Thomas Curran

You need to be perfect at all times.

You need to make sure that your life is curated to show other people, you know, there are no weaknesses.

And that is really tough to live under that microscope and to think that everybody in all times is watching.

Essentially what we're seeing today is a rise of about 40% in socially prescribed perfectionism from the late 1980s to the present day.

That's a really, really big rise which continues to increase.

And it's most concerning because it's most strongly correlated with really quite negative mental health outcomes like anxiety, depression, low mood, a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, things that are really quite significant when it comes to our mental health.

And I think it's indicative, perhaps, of what I've called a hidden epidemic of unrelenting expectations for perfection, which are kind of taking over among young people.

And why do you think this might be the case?

obviously the one that most people point to is social media and the comparative lens that social media offers us 24 7 and without escape but it's not just images of perfection in social media it's unrelenting pressures to excel in schools and colleges it's the modern workplace and the intense pressures to hustle and grind it's changing parenting practices

They're responding to pressures in schools and colleges and the more competitive landscape to get into elite college by pushing young people in the realm of education.

So there's all sorts of different pressures now that are weighing on young people and they're being internalized as pressures to be perfect.

Well, clearly my perfectionism has pushed me forward in moments where I've needed it to.

But the reason why I'm here is because I was very, very fortunate to come through at a time where people like me were supported to go to university, where it just so happened to meet the right professor at the right time.

It took me to the right university.

But without those remarkable moments of luck.

I wouldn't be here.

The second thing to say is that I look, I guess, on the surface, like a very successful individual.

And in many ways, I suppose I am.

But I can't afford to live in the city that I work.

I don't have a house.