Side Effects

Many years ago, while living in Wyoming with C for the first time, he got very upset with me about the fact that I could not take a compliment to save my life. He went so far as to tell me that it made him feel stupid to say something to me, and to have me deny it, or brush it off as if it didn't mean anything.

It's only been the past few years that I've really understood what he meant by that. At the time of his little speech, I couldn't allow myself to believe anything that he said about my physicality. He could compliment my writing or my intelligence anytime and I accepted that gracefully and thankfully, but one word about my physical appearance and I blushed profusely and shook my head at him, as if he were wrong.

He wasn't wrong. I was. (oh god and how he would love to be reading that about now. His favorite words from me, ever: "I was wrong.")

I realize that it's hard for someone to hear good things about themselves when they can't seem to dredge up anything internally to think about themselves in that way. I realize it, because I lived it for so many years. My change in attitude there is not all about the weight loss I've experienced. It's also about general self-esteem and actually feeling good about who I am most of the time.

But what those of us who have experienced, or do experience, a compliment that you can't mentally digest don't realize is how we're taking an act of genuineness from another human being and basically throwing it back in their face. They're trying to make us feel good. And we're making them feel bad for doing it.

In the case of C and I, my complete denial any time he told me I was pretty or sexy made him feel as if I were calling him stupid; that he didn't know what beauty was. No one likes being made to feel stupid. And no one likes to have their tastes challenged in such a way. He broke me of that, at least superficially, and I started to be able to look him in the eye and be able to just say 'thank you', even if I did still blush a little. I don't know if I ever truly believed it, but at least he broke me of making him feel like an idiot, which was as far from my intentions as I could have been.

You also have to bear in mind that if you think poorly of yourself for long enough, you start to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For many years, I wasn't 'seriously fat'. I was maybe a size 18, which is definitely overweight but not what I'd term 'obese' by any means. But I felt fat. And I looked fat. And I saw fat in the mirror. And I called myself fat. And I stopped caring about how I looked, because I didn't believe anyone *else cared about how I looked and then guess what? I got seriously fat.

I swear sometimes we do more damage to ourselves than anyone could ever do *to us.

It's hard to act with grace when someone says something sincere about yourself that you don't quite believe. But it can be overcome with a little work. You know you don't want to hurt your friend/lover/family member by denying their opinion - making them feel bad - right? A little inner grace, a small smile, a gracious thank you - can make the difference between a good moment and a bad moment.

Give yourself a good moment.