When Perfectionism Becomes Toxic with Bonnie Rumilly, LCSW, EMT | S5 E39

SPEAKER_00 0:02

For some first responders, we're unpacking a negative belief that started in childhood and really gets triggered off now in adulthood in some of these calls and situations. And they have an epiphany sometimes, even with us just asking that question and trying to figure out where did this start. You know, the issue is first responders are very, very hard on themselves in general. And that goes across branches. Perfectionism can really be a trauma response. What do many adults do? Well, they become first responders because they matured at a young age.

Voiceover 0:45

Welcome to today's episode of Responder Resilience. I'm David Dashinger, and my co-host Bonnie Rimoli, LCSW EMT, is going to be our sort of featured expert subject matter guest today. And we're going to unpack the heavy burden of negative self-beliefs and the relentless pursuit of perfectionism that affects so many first responders. Kind of go into an exploration of the inner workings of a perfectionist mind, uncover strategies to shift rigid thinking, and discuss the surprising links between perfectionism, trauma, and early life attachment. So hang out, discover how to cultivate compassion for yourself and diffuse that inner critic and break free of the cycle of perfectionism that can lead to many bad things. Thanks to our resource partner, EMS and Fire Pro Expo, the largest gathering of EMS and fire professionals in New England, September 24th through 27, 2025, at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Sign up at EMSPro.org. There's a new app built by Firefighters for Firefighters, and it's called Crackle. Download the app now for free as a legacy member and get early access to exclusive content, tools, and updates as they drop. Get the free app at crackle.responderTV.com. Thanks also to our resource partner, Fight Camp. For free shipping and a free month of membership. Go to joinfightcamp.comslash shop and use the code R R P O N E. Remember to like and subscribe, YouTube Responder Resilience, Facebook, Responder TV, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and go to our website responderTV.com for past episodes and guest information. We'll be right back to speak with Bonnie after this.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

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Voiceover 2:33

In this family, up to a quarter of 911 telecommunicators have symptoms of post-traumatic stress. In this family, our mental health and wellness are in crisis, while responders are quietly suffering.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

In this family, many struggle with job-related stress, burnout, injury, sleep disruptions, substance abuse, and relationship problems.

Voiceover 2:54

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SPEAKER_03 3:08

Welcome to Responder Resilience. We co-hosts retired Lieutenant David Dashinger, Dr. Stacey Raymond, and Bonnie Romley, LCSW EMTV.

Voiceover 3:26

So today in this episode, we're going to just have a kind of responder resilience co-host conversation, but I'd like to introduce Bonnie in case you don't know her. She's a licensed clinical social worker in private practice specializing in treating adults and first responders. And Bonnie worked in Newtown treating trauma directly after the Sandy Hook school shootings. She's an EMDR certified therapist. She's one of the clinical directors of the Fairfield County Trauma Response Team Inc. in Connecticut, which treats first responders for PTSD, PTSD, PTSI, and trauma. Bonnie's also a 24-plus year emergency medical technician and retired chief of her EMS agency. And in addition to hosting Responder Resilience, she also co-leads a free weekly peer support group for first responders. Bonnie, great to see you.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Thank you. It's nice to have an in-house uh talk today. Exactly.

Voiceover 4:19

Sometimes you just gotta like stay home and keep it in-house. So love to kind of jump off talking about self-beliefs and we'll kind of focus on the negative self-beliefs. Those those, I guess, are the loops that go on in our head that kind of reinforce um some kind of um belief that we bought or adopted and just hang on to um for long periods of time. Can you talk about like what are some of the common negative self-beliefs you see that first responders experience and how do they impact mental health and their job performance?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, so just to pull the lens back a little bit, uh, when we talk about negative beliefs or negative cognitions, that's very much EMDR terminology. So EMDR therapy is the go-to and the gold standard really for first responders that Stacy, our other co-host and I use. Um, and so every day we use those terms so negative self-talk, negative cognitions, negative beliefs. And what a negative belief really is, it's what you feel about yourself as a result of something. So if someone comes out of a difficult childhood where they always felt helpless, then they may carry that as a result of their trauma into their adulthood. And they may carry on that narrative on a day-to-day basis and carry it into relationships, carry it into work. Um, and because of the amount of first responders who come in with childhood trauma, we see this a lot. Um, so there's the childhood component of negative beliefs, and some can be longstanding in one's life until they do the work on them. The other phenomenon with first responders is the calls and the nature of the work and it's the quantity of the critical incidents and just the depths in which someone feels those and experiences those calls and situations. And so the other thing we see with them is that they can carry negative beliefs as a result of these calls or themes that they have to deal with at work. So, you know, if they get a string of cardiac arrests or pediatric cardiac arrests and there were no saves, they may come out of those situations holding on to a negative belief of I'm helpless or I'm worthless. Um and for some first responders, we're unpacking a negative belief that started in childhood and really gets triggered off now in adulthood in some of these calls and situations. So there is carryover. Um, and I'm explaining it in a black and white way, but it is complicated and there's a lot of gray area, there's a lot of overlap. Um, and a lot of these cognitions come out in close relationships, whether it's intimate partner relationships, parent-child relationships. So there's a multitude of reasons, but I would say the good thing is that you can work on it. And if you're aware of something or become aware of a pattern inside of yourself, you can work on it in therapy.

