5 Ways High-Control Religion Fuels Perfectionism
Perfectionism has been with me for as long as I can remember.
As a kid, I would often throw away half-finished coloring pages and start all over with a fresh page because I had “messed up” and colored outside the lines.
And in college, I remember once asking a professor if I could rewrite an entire paper because I had gotten a B on the assignment rather than an A.
Throughout my adulthood, perfectionism still shows up in my work, particularly in my writing or digital design, but it also shows up in appearance‑oriented ways.
I spend far more time than I would like on my clothing, hair, and make‑up—needing to ensure I look perfectly put together before allowing myself to be seen.
If you’re someone who also struggles with perfectionism, whether in your work or your appearance, then I’m sure you know how exhausting it can be.
Perfectionism can also be a huge time suck. I think that’s probably what I resent most about it.
Rather than simply living and enjoying my life, I spend way too much time fixated on getting it all exactly right.
As I began deconstructing my faith and started to recognize all the ways my religious indoctrination had been driving many aspects of my behavior and thought processes, I also started to recognize some of the ways high-control religion had been fueling my perfectionistic tendencies.
And that’s what I’m going to be unpacking for you in this article.
What We’ll Be Covering:
What is Perfectionism?
Perfectionism is a pattern of thinking and behavior where a person sets unrealistically high standards for themselves and feels harsh self-judgment when those standards aren’t met (Smith et al., 2022).
Unlike simply being high-achieving, perfectionism often comes with a persistent fear of failure, worry about others’ evaluation, and difficulty enjoying accomplishments (Balázs et al., 2022).
High achievers can pursue goals with focus and flexibility, while perfectionists may avoid tasks or feel stuck because nothing feels “good enough” (Katzenmajer-Pump et al., 2021).
Understanding the difference matters because perfectionism is linked to stress, anxiety, and burnout, whereas adaptive striving can support growth and confidence.
Perfectionistic Traits: Nature or Nurture?
The short answer is that perfectionistic traits can be the result of both nature and nurture.
Genes and personality traits make some people more prone to perfectionist thinking while family messages, school systems, workplace norms, and wider culture push the tendency into regular patterns of worry and behavior (Stoewen, 2022).
The result is an interaction where predispositions meet experience, and either adaptive or harmful perfectionism can follow.
Underlying Genetic Traits
Some personality traits linked to perfectionism are partly heritable.
Twin and family studies estimate moderate heritability for perfectionistic traits, and recent work finds common genetic and environmental influences that link perfectionism with broader tendencies toward emotional sensitivity and negative affect (Iranzo-Tatay et al., 2015; Burcaş & Creţu, 2021).
This means people may start life with temperament differences that make perfectionist thinking more likely, while experiences determine whether those tendencies become adaptive or harmful.
Neurodiversity Factors
In addition to inherited traits, differences in neurocognitive processing can influence how perfectionism shows up.
Both autism and ADHD are associated with higher rates of perseveration and “just-right” thinking.
For autistic people, intense focus, literal thinking, and a need for predictability can resemble perfectionism, and for individuals with ADHD, harsh self-criticism around missed targets or struggles with executive function often appears as rigid rules and avoidance.
These patterns reflect neurocognitive differences rather than simply being “bad” perfectionism (Balázs et al., 2022).
Family and Early Learning
Parenting that ties a child’s worth to achievement, or models overcontrol and harsh evaluation, is consistently associated with higher perfectionism.
This is one area where high-control religions often enter the mix.
Research shows that parental expectations uniquely predict all three major types of perfectionism—self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed—while parental criticism is especially linked to socially prescribed perfectionism (Smith et al., 2022).
Research also suggests that conditional approval and performance-based affection increase the likelihood that perfectionistic thinking becomes self‑critical rather than motivational (Flett et al., 2022).
School, Work, and Culture
High-stakes schooling, competitive workplaces, and cultural messages that prize flawlessness can increase pressure for people who are temperamentally prone to perfectionism.
