How to Recover from Obsessive Hyper-perfectionism Using Wabi-Sabi the Japanese art of Imperfection?

The Neurology of Obsession for the Perfection

1. Seeking perfection, and being too obsessed with perfection is a phenomenon called obsessive-compulsive disorder.
2. Individuals with OCD, become excessively obsessive about keeping things organized, hygienic, structured, and in place.
3. Perfection is a routine, which means an unchangeable way of doing something.
4. Basal Ganglia part of our brain stores routines, such as how to tie the lace, tuck shirts, swim, cycling. You can never explain how you tie the shoelace. You just learn and do it. This is also called the habit brain.
   

5. The habit brain is part of our limbic brain, the primal brain, which is common in all mammals and therefore is the animalistic part of the brain.
6. Amygdala is the part of the Basal Ganglia which is our flight and fight react brain.
7. Basal Ganglia also controls our involuntary muscle movements.

8. The Hypothalamus part of the Basal Ganglia acts as the bridge between our nervous system and endocrine system. This encodes the nervous system and passes it onto the pituitary gland, and the chemical(hormonal signals) from the pituitary gland is translated to an electrical signal for the brain to understand the hormonal state of the body.
9. The hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis combing is responsible for our stress handling and is called the Flight-Fight system.
10. Our flight and fight system is part of our Autonomic Nervous system that helps all the major organs of the body to function without the brain being needed to take every single decision. The autonomic nervous system enables the body to save energy by taking decisions without bothering our brain.

11. Lyfas is a technology that enables you to measure the state of the autonomic nervous system and therefore stress, using a technology called heart rate variability^​1​.
12. Though the body must take over the brain under any real threat, such as when you see a snake, if the brain is not involved in an executive decision, then the body will feel threatened by any simple stressors and would activate flight-fight-response.
13. Under the flight-fight response, the body is filled with adrenaline hormone from the adrenal gland, because the HPA axis controls our stressor response. This causes irritation which then leads to anger.

14. The frontal part of our brain is called the pre-frontal cortex.
15. The pre-frontal cortex(PFC) separates humans from other animals. This is the executive brain that is responsible for deep thinking, abstract correlation, and rational decision-making.
16. PFC also has the consciousness center that makes us humans and gives us human values such as wisdom, virtue, empathy, intelligence, intellectuality, and rationality.
17. We are not born with PFC, but rather the development of PFC happens throughout the first 25 years of life.
18. In case of childhood trauma, such as sexual violence, absent parents, emotionally absent parents, or a mother with mood swings, the brain feels threatened and switches to flight-fight mode.
19. Over the period of life, the body is run by the HPA axis, rather than PFC.
20. Any change in the environment is called stress. Because the HPA axis relies on no change in the environment, such individuals with HPA-driven decision brain, rather than PFC-driven decision brain relies on fixed habits, and a never-changing environment, because such changes put the body under a stress.
21. The slightest of changes when putting the body into adrenaline mode is called neuroticism. Neuroticism is a hallmark of anxiety disorder. The heart has to pump more blood when the body is in adrenaline mode. So the heart can not predict when it has to start overworking and after a period it humps, jumps, pumps, and pounds, leading to palpitation and anxiety disorder.
22. In order to protect itself from anxiety, the brain becomes exceedingly vigilant about the changes.

Therefore the obsession for compulsion is a phenomenon of an individual with childhood trauma that led to the impairment of the prefrontal cortex, and one who operates with the animalistic limbic brain, that triggers adrenaline when there is even the slightest of changes, due to excessive stressors the brain feels due to lack of brain surface area(Stress=Pressure/Area). And so, such individuals will have low consciousness, extreme anger will react to any changes, and will be extremely opinionated(because habits can’t be changed, and need to be defended by opinions). The stressor induced reaction is called the impulsiveness.

The Problem with Obsessive-Impulsive Brains

People who live around an obsessive person, always feel that they are walking on an eggshell and that there is something wrong. Because the obsessive brain doesn’t have the emotional or the empathy circuits but are feelings driven. Their body doesn’t operate with the hormone Serotonin and estrogen(our emotional hormones), but rather with a dopamine-adrenaline-driven instant feeling-based state.

If the Neuroticism is not handled properly, soon the brain starts making structural changes to deal with the frequent neurotic attacks. When the brain is structurally changed, the individual is more on the animalistic spectrum, rather than on the human spectrum. This phenomenon is called “Secondary Psychopathy.” If not addressed, the phenomenon then becomes primary psychopathy.

Such individuals are hyperfocused and often grows exponentially in their career. Because their brain inhibits any additional learning and is object-oriented (our limbic brain is a reward-punishment centric brain). It understands only profit or loss. This is a simplified brain that is governed by morality because higher-order values do not supply the decisions.

Therefore such individuals are good choices to run the system. Build a system and give it to them, the obsessive perfectionist brain runs the systems like a machine. They are the ones who grow in the top positions in the companies, due to their ability to relentlessly work on the same thing over and over again.

However, after a period of time, people around the obsessive person, always feeling on eggshells, experiencing extreme reactions and anger at times, become hypervigilant about not triggering this person. Because the obsessive individual switches towards an animalistic spectrum with each passing day, people around the individual slowly walk away from such individuals.

Because anxiety is a common phenomenon of such a compulsive-impulsive brain, hyperperfectionists suffer from social anxiety and hate being amongst too many people.

The habit brain is anti-creativity and because it doesn’t like any change, it doesn’t allow any changes, and therefore no innovation happens in the organization and in the entity such individuals operate. The very individuals whose obsessive compulsiveness resulted in the exponential growth of the organization then become responsible for the downfall of the organization.

After the age of 40, the body’s ability to produce adrenaline reduces, and the heart fails to handle any more pounding, and therefore they start having cardiovascular problems after this age. They can’t feel anyone around them, can not feel themselves, become extremely violent, irritated by the smallest of things, and react excessively. They try to control their children and the people around them.

And so the obsessive hyperperfectionist suffers from losses, personal, financial, and anything you say. Their feelings dip by this age, and because of a lack of emotions, they can not recover. It is like a body with a soul.

Therefore, such individuals must start taking a conscious effort and work towards activating their PFC and slowly over a period of 5-7 years increase the area of their brain and improve their life.