Striving to be perfect can have some serious consequences. Leslie Jamison reports on the ways that perfectionism can literally make us sick. And making sense of the redistricting chaos in Texas. Plus:

• Israelis are starting to talk about famine in Gaza
• Are Trump’s immigration policies becoming unpopular?
• King Princess finds her sound

Caroline Mimbs Nyce
Newsletter editor

Right now, I am writing this newsletter in the hope that you love it. And, up until the moment I send it, I will be worried that something will be slightly off, or factually incorrect, or just poorly worded, and I’ll have proven myself to be bad at my job and totally irredeemable and I’ll be shipped off to live on a farm or something.

I am, in short, being a perfectionist. And that’s not the golden personality trait one might believe it to be. In the latest issue of the magazine, the writer and essayist Leslie Jamison reports on the many negative health effects of perfectionism. It can make us literally sick, she warns; striving constantly, and obsessively, to get every single thing right can inhibit us professionally (never finishing that Ph.D. dissertation because it’s not good enough) and personally (feeling unloved every time we make an error). We are, some psychologists believe, living through an epidemic of perfectionism. In a recent Gallup poll, one in three American teen-agers reported feeling pressure to be perfect.

I caught up with Jamison over e-mail to discuss what she learned during her reporting process—and how it’s changed her life. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Perfectionism is often written off as a faux issue: as you say in the story, it’s the kind of thing people use as a “humblebrag” in job interviews. Why should we take it seriously?

Perfectionism often gets misunderstood as an unstoppable striving for excellence, a quality that many of us would love to (half-heartedly) lament. But, really, perfectionism is far more painful—the conviction that you need to be perfect in order to be acceptable or loved. It can be really destructive; it’s highly correlated with eating disorders, depression, chronic anxiety, and suicide. The toll of perfectionism on physical health is real and measurable. It’s linked to ulcers, hypertension, arthritis, and a whole host of other conditions.

Why did you decide to write about it?

I’ve got a soft spot for suffering that gets dismissed: cutters “just doing it for the attention,” hypochondriacs, etc. I feel an urge to investigate the kinds of pain that other people want to write off as manipulative or inauthentic. I want to be the vigilante scribe of misunderstood pathologies! So many perfectionists don’t exactly present as “underdogs,” and their suffering—as you said—can be hard to take seriously.

Are you a perfectionist?

It’s funny, reporting this piece made me realize that I’m not a perfectionist in the ways I might have thought, but that I am a perfectionist in ways I hadn’t realized. I don’t drive myself crazy thinking that a book or an essay has to be perfect—I know they won’t be. (Anyone lucky enough to work with a New Yorker fact checker knows that every writer makes mistakes!)

But my perfectionism shows up in other ways: I can get really upset if a friend or partner makes a small, legitimate criticism, like, “Why did you leave the air-conditioner running for hours in a room you weren’t in?” I’ll get really panicked and ashamed and defensive. Writing this piece illuminated some of where that panic comes from—this internalized idea that love is like a big boulder, and a little bit gets chipped away every time you make a mistake.

Did reporting on perfectionism change how you approach your everyday life, or how you think about your place in the world?

Yes! Most deeply in the day-to-day realities of parenting. My daughter is seven, and now I think more intentionally about how to help her see mistakes as opportunities rather than crises, and how to help her not feel like a terrible person when she’s done something wrong.

I felt such a relief reading this piece. What do you hope readers take away from it?

One of the psychologists I interviewed talks about how important it is for perfectionist patients to let their “messy, imperfect selves” into the room during therapy—and I think that’s the invitation I’d like readers to take away from the piece. Can we notice the ways we are trying to keep our imperfect selves out of the room? When do I become a bouncer at the night club of myself?

Read the story »

Until a couple weeks ago, the Israeli media had maintained that there was no hunger crisis in Gaza. Then the rhetoric at a few mainstream outlets started to shift. Why now? “Growing public disillusionment about the war’s stated goals of defeating Hamas and releasing the hostages has made it possible to speak out,” Ruth Margalit writes, in a new report from Israel. Still, ceasefire talks have collapsed, and it’s unclear whether an end to the war is any nearer. Read the story »

Democratic lawmakers in Texas fled the state over the weekend to prevent a vote on a bill that would redraw the state’s congressional maps. The proposal would likely allow Republicans to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections. The situation has sparked a national debate about gerrymandering, and leaders in Democratic-majority states, including New York and California, are suggesting that they might explore redrawing their own congressional maps.