You're spot on, there is no right. I do understand the perfectionism thing though...
My old flatmate would shower three times a day listening to self help podcasts. And quoted verbatim from self help books every single day. I thought all that was cool and refreshing at first to see someone so into self actualisation... But it got a bit too much. As he really didn't have much empathy for people I noticed. He was just living that kind of lifestyle putting immense pressure on himself to be this perfect person in order to meet the perfect woman. A very charismatic guy but could sense there was a lot of repressed anger there and turns out he wasn't really taking the time to relax... Even although he'd always preach to people about the importance of relaxation. He'd go to gym twice a day, obsessively count calories. His room was full of self help books. A new book delivery from amazon each day. I think his life was built on a foundation of books (of other people's opinions) to help him navigate through his own life. I'm all for self improvement but sometimes you just have to take a break, and live and make mistakes. Listen to your voice. And not rely on some one else telling you how to live. You should congratulate yourself for loving someone so much! That takes courage. You should congratulate yourself for being so empathic. And caring of someone with mental health issues. That shows that you are a really caring person and beautifully imperfect.
My flatmate was kinda sociopathic (or at the very best, emotionally disconnected) he was seeing a therapist though so fair enough he was trying to work stuff out ... But it was worrying that he'd label every single one of his exes as "mental". Turns out he used to be very overweight, hates his mum, and his dad died when he was 18. I think he was so angry he didn't really know how to feel it and let it go... And this is why he strived for this perfection... His favourite movie was also American Psycho! He said he related to Christian Bale's character. Safe to say he's gone now.
He is an extreme example of perfectionost.
But he would never admit to that. Whereas you are aware of your perfectionist habits... And you want to be more gentle on yourself.
I think some people just go through these extreme phases of striving for perfection based on traumatic experiences they've had, conciously or unconciously. Personally I want to be healed right now and get out there and be the best person I can be. I'm impatient! But it's daft to race for that because there will always be more loss and pain to experience, more knocks, therefore more to heal from...maybe the secret is to practice patience,, resilience, be gentle on yourself.
Anyway I went well off topic I think with all that flatmate chat (he moved out a few weeks ago so it's still an intense chapter I'm recovering from lol)
Point is, perfectionism is impossible in regards to humans. We can have perfectly working bridges and trains but we can't have perfect humans.
Maybe start a class where the point is to be really loose... Maybe some art therapy! Or a wacky dance class. Have you ever seen the film Housesitter starring Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin? It's one of my all time favourite films. There's a scene where Goldie Hawn is taking a dance class and she does this really funny tribal dancing, it's hilarious. I love how loose she is. Her whole character is just very free and it's beautiful to see ! :-) maybe join a class like that if there's any around. Or some kind of tribal drumming class. I was at an Xavier Rudd gig last night... Felt like he was this very primal lion being lol... It was too much! Just so amazing! I'm a filmmaker and I've always loved working with people who just let loose... Imperfection and vulnerability is what I want to see because it is most authentic and beautiful. And the most riskiest thing to do is to expose yourself. You're exposing yourself here so again, that is vulnerability, imperfect and great.
Hope I made some sense, it is good to explore this subject ...!