Voiceover 7:23

So you were giving us some examples. I'd love to go a little bit deeper into that. Uh, I think you touched on self-worth or feeling worthless or unable to say make a difference or unable to kind of be effective as paramedic, firefighter, police officer, dispatcher. How do you see that showing up in your in your practice?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Well, someone will come in for symptoms of PTSI or acute stress disorder, right? So we will see symptoms drive the ship. So either the responder comes in as a result of those symptoms, or a family member or a job says, you need to go and get help. So the symptoms arise and people aren't necessarily aware of these negative cognitions or negative beliefs. You know, it may be so ingrained or just such a go-to inside their own brain that they're really not aware of how pervasive it is. And I think sometimes because it lives in the subconscious, it's not always in the conscious brain until a situation or an interaction with another person brings it to the forefront of mind and shines light onto it. So that's one of the main things that we see in our offices. Um, it's always interesting when you're sitting with a first responder and you really try to ask when you think of that call, or when you think of your father being drunk in your home in your childhood, um, what negative belief do you carry about yourself? And it's like we're speaking another language. People haven't been taught to think about it that way. They haven't looked at it that way inside themselves, and here we are. And they have an epiphany sometimes, even with us just asking that question and trying to figure out where did this start. Or we do something called a floatback sometimes in EMDR when we're working on a current trauma or even a past trauma, but we may do a floatback and say, when was the first time in your life you felt helpless? And now, lo and behold, this fireman who's 50 years old says, Oh, I remember being helpless in third grade. You know, when I watched my friend get hit by a car and I couldn't do anything. You know, and here we now see the string of how everything really is connected in the end. All units stand by for confirmed structure fire with important person's training.

Voiceover 9:51

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SPEAKER_00 11:26

Well, so first of all, I would say EMDR is very, very effective in doing that. So once you identify the negative cognition and the traumatic memory, now we know where to go. And it doesn't mean that we have to prescribe what's going to happen. The brain knows how to heal itself. So with EMDR, we're tapping into the brain's natural mechanism for healing. And so through EMDR, someone can process the material, process the old memories, and get to a better place just inside themselves. There are also other strategies. You know, CBT is incredibly helpful and complementary to EMDR therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. So because people get so used to the patterns that they live in, you know, let's use a simple example of dropping a glass of milk in the kitchen. You know, if you were a child, when you dropped a glass of milk in the kitchen, if you got screamed at, sworn at, what the hell are you doing? You're so stupid. How could you do that? Um, I'm one of those people, so I can understand that one quite well. You look at that, and now, as an adult, we dropped a glass of milk. What is the automatic reaction? Automatic reaction is um beating ourselves for it. Oh, I'm so stupid, how could I do that? Right. And we even say those things out loud. Um, someone around us might ask, oh no, what happened in a very nice, regular, neutral way, and we get very defensive because we're so used to in that interaction it being something that's confrontational and shameful, right? So the work therein lies with the person who spilled the milk to stop themselves in that moment and say, okay, I am 40 years old, I'm in my kitchen, I dropped a glass of milk, it's no big deal.

Voiceover 13:22

It's a kind of a complete reframe, and and instead of pushing that button and only getting that one sort of belief happening or belief response, you now have other options.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

That's right. And we might go so far to keep that pattern going, we may get defensive and accuse our spouse of criticizing us when all they did was stand there and ask what happened. Right? So we try desperately to recreate these patterns because human beings thrive on pattern. You know, that's what we do. We intrinsically don't like change. Some of us are better about it than others, some of us embrace it more than others. I think you and I are in that bucket. Um, but in general, people do not like change. Um, but when you become aware of this kind of a pattern, CBT works very, very well for that. But it you have to put in the effort and you have to put in the work.