This is the other area often heavily impacted by high-control religions.
Environments that reinforce self-critical standards and socially prescribed expectations make it harder to separate healthy striving from harmful perfectionistic patterns.
Research indicates that achievement-focused schools and workplaces contribute to both the development and intensification of perfectionistic tendencies (Smith et al., 2020).
It would follow that this would also apply to religious institutions that have similar performance-based characteristics.
Where does religious perfectionism come from?
Up to this point, we’ve looked at how perfectionism can grow out of temperament, family systems, school, work, and culture.
For those of us raised in high‑control religion, all of those threads get pulled into one intense environment.
When I entered the deconstruction space, I kept hearing people say that high‑control religion “creates” perfectionism.
With my long history of chronic, intense perfectionism, I wanted that to be true—I wanted to believe I had finally found the source of so much of my suffering.
But if I’m honest, I was skeptical at first.
I had grown up being told over and over that humans are imperfect and only god (or Jesus) is perfect. On paper, that sounds like it should relieve some of the pressure.
I mean, if perfection is impossible, shouldn’t that ease the constant striving?
Unfortunately for me, it did the opposite.
In my particular context, it wasn’t just, “You’re not perfect.” It was, “You can never be perfect because you are born inherently sinful, deeply flawed, fundamentally evil and wicked.”
We were told we were depraved at our core and that our only hope was to surrender everything to god and conform our lives to god’s standards.
So even while I was hearing, “You’re imperfect,” what landed in my body was, “You are fundamentally broken and always at risk of being wrong, bad, or beyond repair.”
In that kind of theology, perfectionism stops being about “doing well” and becomes about trying to outrun a constant sense of spiritual danger.
And rather than dampening perfectionism, these messages supercharged it.
Over time, I started to see that religious perfectionism tends to sit at the crossroads of a few overlapping dynamics:
Below, I’ll explore each of these dynamics in detail.
Conditional Belonging
In high‑control religion, belonging often feels conditional, even with our parents.
There’s almost always a list—spoken or unspoken—of what you must believe, how you must behave, and who you must be in order to stay in good standing.
Membership, leadership opportunities, and even basic social warmth often hinge on how closely you conform to the group’s expectations.
Doubt, divergence, or difference tend to be penalized.
When you grow up in that kind of environment, your nervous system learns that safety and connection are fragile. One wrong belief, one misstep, one “rebellious” choice could jeopardize everything.
Perfectionism becomes a way to protect belonging: If I can just do it right, maybe I won’t be pushed out.
Alongside these social expectations, many high-control religious environments also tie everyday actions to moral worth, creating additional pressure to be flawless.
Moral Purity Messages
Shame‑heavy teachings about sin, purity, and holiness make everyday decisions feel morally loaded.
It’s not just, “Did I make a wise choice?” It’s, “Did I stay on the right side of god’s favor?”
Messages about depravity, wickedness, and being “dirty” or “unclean” unless you meet certain standards create a constant sense of contamination risk.
Your body learns to scan for anything that might make you morally suspect: desire, anger, curiosity, pleasure, boundaries.
When perfectionism becomes woven together with moral purity culture, the goal stops being simple “self‑improvement” and becomes moral survival.
Showing up perfectly allows you to combat the fear that you are fundamentally bad.
When every choice feels morally loaded, it naturally produces fear: fear of sin, punishment, or rejection.
Fear-Based Motivation
From early on, many of us were taught to obey out of fear—fear of hell, fear of divine punishment, fear of being cast out, fear of disappointing god and the people who claimed to speak for god.
Instead of being guided by curiosity, values, or inner authority, our choices were driven by what consequences we might face if we “messed up.”
Ordinary human mistakes were framed as spiritual failures with eternal stakes.
In that context, perfectionism becomes a form of hyper‑vigilance, constantly scanning for danger cues.
The body stays braced, as if every decision is high‑risk.
