compliments
Compliments are like a hot potato for me, whenever someone hands me one I get all nervous and restless, sweating in my mind until I can find a way to deflect it or destroy it.
Someone will say: "Your hair looks beautiful today" and I'll say "Thanks" and smile a bit ruefully hoping to end the whole episode and thinking to myself things like "She's/He's just being nice" or "Well they had to say something to make me feel welcome". Or if I do believe for a split second my hair does look good today I'll find a mirror and look at it enough so I can say to myself "I don't know what they see, it's horrible". I've found that these kind of emotional responses (whoee.. feeling, my social bane) dramatically reduce the odds that I will be getting another compliment in the future. Only when people persevere, undeterred by my shrugging off the compliment or downright attack of it, do they give me a boost in self-confidence (very diminished by the circumstances though).
Case in point:
There's no picture of myself that I truly like. In times of self-confidence high I might have one or two, but mostly I just hate myself in pictures; and the hatred seems to be as high as my eagerness or how much I'd love to be social or look good in pictures.
I emailed some pictures to a friend who was complimenting me on how I looked here, how I looked there, my hair, my smile, blah blah blah. I sincerely couldn't believe it, there was no emotional response for her compliments, empty. On the other hand I did have some heavy hatred for several things about myself in those pics: my bone structure, the look of my eyes, my skin problems, etc., etc. etc.
Finally, I got to beat down the compliments and made her "admit" that this and that looked terrible, and when someone who had previously complimented me formulates some kind of criticism of me it's my reason to say "Aha! THIS is what you truly think!" and dismiss all future compliments. It's like I'm trying to convince everyone NOT to compliment me in the future. Strangely, if someone would only criticize me and never praise me I'd make it a personal battle and be resilient to all negative comment, and by opposition think that indeed my hair looks terrific if ze had expressed hirself to the contrary.
Yes, it sucks being me sometimes, but it's my own doing. For example, I don't think I look particularly fem. I mean, I do (what would be the point if I didn't at least a bit)but not in the realm of passing. Others differ, and sometimes I get to see that they might be right: whenever I pass (a compliment on my femininity really) I get nervous and somehow give them reason to doubt me.
These days I've been down, and all these thoughts have come to the surface. There's so much work to be done on the inside! It seems like where I care I'm naturally the stark opposite of what I'd want to be.
Someone will say: "Your hair looks beautiful today" and I'll say "Thanks" and smile a bit ruefully hoping to end the whole episode and thinking to myself things like "She's/He's just being nice" or "Well they had to say something to make me feel welcome". Or if I do believe for a split second my hair does look good today I'll find a mirror and look at it enough so I can say to myself "I don't know what they see, it's horrible". I've found that these kind of emotional responses (whoee.. feeling, my social bane) dramatically reduce the odds that I will be getting another compliment in the future. Only when people persevere, undeterred by my shrugging off the compliment or downright attack of it, do they give me a boost in self-confidence (very diminished by the circumstances though).
Case in point:
There's no picture of myself that I truly like. In times of self-confidence high I might have one or two, but mostly I just hate myself in pictures; and the hatred seems to be as high as my eagerness or how much I'd love to be social or look good in pictures.
I emailed some pictures to a friend who was complimenting me on how I looked here, how I looked there, my hair, my smile, blah blah blah. I sincerely couldn't believe it, there was no emotional response for her compliments, empty. On the other hand I did have some heavy hatred for several things about myself in those pics: my bone structure, the look of my eyes, my skin problems, etc., etc. etc.
Finally, I got to beat down the compliments and made her "admit" that this and that looked terrible, and when someone who had previously complimented me formulates some kind of criticism of me it's my reason to say "Aha! THIS is what you truly think!" and dismiss all future compliments. It's like I'm trying to convince everyone NOT to compliment me in the future. Strangely, if someone would only criticize me and never praise me I'd make it a personal battle and be resilient to all negative comment, and by opposition think that indeed my hair looks terrific if ze had expressed hirself to the contrary.
Yes, it sucks being me sometimes, but it's my own doing. For example, I don't think I look particularly fem. I mean, I do (what would be the point if I didn't at least a bit)but not in the realm of passing. Others differ, and sometimes I get to see that they might be right: whenever I pass (a compliment on my femininity really) I get nervous and somehow give them reason to doubt me.
These days I've been down, and all these thoughts have come to the surface. There's so much work to be done on the inside! It seems like where I care I'm naturally the stark opposite of what I'd want to be.
posted by V. at 8:41 AM
1 Comments:
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