Voiceover 14:14

Let's widen out a little bit, let's talk more about the culture of emergency services, because um sometimes we don't really support people that well who are uh struggling with uh negative self-beliefs. Perhaps they, you know, they've lost confidence, they've had some bad calls that didn't go right. And um, you know, we can Monday morning quarterback or kind of like second guess each other. Um, how can we change that? And like, what do you see out there in terms of the culture of uh different agencies and how they're uh how they're maybe not helping the situation too much?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah, I see it all. Um, and that's where we get into talking about betrayal trauma and institutional abandonment and some of these things that we've talked about on the podcast before. But you know, the issue is first responders are very, very hard on themselves in general, and that goes across branches, and military personnel are in that bucket as well. So you have a population of people of very high standards for their own work, so we're working against that. But second of all, first responders are very hard on each other. And you're mentioning the Monday morning quarterbacking. Um, it absolutely happens. The questioning, you know, it's easy for an outsider to look at someone else's decision making and critique it. Um, and honestly, it's quite destructive a lot of the time. There are ways in which it can be constructive, you know, um, when there are debriefings, after calls, um, not critical incidence trust debriefings, but I mean more operational like after action review type thing. Yeah, AARs, after action reviews, um, you know, in those scenarios, if that's handled well, it can be incredibly helpful and a great learning experience for everybody involved. Having said that, if that's led in a way that's punitive or shameful, you know, or if someone's in a department where leadership goes to anger, goes to shame, goes to blame, goes to being critical. Um, I've seen responders be punished for mistakes. We're human. Um, no one wants a mistake, especially us. So if there ever is one, it's how we learn. It's how we need to teach our up-and-coming first responders that they'll be a better first responder because of these mistakes. But it's in those interactions and those situations, if they're not handled well and it's the opposite direction, we're gonna see a trauma response at some point. And I've seen it many, many times where people come in and they're coming in with such extreme anxiety because they did make a mistake and now they have a supervisor or a boss who's watching them like a hawk. And that kind of pressure in a job where we already have the stakes very, very high. Um, and look what happens if we make a mistake. You know, it's not let me just wipe this out or paint over it. I mean, this is people's lives that we're dealing with.

Voiceover 17:22

So just to your point, Bonnie, um, this morning in my feed, uh, this graphic came up, and it's like if you think of a linear scale from left to right, it's the perfectionism scale. Um, there's zero to a hundred percent. So like 50% is really bad, 75% is quite good, 100% is excellent, but the the scale keeps going past 100, and let's say it goes up to 125%, which is perfect. And so we're like striving for that beyond 100% perfectionism, which maybe is not attainable, and we don't know when to stop if we're a perfectionist, right? Because there's no end. What do you say to people who are trying to reach that unattainable standard and just beating themselves up because they're not reaching it?

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Well, I have a bunch of thoughts about that, and I also have some notes. Um, so I may look away to catch some of those notes and just talk to you about them. But look, it's not attainable. Perfection does not exist, it doesn't exist in nature and it doesn't exist in human beings. So if we're trying to attain something that's not possible, what are we setting ourselves up for? Disappointment, failure, dismay. Um and those are really hard pills to swallow and huge things for people to try to live with. We have to look at also why someone is doing perfectionistic behavior or why is someone trying to attain perfectionism. What does it mean to them? What drives the ship on that? Um, you know, people with anxiety can have some perfectionism, people with PTSI or PTSD can have some perfectionism that shows up because of the trauma. People with OCD can also have some perfectionism because if I don't check that switch the perfect way, the gas is gonna come on the stove and there's gonna be a fire and my house is gonna burn down, right? So it matters why someone is doing that perfectionistic thinking. Okay. And telling someone not to be a perfectionist, telling them they shouldn't think that way, it doesn't work. You know, that's not how we handle it. But I hope that in talking about this, people can think about well, why do I have that drive in me for the perfectionism? It's not to say that we shouldn't have goals or be motivated to be our absolute best. I mean, I feel that way. I want to be my absolute best every day. Do sometimes I put undue pressure on myself to do that. Absolutely. I think you. Do that too. I think we all do that to some extent. And some people hold themselves to a higher standard than others as well. Some people have a higher threshold, higher capacity for a lot of things to happen. Some people have a lower. But, you know, the other points to make is that perfectionism can really be a trauma response. And there are many ways in which that could happen. So one of them is more of a survival strategy. So if you make mistakes or you made mistakes as a child, back to the spilling of the milk, if you were punished or if you were led to emotional withdrawal, so someone withdrew from you because of something you did, then you kind of learned, okay, if I'm perfect, then I'm safe. I'm going to have this love. I'm not going to be punished, I'm not going to be looked at in a punitive way or a judgmental way, right? There's also the conditional love aspect of it. So if I'm receiving love, praise, and attention because I got a hundred on my spelling test. And if I don't get that, I don't get the love, praise, attention. Or my quiz doesn't make it onto the fridge because it was only a 90 instead of a hundred. Well, now conditional love is coming into the picture here. And that could drive the ship. Um, you know, another one is fear of criticism. So perfectionism um becomes a way to avoid emotional pain. So if you're constantly criticized or shamed for little things, it's only going to drive you to try to be perfect so that you prevent anything bigger from happening.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

