our capacity to feel more love, more joy and more intimacy, that may even be vulnerable even as we’re experiencing that goodness. And then also the consistency and the stability of an everyday nurturing of the bond and the security and safety of that connection.
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Dr. Jessica Higgins: Dr. Margaret Rutherford, a clinical psychologist, has practiced for twenty-five years in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She is the author of “Marriage Is Not For Chickens”, a perfect gift book on marriage, and hosts a weekly podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Her new book, Perfectly Hidden Depression, will be published by New Harbinger in 2019.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford, thank you for joining us today!
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure. Please just call me Margaret, Jessica. That’s great.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, perfect. I know I have people call me Jessica too, I’d much prefer. So today we’re talking about depression and perfectionism in relationship, and I’m sure many people will be able to identify with at least some aspect of today’s conversation. Would you be able to tell us a little bit about what got you interested in this topic and a little bit about where you’re coming from?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Of course, of course. I started blogging back in 2012. Actually, my only son left for college and I decided to vent all my feelings on the internet through a blog, which I didn’t even know what a blog was at the time… But I started, and then I got kind of itchy about writing about mental health issues. You and I are psychologists; I’ve been doing this for, as you say, over 25 years, and so I started writing about mental health and sort of changed my website to reflect that.
But anyway, in April of 2014 I was out in my sunroom, thinking about what did I wanna write about, and I thought about these people who had come into my practice over the years, that were different; their treatment was different. They didn’t, when they first came, look very depressed; they looked highly engaged, very successful, very responsible people, perfectionistic people certainly… But what I noticed about them, Jessica, was that when they talked I had to pay attention to what they were saying, because if I simply looked at their face, I would think they were talking about having a great lunch with someone… Whereas they really were talking about being raped the year before they started college, or going through an awful divorce.
So I started noticing that, and I sat down and just wrote “The perfectly hidden depressed person. Are you one?” Now, my posts at that time had been getting 50 shares; that wasn’t pretty good… Well, 1,500 shares later, within about a 24-36 hour period of time, I was like “Whoa, I am off to something here. I have touched a chord.”
So I looked around in the literature, trying to find this perfectionism and depression stuff, and I had to dig pretty deep; there really weren’t that many popularized books. Brené Brown certainly has written about imperfection and vulnerability, but she really hasn’t linked it to my knowledge with depression. So I started looking, and now five years later, New Harbinger is publishing a book called Perfectly Hidden Depression, and I couldn’t be more pleased… Because to me, it’s people who are falling through the cracks in our therapy system, because we simply often don’t recognize their depression.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Gotcha. And for people that are still orienting to what depression looks like, what perfectionism looks like – can you help with what some of the dynamics in relationship might be if depression is at play? And then if we can look at the difference between just depression in contrast to what you’re discussing is very specific, which is the depression and perfectionism combined.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Right. Not really combined, but sort of overlaid, I would say. Classic depression has symptoms — you see them on the television all the time in the multiple drug commercials we have going on, where there’s a lot of fatigue, and lack of pleasure in things that were pleasurable; mental focus is a problem, depressed mood, tearfulness, helplessness, even thoughts of suicidal ideation, foggy thinking – those kinds of things are very prominent in really all the different kinds of depression, the distinction being how long they last, how severe they are, whether there’s a cycle or not, or sort of in bipolar disorder.
But when depression wears the mask of perfectionism, it doesn’t look like that. Some researchers on perfectionism and suicide ideation or suicidality actually have a great thing to say; they’re Canadian researchers and they said “Perfectionists can talk about feelings, they can’t express feelings.” So they can say “Gosh, that really made me sad”, but there’s no sadness in their eyes. They simply don’t go there, they don’t do pain. They are very orderly, very organized. And my particular way of thinking about perfectionism as far as its relationship to the kind of depression I’m talking about is that there’s an incredible amount of shame involved, where the perfectionists who shame themselves — you know, perfectionism itself is different from striving for excellence. I’m sure you, in this podcast, you strive for excellence, you strive to do your best; but if you made a mistake or you had a guest on that was a little less than exciting to listen to, you probably wouldn’t say “I can’t do that podcast!”, you’d probably say “Well, let me put it out there and see how people feel.” Perfectionists wouldn’t be able to do that; their standards — because they shame themselves so much, they never meet their own standards. So that’s the difference between perfectionism and actually striving for excellence.
