The secret layer is just that—it’s a secret. It’s something that is not always visible, and because of that, it’s not always something people understand. It is the foundation that formulates the perfectionism complex: the how and why behind it.

It’s actually pretty simple, even though it doesn’t seem like it. It comes from early experiences in life. This could look like trauma—someone telling you that you are not good enough, chaos, neglect or other forms of abuse, and needing to be “good,” “perfect,” or “not a problem” for someone else.

As we grow and learn, based on our experiences, our body and mind learn what is safe and what is not safe. They learn what love is. They learn how to get approval and what you need to do to avoid harm.

What is kind of beautiful about this is that our bodies and minds also learn how to protect us in unsafe situations. That is something that just happens, and although we often learn from our abusers, we also do this quite independently on our own. The sad part is that, although we may have some options, these situations often happen when we are children, and we are forced into these protective measures—not by choice. Over time, we are conditioned into these protective modes: being sensitive to threats, living in fight or flight, and always being on alert as a baseline.

I’m recognizing now that, although I’ve worked through so much of my trauma, the “always alert” is my baseline. It seems to exist for me constantly.

Throughout our lives, we develop core beliefs like “I’m not enough as I am,” or one of my favorites, “I’m responsible for what happens.” Another is “Mistakes are not safe,” or probably my top contender: “Other people’s feelings are my job.” Many more contenders include “I can’t trust myself” and “My feelings are not valid or important,” and the list goes on. Although people may not say these verbatim to you, you grow to believe them because of what they say and do to make you believe them. They don’t let you forget—they repeat it over and over again so you remember, just in case you didn’t the first time.

There are so many repeated messages, in many forms, that create these beliefs. To name a few: conditional love, performance-based worth, and responsibility and overfunctioning. These messages can sound like: “You should have known better,” “Be the bigger person,” “Stop being so sensitive,” or “What’s wrong with you?” “You are gaining too much weight” They can even be messages you don’t hear directly, but instead learn through actions that shape your environment.

They are often created subconsciously because of these repeated messages, and we use them to make sense of our experiences. If someone I perceive to be trustworthy says these things to me, it must be true… I’m not fulfilling their expectations of me, so I must be—fill in the blank here.

These secret layers are the foundation of our existence. So as simple as these ideas are, and as simple as their origins may be, the complexity of undoing them almost seems impossible. It’s truly what I’ve been working on for the past 10 years or more—which is about a quarter of my life. Buckle up, friends. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

With time, and patience, healing is possible.