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Voiceover 23:07

And we're trying to go into it and make water out of it in a perfect way. And and how, you know, how possible is that? And then turn around, and when it doesn't go according to, you know, expectation or what we are, you know, trained to do or and sort of told that we are supposed to do when we show up, then we beat ourselves up uh endlessly, even when we did everything right, follow protocol, training, you know, procedure, but the circumstances and factors beyond our control. So how do you kind of counsel or coach somebody who's coming in with that heavy burden of like dealing with, you know, the first responder world versus perfection?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Well, what helps me in this one truly is thinking about my own EMS career and situations that happened or situations where I felt this the very same way that my client is feeling. Um we all put those pressures. And as I said before, because the work, a mistake on our end could be catastrophic. And most of us work really well under pressure, but if something goes wrong, that pressure then works against us. And so now not only are you fighting the material and figuring out how to solve these problems that are sometimes unfixable, like you said, um, or somebody's out in a storm and a tree branch breaks um and hits someone, you know, how on earth can we plan for that? How can that be a part of our equation uh when things just happen? So I think people have to adjust their expectations. And I tell clients this all the time about adjusting their expectations of themselves and adjusting their expectations of others. Because the other thing that comes in all this perfectionism is when someone is striving so much for that in themselves, they often project that onto the people around them and they get upset or resentful at the people around them if they feel like those people are not forwarding the mission, if those people are roadblocks or somehow obstacles to that person's attainable perfection or perceived attainable perfection. Um, there's so much involved in what you just said. So always the first part is meeting the client where they are and understanding why they have that feeling, why they've developed this perfectionistic trait. And honestly, do they want to change it? Because some people say, I'm perfectly happy the way I am. I don't want to change anything. Um, and I would push back on that and say, okay, but is that working for you? And usually the answer is no. So then I have to say, okay, well, if it's unattainable and you're not willing to look at it, we're at an impasse, aren't we? You know, and in that way we really have to sometimes challenge our responders clinically to really look at their situation and say, is this really benefiting you or is it adding to the bucket of symptoms that we have here?

Voiceover 26:18

Since you kind of mentioned it, I think we got to bring into play the dynamic because let's say we are a perfectionist as a first responder, but then we're working with people who maybe don't push themselves or not dealing with that same, you know, self-belief that they have to be perfect. But these are some things um our friend Dr. Tracy Himanowski came up with that are behaviors that often upset first responders. Now, these could be coworkers, it could be administration, it could be maybe the public, um, things like decreased situational awareness or uh wishy-washy decision making, breaking rules, improper training, micromanaging, um, not having enough intensity, urgency, or immediacy. So if we're a perfectionist as a first responder, we see people around those around us that are exhibiting these behaviors. Does how does that come into play? How does that kind of uh affect us?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

It's deeply frustrating and causes symptoms in and of itself of anger, of resentment, fear, you know. So it causes symptoms, but the other thing that I think people need to look at is why is someone this way? It doesn't make it okay, you know. And as a leader, if you have someone that's really unmotivated or does sloppy work or does the bare minimum, is that frustrating? Yes, because it's not up to your standard, it's not up to the agency standard. But why is someone in this situation? And I think a lot of times we expect the world from people, but we're not very empathetic or understanding of what could be going on for them. And a lot of what you're describing is untreated mental health or brain health. And if people have ADHD, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, substance abuse, relationship issues, if they have all of these problems, those problems are coming to work. So I would really say, what are we doing to help those people? We're all very quick to judge as first responders about so-and-so, or we make jokes, we make cartoons about people's anger, and you know, the lid's gonna blow off. Well, everybody makes jokes and doesn't want to ride with that guy, but does anyone ever stop to ask him how he's doing?