Now, the way I look at perfectly hidden depression is that actually it’s a syndrome, which is a bunch of behaviors that you’re gonna find together, as I was saying to you earlier, like salt and pepper. These people are very perfectionistic, and again, they have this shame… They always have their hands up in the air, they want the responsibility, they detach from painful emotions and actually shut them off; they worry a lot, they focus on tasks and accomplishments… That’s what makes them feel worthy. They have lots of friends, but they don’t really allow those friends into their world, and they discount personal hurt, they don’t have any self-compassion. They tend to go on and count their blessings all the time; now, that’s not a bad thing in and of itself. In fact, a lot of these things aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but people who count their blessings – it also is a way of avoiding pain. They stay grateful. They stay almost too grateful.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Right, these strategies… They’re by-passing their emotional pain.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Correct. At least that’s my conception. And the last one is they tend to be very successful in — maybe what you’re interested in this podcast is they tend to be very successful professionally, but really struggle or have very little true intimacy in their relationships.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you, that was my next question – how does this typically feel for partners? Again, if we could talk a little bit about the depression… Usually, the partner of someone depressed is gonna have a specific experience, and then the person that is in relationship to someone who might be depressed overlaid with perfectionism – that’s gonna have a different experience. Would you be able to talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure, of course. One of the definitions of depression – in fact, it’s a criteria that has to be met for it to be diagnosed is the fact that it’s noticeable. It’s either noticeable to the person who has it, or it’s noticeable to the people who love that person. They say, “You know, you’re just not yourself. What’s going on? You seem listless, you seem angry all the time, you seem like you can’t focus, you don’t wanna go anywhere…” I mean, they notice what the problem is.
When you’re coupled or partnered with someone with perfectionism, or if I could go so far as to say perfectly hidden depression, then what you notice is their lack of responsiveness to pain in their lives. Here’s a great example… I love these stories – I had a patient who definitely identified with perfectly hidden depression, and she had broken off an engagement because she said it was boring. Now, this was when she was in her full-fledged “I’m not gonna be vulnerable. I’m perfectionistic. I’m not gonna show any of my warts to anybody.” So she and this guy had dated and became engaged, but she didn’t tell him she had bulimia, she didn’t tell him that she had been abused as a ballerina in her youth, she didn’t tell him about some of her struggles… So yeah, the relationship was pretty superficial.
She broke up with him after our work together, which — she worked really hard. She said that she saw him again at a party (this was two years later maybe) and he was fairly stand-off-ish. She said, “Could we at least talk?”, because really she loved this guy. And so she opened up to him and gradually she began telling him these things that were her vulnerabilities, things that she had been hiding from him and the world, really… And herself. All of a sudden, she said “You know, the relationship isn’t boring at all. It’s got depth, it’s got intimacy. I feel like he actually wants to know me and knows me.”
I think that this is such an important thing for people to think about if they’re partnered, or married, or just dating someone who never, never shows fatigue… Or rarely. Sometimes they say, “Oh, I’ve gotta put my feet up”, but there’s not this sharing of vulnerability — I keep using that word… But things that you don’t feel good about yourself, or you feel like you lack, or the things that you were angry about as a kid, or whatever it happens to be that is in your past or in your present, that maybe you’re not proud of, but that you want it to be understood by the person you love.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, these inadequacies, these fears – those are actually the places that we get to feel greater depth and intimacy. When we swim really shallow, or we keep the parameters so tight, we perhaps don’t get to experience that full range or depth of the closeness and the bond.
