Addicted to Perfect: A Journey Out of the Grips of Adderall

Perfection is a mask we use to avoid pain. We think that if we can achieve perfection, we will achieve happiness. We believe that if we can avoid pain, we can also avoid abandonment and loneliness and unworthiness.

Perfection is the thief of joy. It’s a lie that keeps us in a stranglehold of chaos and people-pleasing and addiction and lack. Perfection says we are never good enough. It holds us back from being our truest, most authentic selves.

Author Vitale Buford spent nearly three decades...