For the perfectionist, envy is often pathological.

Sometimes, we view the world through a distorted lens, providing us with a semblance of truth, which helps sustain a delusion. We aren't great fact-checkers, and what seems to be true is often accepted as is. Therefore, many of our perfectionistic patients struggle with envy. It isn't so much that they want what others have but, more so, their imagined lives. Here, envy becomes pathological for three reasons: 1) It takes up a significant amount of mental space. 2) It contributes to depressive symptoms. 3) It's based on delusional thinking, which is, by definition, resistant to conflicting evidence.

The payoff seems to be (i.e., why these beliefs and feelings are stubborn) a sense of eternal optimism, which is of course juxtaposed with an almost unlimited sense of dread and despondency. Thus, effort, entitlement, envy, and inspiration are mixed and made into a brew of emotional instability. And, like clockwork, each failure is internalized, inevitably forming the wellspring of frenzied activity. The perfectionist, in what some may consider the height of existence, feels all of the feelings. At once, she's hopeful that she may soon........

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