Yes, this is so important… Okay, so as I’m listening to you, I’m feeling the struggle of both people. I imagine there’s this classic idea that it’s easier to see on the outside, or looking in, that it’s much more visible, like you said, that some of these things are usually very clear… And for the person that’s in relationship with someone who is depressed, and has the trait of perfectionism on top of that, what do you recommend in the way to be able to support that person? It sounds like you’re really inviting a level of deeper work and getting help with a professional to unpack some of this… But how does someone who’s just beginning to recognize some of these aspects – what would you recommend?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: You mean for the person with the perfectionism, or their partner?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Both, I guess.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Let’s start with the person with perfectionism, how about that?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, perfect.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: One of the things that when the people that I’ve worked with, at least, have begun to address their tendency to withdraw and to avoid conflict, and anything that would make them feel like their ground wasn’t solid, have said that the hardest thing — the very hardest thing is that first time you look at someone (be it your partner or a friend) and you say “You know, you may have figured this out, but I’m pretty good at hiding it, and I have some things that I’ve kept in myself. I have things that I don’t say, I have things that I feel and that I hide. I even have things sometimes that I’m not aware of that I’m hiding, but with my work in therapy or with my reading or whatever it is, I realize now that I have kept these things hidden for a long time.”
There’s a reason why somebody develops this kind of behavior, this kind of pattern. Maybe it’s in their childhood, or whatever. Well, of course it was in their childhood to a great extent, but… I think it’s so important to realize that what you can do is say to your partner “I’m about to say something…” I don’t know if you talk with your patients about meta-communication, but I do a lot of talking about talking, which is basically what that is… Where you look at your partner and say “Are you in a place to listen to me a little differently? Because I have something to say that may surprise you, or that may actually even alarm you… Because I want to be more real in our relationship.” Anyway, you can talk about talking, and then she says “Okay, I’m ready to hear that”, and then you can go into it.
Very frequently, people who are perfectionists and who avoid conflict and who avoid pain have attracted somebody else who avoids pain and avoids conflict… So this can make this conversation pretty difficult. There might even be a tendency for the person to say “Well, I don’t wanna change the way we communicate. We have a great life, our children are doing great… Why do you wanna change everything by talking about something from your past, or talking about something that is unpleasant? I’m not going there with you.” They can get mad, they can have a passive resistance and say “Well, okay… Gosh, I’m so sorry you’ve been dealing with this, but… I’ve got a meeting, but we can talk about it later.” And they never come around to talking about it. So you have to assess, “Wait a minute, who have I been attracted to?”
Now, the flipside of that coin is that frequently, people who are these kinds of perfectly hidden depressed people have attracted people who do want intimacy, who actually would love for them to open up and be more real, and may have asked them multiple times “I just don’t get you. I know that you know I love you, and I know you love me, but we never talk about it. There’s something going on that I don’t understand.” Those people — they are so welcome; they’re celebrating.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: They’re like “Finally…!”
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: They’re the people who have e-mailed me and said “I want to send your article…” I’ve written many articles since then about perfectly hidden depression, and gotten thousands of e-mails in response… But anyway, they say “Do you have a way for me to try to introduce this topic?” and my response to that is the same as really it is to helping anyone who wants to approach their partner that they believe they have some problem they’re not recognizing, and that is to talk about themselves first. To say “This is what this is like for me watching you do this.”
Let’s say their child is ill, and the perfectionist goes about solving the problem, and getting the child to the doctor, and making sure that the school is on board… I mean, it’s all about the child, and loving the child, and embracing the child, and helping the child talk about their fear, and all the right things, right? What they don’t do is talk about their own fear; what they don’t do is talk about — or to express… They may talk about it, but they don’t express it.
The partner would say “I’ve noticed that since Rachel became ill you haven’t had a tender moment about it. You’ve not turned to me and said “I’m so worried” or “I don’t think I can handle this” or “I’m scared out of my mind.” You don’t go there. You don’t express it, you don’t allow yourself to feel it.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: “And I wanna share it with you.”