The question is no longer, “What feels right and aligned for me?” but, “What choice will keep me safest from harm, rejection, or judgment?”
In this way, perfectionism becomes a way of avoiding real or perceived danger.
Constant fear and hyper-vigilance train the body and mind to avoid uncomfortable feelings, teaching us that some emotions are unsafe to express.
Suppressed Emotions
High‑control religion often leaves very little room for the full range of human emotion.
Feelings like anger, grief, doubt, and desire are quickly spiritualized, minimized, or pathologized.
If your sadness is labeled “lack of faith,” or your anger at injustice is framed as “bitterness,” it stops feeling safe to be honest—even with yourself—about what you feel.
Many of us learned to retreat into our heads, analyzing and self‑correcting instead of sensing and expressing.
Perfectionism thrives in that emotional vacuum.
When you cannot safely feel or process what is happening in your body, you may try to manage it by controlling your behavior, your appearance, your spiritual life, or your environment.
The more dysregulated you feel inside, the more tightly you may grip the outside.
In this way, perfectionism becomes a way to control your dysregulated emotions.
And when we can’t safely express our emotions, we often rely on controlling our behavior and performance to maintain a sense of safety and approval.
Approval in Exchange for Performance
Most high‑control systems run on a predictable reward structure: comply and you are praised, platformed, or seen as spiritually “mature.”
Question, resist, or slow down and you risk being labeled difficult, rebellious, or “a bad influence.”
Over time, you learn that external approval—especially from authority figures such as parents and religious leaders—is the main currency of safety.
You may find yourself over‑functioning, over‑explaining, or over‑achieving in hopes of staying on the “good” side of leaders, parents, bosses, or partners.
As long as you perform at a high enough level, follow the rules closely enough, and keep your doubts quiet enough, you get to keep your place in the community.
In this way, perfectionism becomes a way to secure both belonging and emotional safety in an environment that’s constantly judging your worthiness.
When Perfectionism Becomes Internalized Shame
When perfectionism is consistently tied to belonging, moral correctness, and approval, it inevitably becomes part of your sense of self by conditioning your nervous system that being flawed is inherently unsafe in multiple ways.
By the time I learned about “salvation,” I had already absorbed a core story about myself: I am bad and am deserving of eternal damnation.
In my church context, that was shared as good news, or “the Good News.”
First, you accept that you are inherently sinful and deserving of eternal separation from god. Then, if you repent genuinely enough and surrender completely, you might be spared.
Sermons were saturated with language about depravity and wickedness. Every desire, impulse, and feeling was suspect.
Normal human experiences—sexuality, anger, doubt, pleasure—were presented as evidence of a corrupt nature rather than simply part of being human.
Over time, I didn’t just believe I made mistakes. I believed I was inherently depraved to my very core due to my “sin nature.”
I moved through the world with a chronic sense of being fundamentally bad and permanently on the verge of messing everything up, which became fertile soil for my religious perfectionism.
How Shame Drives Religious Perfectionism
Researcher Brené Brown describes shame as the belief that “I am bad,” not just “I did something bad” (Brown, 2012).
That distinction is important when it comes to the concept of religious indoctrination.
Spiritual leaders praised submission, self-denial, and “dying to self.”
In that framework, you are not simply a person who occasionally makes mistakes—you’re someone whose very nature is untrustworthy and in need of constant correction.
Shame stops being an occasional feeling and becomes a worldview.
It colors how you interpret your body, your needs, your questions, and your desires.
Brown writes that “shame is the birthplace of perfectionism” (Brown, 2012).
Healthy striving is internally driven—rooted in your own values—while perfectionism is externally driven by one consuming question: What will people think?
In the high-control religious world I was raised in, that question was pushed one step further: What will god think?
And not a god who delights in you, but a god who is perpetually evaluating you.
Because everything was already so shame-based, I developed an insatiable urge to prove I wasn’t as awful as I feared.
