Each person’s madwoman is different. For you, maybe she’s more like a shadow, following you around, a perpetual reminder of what you’re not; or a spindly creature lurking under the bed until you put on some jeans that feel tight or send a text you immediately wish you hadn’t sent; or, as one friend of ours put it, “a whiny, annoying brat of a six-year-old who thinks she knows everything and will not—give me strength—shut up unless I take deep breaths for her, then she goes quiet.”
Another friend said, “She’s the skinnier, younger-looking, richer, better-dressed, prettier-by-societal-standards, lives-in-the-amazing-and-much-larger-house-next-door-with-the-perfect-lawn version of me. On the outside, she really seems to have her shit together. But I know (and I have to keep reminding myself all of the time) that deep down somewhere in her, she is sadder and lonelier and doesn’t have much more than what is on her outside, than me.”
Still another friend said, “Mine is more like a teenage version: the smart, quiet, yet sad and downtrodden girl who always sat in the back of class and no one talked to….When something goes wrong, I can hear her ‘told you so’ voice in the back of my mind.”
Again and again, women describe their madwoman as an uncomfortable, even unpleasant person…and they describe her fragility, vulnerability, or sadness.
This uncomfortable, fragile part of ourselves serves a very important function. She grew inside us, to manage the chasm between who we are and who Human Giver Syndrome expects us to be. She is the part of us that has the impossible, tormenting task of bridging the unbridgeable chasm between us and this “expected-us.” It’s a form of torture, like Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down each time. She’s forever oscillating from rage to helpless despair.
If you have beaten yourself up for needing to say no to a friend, that was the madwoman. If you have felt sure that a broken relationship was all your fault, that there had to be something more you could have done, that was the madwoman. If you, like so many women we know, have struggled when you look in a mirror, it’s the madwoman you see looking back at you.
When the unbridgeable chasm between us and expected-us looms, our madwoman assesses the situation and decides what the problem is. She has only two options: Is the world a lying asshole, with bogus expectations? Or is there something wrong with us?
Some madwomen are more protective than destructive; some are more sad than angry; some have a sense of humor. They are the shadow, the hurt little girl, the downtrodden teenager, the “perfect” version of ourselves, the madwoman in the attic yelling terrible things that echo through the house. What’s yours like? Take a few minutes to imagine her—her uncomfortableness and her fragility, both.
GET TO KNOW YOUR “MADWOMAN”
Describe your madwoman, in words or illustration. Tune in to the difficult, fragile part of yourself that tries to bridge the unbridgeable chasm between you and expected-you. What does she look like? When was she born? What is her history?
What does she say to you? Write out her feelings and thoughts. Notice where she’s harshly critical of you, shaming, or perfectionistic. You may even want to mark those places. Highlight them in different colors. Those are sources of exhaustion.
Can you hear sadness or fear under her madness? Ask her what she fears or what she’s grieving. Listen to her stories—never forgetting she’s a madwoman. Remind her that you are the grown-up, the homeowner, or the teacher, and she can trust you to maintain the attic so that she always has a safe place to stay.
Thank her for the hard work she has done to help you survive.
Harsh Self-Criticism
In her memoir, Yes Please, Amy Poehler describes her madwoman as a demon that “moves its sour mouth up to your ear and reminds you that you are fat and ugly and don’t deserve love.”3 (In the audiobook, the demon is voiced by Kathleen Turner.) That is harsh self-criticism, where the gap between you and expected-you is both your fault and a sign of your essential failure in life. The result is guilt and shame.
As Brené Brown says, “Guilt is, ‘I made a mistake.’ Shame is, ‘I am a mistake.’?” With guilt, as opposed to shame, there is at least a pretense that one day you might deserve to participate fully in the human experience. With shame, your core self is judged.4
Perhaps more insidious than the self-criticism of failure is the self-criticism of success. This self-criticism sneaks in when you win an award or receive a letter of thanks. “Who do you think you are?” hisses the madwoman. “You think you’re as good as those other people? Well, you’re not! So don’t start thinking you might be ‘all right just the way you are.’ Now, get back in line!”
Toxic Perfectionism
Another way that some madwomen wreak havoc is with toxic perfectionism. Perfectionism is a lot of different things—some of them generally benign or even beneficial, and some potentially very toxic.5
Generally benign: preferring tidiness and organization over messiness; being detail-oriented and checking your work for mistakes; and having high standards for yourself or others. Any of these factors can become toxic and, at their extreme, are even associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder. That happens when perfectionism functions as a maladaptive strategy to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, repressed rage, and helpless despair. But if you’re coping well with your feelings (using planful problem-solving and positive reappraisal), then high standards and orderliness aren’t going to do you any harm.
Generally toxic: believing that if things aren’t perfect, they aren’t any good—e.g., if you make one mistake, everything is ruined—and feeling pressure from other people to succeed at everything you do. These domains of perfectionism are associated with depression, anxiety, disordered eating, negative relationships, and feelings of helplessness in the world.
The fundamental problem with perfectionism is that it does terrible things to your Monitor. You have the goal of “perfection,” which is an impossible goal, as you start the project or the meal or the outfit or the day, and then as soon as something falls short of “perfect,” the whole thing is ruined. And sometimes if your goal is “perfect,” some part of you already knows that it’s an impossible goal, so you think about your project or meal or outfit or day, knowing you’re never going to achieve your goal, and so you feel hopeless before you’ve even begun.
Self-Compassion
The opposite of harsh self-criticism and toxic perfectionism is self-compassion. The last twenty years have seen an explosion of research that shows us how much better people do when they engage in less self-criticism and more self-compassion.6 You’ve probably heard about self-compassion. You’ve seen Kristin Neff’s TEDx talk or read her or Chris Germer’s books or it’s one of those things you know you should do, like meditation or mindfulness or gratitude. You’ve thought to yourself, Yeah, we should all be gentler with ourselves! or I shouldn’t be so harsh with myself.
And you’re right; self-compassion is good for you. Or at least, the absence of self-compassion is harmful—it results in self-judgment, isolation, and overidentification with our suffering.7 Self-compassion reduces depression, anxiety, and disordered eating. It improves overall life satisfaction. When you are gentle with yourself, you grow mighty.
Maybe you tried self-compassion for a while…and maybe you slipped back into the habit of beating yourself up.
And then someone reminded you about self-compassion, and you said, “I know, I should be nicer to myself; I’m such a—”
STOP RIGHT THERE. That’s our sister you’re talking about, and we’re not going to let you say mean things about her.