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: “And I wanna share it with you, and so I’m frustrated. You talk about yourself. You don’t say “I notice that you never…” Why don’t you do that?” The question that causes defensiveness in all of us; all of a sudden, we feel like we’ve got a prosecuting attorney for a spouse… So it’s truly about trying to introduce the subject in a very loving, kind way, and talk about yourself. If they’re not ready, they won’t talk about it. And again, the confusing thing and the somewhat maybe even paralyzing thing is because these couples look great! These couples have people telling them “We wish we were more like you! You have a great life!” So that prevents them in some ways from saying “Well, yes, we have many blessings, but we have four kids who are all doing really well in school, and that’s a lot of homework, and a lot of science fairs, and a lot of music recitals, and a lot of football games, or whatever it is…” Yes, the whole family looks like they’re really successful, but there are some problems in that family; there’s some struggles, and it’s okay to talk about those.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And I’m imagining, as you’re talking, that there’s probably something that the person who’s experiencing the depressed perfectionism or the hidden depression, that there’s something that usually motivates them to create change, because if they’ve been operating this way almost their entire life… Is it the discontent that you find, or is there usually an incident? What usually prompts the consideration? Because as you’re saying, there’s so much good it can be really hard to confront and feel like you’re rocking the boat, and the uncertainty around what’s gonna happen when you do that is enormous.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Yeah, and in fact when I was seeking publishers for this book, some of them wouldn’t buy it because they said “Well, we don’t think these people will buy this book. They’re gonna buy a book called Perfectly Hidden Depression when they’re hiding…” So I started asking the people that I was interviewing, who would come forward and identify themselves as really believing they were experiencing this syndrome, and I started asking them the question “What made you come to me? What made you decide either to open up and go into therapy (because some of them had), or open up to someone else, or even contact me?” And what they said was, Jessica, they said “Because I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely… I may even be having thoughts of suicide.” Or they have a life event, as you said, that can so overwhelm them; it’s kind of like a tsunami that hits them, and they say “The skillset I have – this rigid, rigid skillset – is not going to help me here. This is too much. I’ve got to ask for help. I’ve got to admit that this is bigger than me.”
Sometimes that life event can be that triggering factor or stimulating factor, but what more people told me in the interview process was that their own inner world got so dark, that they were having thoughts that they didn’t wanna have, or they just wanted to get in their car and drive away, or they were thinking other kinds of self-destructive thoughts, of having affairs, or doing anything that would boost them, or somehow enable them to get out of this lack of connection… I mean, that’s not very well put; to get out of this, again, pattern of no one knowing them. It’s very despairing.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. And you know, you had mentioned that a lot of these patterns get developed very early on, perhaps…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Yes, yes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And I’m also thinking about the whole idea of the… You know, it’s a little — not completely archaic at the moment, but it’s this whole traditional American Dream, and striving… Possibly, do you think — have you found that some of these people have been operating on this belief that “Once I arrive, that’s when happiness will come”? It’s almost like they’ve been sold – not in any kind of malicious way, but kind of really adopted this perception that “Once I achieve all these different things, then I will have earned this level of happiness.” Is that at all at play?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure, I think so. And this sort of self-comparison with others is rampant in our society due to social media and other influences, but… These are people who often — there’s several causes or [unintelligible 00:26:02.18] of perfectionism, and some of it is about being screamed at as a kid “You’ll never amount to anything!” Some of it is being in a very enmeshed family, where your job was to make sure a parent was happy, and that’s what you got your kudos for… So guess what – the more perfect you were, the happier the parents seemed. Or you’re the star of your family, that’s the role in your family. Or you just grew up in a family where pain or anger or sadness wasn’t even allowed. Or you’re male… You know, men are still unfortunately and sadly told that they need to buck up and be stoic. So there are a lot of ways to develop this sense of hiding in perfectionism… So realizing that base for what began as a survival strategy really, which was helpful, but becomes unhelpful in adulthood. Does that answer your question?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Did you have another thing you wanted to say? I have another question…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Well, I was wondering if, as you’ve listened, do you have any specific ideas or questions or comments about how the people in your practice, how you’ve identified these people in your practice?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, I think the thing you just mentioned is the thing that I focus a lot on, and helping to cultivate a safe space that allows people to drop into these deeper layers and cultivate these more vulnerable, more revealing, more connected conversations… So absolutely, I have several clients that come to mind, that have really struggled with this emotional capacity in themselves of just living in a pretty narrow zone, and the limitations of that, of feeling really a lack of intimacy, a lack of really feeling known, and down at a deep level that lack of connection in their relatonship… Absolutely.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure. I have a guy I worked with who definitely had been the star of his family, and basically chose the career he chose because someone told him “I think you’d be good at this”, that kind of thing. So he’d been living his whole life to please other people, and of course, what did he do – he started having multiple affairs because he wanted to finally do something that was about him, although it was in the wrong direction. And he actually became suicidal when his wife found out, and that kind of thing.
