I am suspicious of all compliments

So I got this new job. It’s keeping me from blogging as much, but funds my mortgage so I’ve decided to keep it. And I’ve written about my last job and burnout and thoughtfully quitting so please read that if you want to follow my journey. But the TL:DR is that I was wearing too many hats and turning into a shell of my former self. The role was badly designed, too demanding and I was poorly compensated and the environment around me was starting to get toxic. So I quit without anything lined up and then got a new job 3 months later. I’m a few months into my current role. It’s better paid and better designed… so far.

And I’m performing well.

I’m getting compliments.

And internally, I’m reacting very weirdly to these compliments. Externally, I think I come across as calm and in control because that’s how everyone describes me.

But I receive a compliment, and my brain suddenly whispers to me, “Ahh we’ve convinced them that we’re amazing. What master manipulation! How do we maintain this facade?”

Now, I know you read that in a devious voice because I always do a double-take when it happens and turn into a blubbering fool.

“What? Omg you’re right. They don’t even know how messed up I am. They think I’m great. I’ve been faking it so well. How do I keep this up??”

And my brain and I continue this pointless back and forth trying to deconstruct how my manipulation of others worked and try to recreate that. And that recreation is essentially just me cosplaying as myself whilst having this out of body experience as I hold a clipboard tracking my progress.

Feel free to read that last sentence a few more times because the absolute foolishness of this situation needs time to sink in.

I don’t know why I do this. I hope I’m not just exposing myself here and at least one person reading this knows what I’m talking about. 

Maybe the compliment just makes me feel self-conscious and I’m so hungry for praise that, much like a lab rat, I try to find the button that I pushed to get the sweet sugar liquid.

Or perhaps I have confidence but low self-esteem and the external validation artificially boosts my self-esteem, like a steroid shot.

It could be paranoia born of some deep-seated trauma related to being lied to in the past. It could be the anxiety that gave birth to my perfectionism long ago. It could be religious trauma that’s convinced me I’m a sinner and shouldn’t feel “proud” when complimented.

The thing is, it’s nice to have an idea of why the wires in my brain are tangled in such specific ways and I do think digging deep into trauma can be helpful. Like loosening the mother knot in a tangle and that then helps all the other tangles come loose. However, not everything is linked to a mother knot and digging deep takes an emotional toll. So I’ll just focus on untangling this particular baby knot.

Building self-awareness is the first step. Recognising the specific intrusive thoughts or unhelpful thought patterns and stopping that train in its tracks is the second step. And so on until I’ve trained myself that maybe I am just good at my job and deserve to relax into it and enjoy that my colleagues appreciate me.

So the next time my brain whispers, “We’ve done it! They’re under our spell!” (This is more an enthusiastic wizard voice). I’ll gently whisper back, “Nah, I’m just that cool.”

If you relate, know that you’re cool too.

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