I wanted some sign that I was not a total disappointment to god, my parents, my pastors, or the community I depended on for belonging.
Perfectionism became a useful tool in protecting me against experiencing shame.
Perfectionism as a Coping Tool
Because of my thorough indoctrination into a fear-based religion, my nervous system learned that love, safety, and spiritual security were all conditional.
Perfectionism became a useful strategy:
For a while, that strategy worked—or at least it felt like it did.
Praise for being responsible, spiritually serious, and “wise beyond my years” gave my nervous system tiny hits of relief: maybe I wasn’t as terrible as I’d been told.
But the bar always moved.
There was always another rule to follow, another sin to confess, another area of life to fully surrender.
Shame never said, “You’ve done enough.” It only whispered, “Try harder.”
Over time, my body adapted to that never‑enough treadmill.
My nervous system stayed braced, as if one wrong move could cost me everything—love, safety, community, even my place in the afterlife.
Each mistake registered as danger.
And once your body is convinced that danger lives inside you, perfectionism does not stay confined to your spiritual life. It starts to bleed into every corner of how you live.
When God’s Approval Expands Into Every Corner of Life
By the time all of this had taken root, my perfectionism felt mostly “spiritual.”
I obsessed over whether I was praying enough, reading my Bible enough, serving enough.
I replayed sermons in my head to see where I might be falling short.
Because love, safety, and spiritual security had all been framed as conditional, god’s approval started to feel like the only thing keeping me afloat.
Perfectionism had become my primary strategy for trying to stay on the right side of god, and by extension, everyone who claimed to speak for god.
Over time, that dynamic didn’t stay confined to my spiritual life.
As god became the ultimate authority figure, I unconsciously started projecting that same dynamic onto every other authority figure in my life:
- Professors
- Bosses
- Parents
- Pastors and mentors
If god was always evaluating me, it made sense that everyone else was too.
Suddenly it wasn’t just my spiritual performance that felt high‑stakes.
It was every grade, every project, every outfit, every social interaction.
I didn’t have language for it at the time, but my self‑worth and self‑confidence had become completely intertwined with whether people in positions of authority approved of me.
Perfectionism stopped being something I did “at church” and became the lens through which I navigated school, work, relationships, and even how I kept my home.
Eventually, it went one step further.
It wasn’t just authority figures whose opinions mattered.
I started caring deeply about what everyone thought, whether they held any formal power over me or not.
Perfectionism turned into a life‑wide compulsion to manage how I was perceived.
My nervous system had learned that safety lived in other people’s approval, so it kept me scanning for any possible misstep.
What This Looks Like After You Leave
As I’m sure you probably know, leaving a high‑control religion doesn’t magically flip a switch on perfectionism.
While I released beliefs about a judgmental god-figure who could damn me to hell, my nervous system didn’t immediately get that memo.
I still notice things like:
In other words, the perfectionistic patterns that were once attached to god and church leadership now try to attach themselves to new contexts: career, friendships, creative work, even healing.
The difference now is that I have more language for what’s happening.
Instead of simply thinking, “Ugh, why am I like this?” I can ask, “What happened to me that taught my body that this level of self‑monitoring was necessary?”
Moving Beyond Perfectionism
I hope you’ve gathered from this article that religious perfectionism isn’t a flaw.
When we’ve been indoctrinated into a high-control, fear-based system, perfectionism became a way to help you survive inside an environment where love, safety, and approval were conditional.
Recognizing this enables us to start noticing when perfectionism is taking over, when fear or shame is driving decisions, and when self-worth is being subconsciously measured by performance.
Recovery and growth are about developing self-trust.
And over time, you can practice giving yourself permission to be human, to make mistakes, and to honor your needs and feelings.
Rather than striving for perfection, we should work to cultivate greater freedom, presence, and a sense of safety that comes from within rather than from external approval.
Some Possible Next Steps:
If this article resonated with you and you’re wondering where to go from here, you might consider the following options:
References
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