I saw him after that, and I remember him looking at me so quizzically one time, and saying “Why do people wanna talk about their feelings with their partners?” [laughter] “I mean, what’s the point? I don’t really want to do that.” And he doesn’t have Asperger’s, or anything. That’s not a part of the problem.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I’ve heard this from very capable, functional, well-rounded people…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Yes. And so we literally downloaded a list of emotions that you teach children; he would get it out, and unabashedly – I was quite proud of him – we’d be talking about something and I could see he was feeling something, and I’d say “Well, get out your list and see what you’re feeling.” He would say, “Oh, I’m frustrated” or “Oh, I’m disappointed” or “Oh, I’m this…” Gradually, he began sharing some of that with his wife, and sure enough, a year later or so he looked at me, as he was kind of ready to go on his way, he said “I now know. I will never be the greatest of sharers ever… But yes, I feel like I know my wife better and she knows me better, and that is very valuable.”
So all these light bulbs were coming on for him, and things that we therapists can sometimes take for granted, because we believe in it so much… But you know, there are many people out there that just kind of are on automatic with one another.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and what I find to be so profound about what you’re describing, and my own experience with it, is that it actually doesn’t take much. If there’s a safe space, whether or not it’s facilitated well, or there’s a motivation to take a huge risk and reveal or be transparent emotionally… And if couples have this space to be emotionally attuned, I feel like it melts away so much disconnect, and it’s amazing how powerful that can be.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: It can be, and it also can be horribly frightening when you do that…
Dr. Jessica Higgins: [laughs] Yes, yes…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: I remember a woman who said — I mean, she did fantastic work, and she said “I can’t really believe I’m saying some of the things I’m saying now to my husband… And he’s soaking it up”, because he was one of those that really wanted more from her. She said, “I’ve run corporations, I’ve raised three children, I’ve done this, that or the other, and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” And she got angry; as she began doing it, she discovered all this anger… Even anger about their relationship. Because of course, there were a lot of things that she’d never voiced to him, and so he had gotten into some patterns of doing what he wanted to do, and maybe not respecting her as much as he should have… So bam, here came all this rage and anger with him that they had to work out, and he was — I’ve never met him, but he sounded like quite perceptive to saying “Yeah, I know I did that. I guess I just kind of took advantage of you doing all the work.” So they did that work by themselves. I can’t believe it, but they didn’t need one of us there to help them out. [laughs]
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, when we learn these principles, and if we can apply them… I constantly tell my clients I’m in the profession of working myself out of a job, always.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: I say the same thing.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, that we want to help people feel really equipped with these… And I’ve had people tell me (listeners even) that these principles that are talked about on this show not only help with romantic relationship, but they’re like “They help me with my colleagues, and my kids…” It transfers to really any relationship.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Well, I don’t wanna lose something you’re saying… I feel like it’s so important if you can help people as they’re listening, that might be in relationship with someone who struggles with this syndrome – depression, perfectionism… How do they take care of themselves? Because listening to your story about the gentleman that kind of defaulted, and even was saying “I can see how I was taking advantage”, but also when people are really at a loss of how to engage their partner that is possibly running these patterns so strongly that they can’t reach them… How do they take care of themselves, what are some of your recommendations?