Voiceover 28:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So we need to, I think, collectively in first responder world, be better at not only understanding ourselves, but understanding others. And there usually is a why. And sometimes it's pervasive in an agency, or maybe there's really, really poor morale, and a lot of people are experiencing some of what you described because of the morale issue that's now caused a personal issue for them. So it's such a delicate balance, it can't really be answered very quickly in one or two steps. That there's so many pieces that go into this as to what's going on inside the individual, but then what's happening in their environment, and then how does that interact with their past and their trauma, and everything they bring every day to work is their past.

Voiceover 29:35

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SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, I really find that when people have a hard time finding empathy for others, they usually don't have empathy for themselves. So as much as we want to shift it to other people or look at other people as the cause, I think we do have to look inward and say, okay, um, how much of this is me? You know, and understanding thyself and finding grace for thyself is one of the hardest things we could ask a first responder to do. In fact, many times they can also find grace for other people and not themselves. So it works both ways in terms of what you just asked. But I really think people should start with themselves first and build in some more of that empathy and and saying it's okay for me not to be perfect. And if someone needs EMDR to take care of something that caused that striving to be perfect, then that also has to be worked through.

Voiceover 31:27

The phrase that I know we've talked about and it comes to mind in these situations when someone's, you know, had a call that didn't go according to expectation is I didn't do enough. What is just a takeaway that a first responder who has that has had that experience of thinking I didn't do enough? What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Sometimes I ask them, you know, what would you tell your proby if they had this exact call and they came to you? What would you tell them? And they give me this beautiful canned statement. And then I say to them, Well, why can't you say that to yourself? Or if I try to say the canned statement to them, they don't want any part of it. They don't want to hear it. And I might have to say it again. And I might have to say, herein lies the problem. You know, we we want to hold on to these negative beliefs, the patterns that we have, we want to hold on to it because it's scary to think of what's gonna be there if we change that, what's gonna be there if I take that away or I don't have that anymore? Um, and as counterintuitive as that sounds, it is so common. So it really comes down to being insightful and being able to take that criticism, take the critique, take the self-evaluation in order to make those changes.

Voiceover 32:55

Is there anything we didn't talk about in terms of perfectionism or negative self-beliefs that we should cover before we end?

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, I had a couple of other just um perfectionistic thoughts that I thought could be helpful for people. Um, one of them is suppressing shame. So this idea of a deep-rooted shame from the past, which drives it. You know, we see that one a lot in the negative belief of I'm not good enough. So it's really a shame-driven. So if I'm not good enough rings true to someone watching or listening, take a look at what the root of that is. Where is that shame coming from? Um, parentification trauma. So perfectionism may have been how you coped with pressure of being treated like a mini adult, because a lot of people who have trauma in their childhood or in their home are mini adults. And what do many adults do well? They become first responders or they become other helpers in the world, like teachers, attorneys, doctors, um, people that are in helping professions because they matured at a young age. And the last one I had written down was breaking generational patterns. So coming from family where past generations used perfectionism as a means of coping with hardship, surviving hardship, surviving criticism, surviving racism, sexism, ageism, you know, all of those things that are deeply painful to humanity or human beings as individuals and families, all of those things can become transgenerational trauma. We do see that as well. Um, we know through research that there's evidence that transgenerational trauma is being passed through on an epigenetic level. Um, we can see it in the genes, we can see it just in the environment. You know, if a mother is under extreme duress or maybe in a domestic violence situation while she's pregnant, do you think that baby is going to be born with no anxiety and no stress hormones? No, it's the opposite. So I think never underestimate the generations and what that brings to your table as well. Now, the good news in all of this, it might sound doom and gloom, you know, this whole list of all the things that could be wrong and why. But the good thing is we always have a choice. We always have a choice to look at these things and fix them. And if we don't know how to fix them, we get advice and we get help on how to fix them. You know, and we might not be perfect, okay? We might drop the milk nine times and do the perfect response. And on the 10th, we go back to our old way. But isn't it better that nine times out of 10 it was better? You know, so that's that's the take-home here is perfectionism is never going to exist for any of us. So, how do we learn how to love who we are, work to the best ability to be the best that we can be without putting unnecessary pressure on life? It's already hard enough.

Voiceover 36:02

Bonnie, thank you so much for um diving into this topic. I think it's one that we've kind of needed to talk about for a while, and uh I know it's affecting a lot of our brothers and sisters, so I'm glad we're able to kind of dive into it and uh put some light on it.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yeah, thanks. This was really fun today.

Voiceover 36:18

Well, remember to like and subscribe, YouTube, Respond Resilience, Facebook, Responder TV, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Go to our website, responder TV.com for past episodes and guest information. Until the next time, stay safe, be kind to yourself, take care of the