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: How they take care of themselves despite the perfectionism of their partner, is that what you’re saying?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Well, my take on that would be that if the partner is sort of refusing to look at this particular dynamic, that you begin to at least set some healthy boundaries. “I don’t want to spend every weekend only doing child activities”, which maybe they did, so they could avoid their own relationship… Maybe if you have to work with a therapist, or look around and say “What is missing in the relationship that I think that my partner’s perfectionism is enabling, and how have I been enabling it?” That way you can begin to say, “Alright, we need to plan a vacation together, just the two of us”, and if he/she balks at that, to say “Well, then we need to talk about what’s getting in your way… You know, we haven’t been anywhere together in a year, or two years, or three years. Let’s talk about what’s getting in our way…”
So you don’t necessarily walk up to them and say “I think you have a problem with perfectionism, and I think you have a problem with being over-busy, and I think you have a problem with not expressing yourself.” You just say, “Okay, how is this impacting our lives?” and you begin to gently challenge them to look at it… But you have to set your own boundaries. You have to say, “I recognize my role in this” or “I’ve allowed him/her to do this, I said it doesn’t bother me when you stay at work seven days a week… Well, it does bother me when you stay at work seven days a week.” So you begin to wonder “Have I enabled the behavior? And if I have, then how do I wanna change my own response to it?” That’s what you have control over. You do not have control over whether your partner decides to look at themselves or not, but you can urge them gently to do so. And of course, they may not be ready, and that’s a whole different decision in and of itself.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Do you have anything you wanna speak to around that, without going into great depth? I know it’s probably a much bigger topic…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Well, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone who got divorced say “We got divorced because we had such a perfect marriage.” That’s not a reason why… But I do think that if someone is highly perfectionistic, highly driven and doesn’t allow you or anyone else in, then you’re very lonely. I do wanna say there’s certainly a difference between this kind of drive and perfectionism and avoidance of conflict and pain. That’s different from having some kind of narcissism or personality disorder that gets in the way. These are people who really don’t — they may not even be conscious of what they’re doing. This is just who they are. They don’t have a concept of being any different. So if you begin living differently, if you say “I made a mistake and I’m sorry”, or if you start talking about your vulnerabilities, or you start saying “I wanna spend more time with you”, you begin addressing your own distancing behaviors, then perhaps you will be inviting them to make change, too.
I don’t know about you, but I often say to someone, “I can do marital therapy with one person in the room.” I’d rather have two people in the room, but I can do marital therapy with one person in the room, because your changes, changes that you have control over, begin to influence your partner.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Absolutely.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: So that may be more subtle that sitting down and having a conversation about what’s worked and what hasn’t worked in your relationship, but if you start taking care of yourself better, and you say “I wanna listen to you better, I wanna try to understand…” You can make those changes in yourself.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, it changes the whole entire dynamic. If one person shifts, it changes the whole dynamic. I’m even listening to you, Margaret, and I feel inside myself that, you know, for the person that is more perfectionistic, if their partner comes to them and really sets the tone of this more revealing, this more emotionally present, I can even imagine on some level the perfectionistic partner being like, “Oh, thank God… Thank you! I knew something was going on, and I couldn’t put my finger on it… Or I didn’t know how. I knew, but I just had no idea how. Thank you for holding space and welcoming me into that, because I didn’t know how.”
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Right. And because no one else in their world ever did that.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: So it is hard when you have an over-functioning or under-functioning relationship, where your partner really kind of likes it that you’re over-functioning, and would resist… That is another scenario that is difficult, because that under-functioning partner probably would listen to a podcast like this and say “Well, I don’t wanna change him/her.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: [laughs] She cleans the house, does the groceries, cooks everything…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: “She does everything, I don’t wanna change that.” It’s the people who probably are either the over-functioners themselves, or the people who really want something different and deeper, and recognize that one day the children will be gone, one day the career will fade a bit, and what do you wanna have after that? I think that recognizing and giving the gift of recognition, of someone saying “I just think you’re trying so hard you’re missing out on life… And I know it probably got started a long time ago, but I’m here to listen if you’re willing to slow down just a little bit and be with yourself, and your real self, and your feelings, because I have a sneaking suspicion that underneath all this buziness is someone that I really want to love in a different way.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah. Well, thank you for answering this call to be able to show a path for people who struggle with this syndrome. It’s so important, and I’m glad that people are responding to you and what you’ve put out, and I’m sure are very excited for your new book… Can you help people know how to find you and be able to access what you have to offer?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Sure, of course. Thank you for asking. My website has the very creative name of DrMargaretRutherford.com. My podcast is Self-Work With Dr. Margaret Rutherford. I welcome personal e-mails, which are confidential, at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from people. I’d love to hear if they have identified with this, or they have questions about it, or they recognize it in their partners, or their mothers, or their fathers, or their families, or whatever. I’ve been warmed and very gratified by the response that I’ve gotten, and I just think that these people need our attention and our support for them to be okay with — you know, down here in Arkansas we say “warts and all.” I mean, whatever your struggles are, that you know that people love you… Sometimes not only despite them, but because of them.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Precisely. And before we wrap up, is there anything you wanna say about what the new book has to offer? Are there exercises in there?
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Yes. The book will be published November 1st, by the way. It is not a workbook, it’s a real book, but the first part of it is sort of a description of what is perfectly hidden depression, what are the characteristics… We talk about how stigma can affect someone coming forward and admitting vulnerability, we talk about how it’s different from classic depression, and how the work is actually different as well; the emotional work is different.
Then there are five stages of actual treatment strategies. All along, both in the early chapters and in the treatment strategies, there are reflections that are journal prompts and journal writings that will help you begin this journey… Very slowly, very carefully, because especially if you’re doing it with self-help, sometimes you can really fear losing your competence, losing your edge, if you’re going to be this ooey-gooey, vulnerable person. And you don’t have to lose your edge, you don’t have to turn into a new-agey kind of…
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I know I’ve had people who were like, “I don’t wanna be a big puddle on the floor…” [laughs]
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: No, you may think that when you begin to engage with these emotions they won’t stop, but they actually do. And then in the last half of the book there’s a chapter on relationships and how it may impact your relationship, and how to handle that. Then there is a chapter on basically some other clinical things that this can resemble and how to know — as a clinician, I was a little concerned that if people identified with it, but they also had an underlying mental illness themselves, such as bipolar II disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, or an anxiety disorder, or even a borderline personality disorder, that they might identify with perfectly hidden depression, but that’s not the whole picture. So I really wanted them to make sure that they not stop there, because it is a syndrome, it’s not a diagnosis. Not one psychologist in Fayetteville, Arkansas is gonna come up with a diagnosis that now the [unintelligible 00:44:00.02] that would be incredibly narcissistic for me to think that would happen.
But anyway, we’re all multi-layered. The reason why I’ve spent the last five years doing this, Jessica, is because I — people have asked me, “Well, what are your goals for the book?” and my goals for the book are I want it to get in the hands of the people that will benefit from reading it, period. That’s it. And because so many of these people actually go into therapy and they get diagnosed with anxiety, or they’re told they’re working too hard, they’re told to take a vacation… Because again, they can talk about their feelings, but they can’t express them; so they look kind of worried and anxious and agitated, and they go home and they say “That’s not it. I don’t know what it is, but that’s not the entire picture.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. I’m sure people will be really excited if they’re resonating with what you’re sharing, and kind of identifying with this syndrome…
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: Thank you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And thank you for all the resource and the help you’re offering. Thank you for being a guest on today’s show.
Dr. Margaret Rutherford: It’s been delightful, and it’s my honor. I’m very blessed to be able to write this book and have the support that I’ve had. Thank you. And thank you to you, Jessica. This was great.
Thank you for listening to today’s episode, “How perfectionism and depression affect you and your relationship” with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Again, you can find today’s show notes on my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com. You can find the Podcast page there at the top, click and you’ll find the most recent episode there. Today’s episode is 166.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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