Accepting Compliments

I've been trying to write this post for weeks.  Maybe longer.  I stare at the screen nightly, the words going through my head, but nothing coming out.  So please understand this is hard for me to share.  Hard to express.  And the greater fear, the fear with all my posts, is my words will be used against me.  I worry what I say won't be conveyed in the right way and opinions and perceptions of me will be formed that I don't like.  I'm going to call some people out from my past.  As one of my favorite authors Anne Lamott said, "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”  And hey....fuck you if you don't understand.

I struggle to accept compliments.  I know many if not most people can relate to this in some way but it runs much deeper.  Because it's not that I can't accept any compliment; it's only certain ones.  If you tell me I'm funny, I will look you dead in the eye and say, "I know!  I'm a riot!!" and I feel it and mean it.  If you tell me I bake a kick ass pumpkin muffin I will say, "I've worked hard at these and really perfected my recipe.  Thank you."  Yet tell me I'm smart, tell me I do a great job or tell me you think I'm beautiful and I'll crumble before you.  

No deep psychological analysis needed to know how I got here.  I didn't get compliments growing up.  Or if I did my parents took credit for it.  I was never Daddy's pretty princess.  My father was a hard core Baptist minister who felt to be anything but blunt was a lie.  So I knew when he never told me I was pretty that he felt I wasn't.  And all other looks, comments and flat out statements proved I was right.  I wasn't skinny, I wasn't cute, I didn't stand out.  This became the basis for my self esteem.

My ex husband never complimented me.  At absolute best he would say, "you look nice".  This includes my wedding day.  In many marriage counseling sessions I said, "It hurts me deeply that you don't think I'm beautiful.  I'm your fucking wife."  The reply was, "Well I never told anyone else I dated that they were beautiful."  In my head this meant he absolutely didn't feel I was because even when I'm pleading that I need this he wouldn't do it.  He told me before we divorced that I had gotten better looking with age.  It's true but it stung deeply.

My best friend tells me constantly that I'm beautiful.  She knows I cringe and cry when she says it and she continues.  She knows that the only way for me to heal is for me to keep hearing it until I believe it.  When I met her years ago she offhandedly said something about me being pretty.  She doesn't know this but I went to the bathroom and cried.  It was the first time I'd ever have a friend call me pretty.  Now my friends had said I looked nice, an outfit looks attractive  on me, I looked good but the words pretty and beautiful were elusive to me.  

I get anxious when I'm complimented at work.  I do work hard and of course want to hear it's appreciated.  Yet now at the holidays I'm being told very nice things, with gifts, and my anxiety is through the roof.  I know I absolutely deserve this but fear overtakes me.  I'm not even sure what the fear is about but I'm wiping tears and scared as I type thinking about it.  

Being single now, and holding up decently well for my age, I get a lot of compliments.  I'm always a little stunned, embarrassed and mostly nervous and wary.  I worry I'm being manipulated.  I fear they see this is my weakness and they are going to use me.  I don't believe them.  

They say you can't love unless you love yourself.  Well that's bullshit.  I love wonderfully.  But no...I don't love myself.  I don't know that I ever will.  Though I do feel with time I can breathe easier when a kind word is said to me.  I think the core fear is that if I believe it then someone will laugh and say I'm wrong.  I can't take that level of devastation.

She just wants to be beautiful
She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits
She craves attention, she praises an image
She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor
Oh, she don't see the light that's shining
Deeper than the eyes can find it
Maybe we have made her blind
So she tries to cover up her pain and cut her woes away
'Cause cover girls don't cry after their face is made

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, yhe world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

She has dreams to be an envy, so she's starving
You know, covergirls eat nothing
She says beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything
What's a little bit of hunger?
I could go a little while longer, she fades away
She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface
Oh, oh
So to all the girls that's hurting
Let me be your mirror, help you see a little bit clearer
The light that shines within

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

No better you than the you that you are (no better you than the you that you are)
No better life than the life we're living (no better life than the life we're living)
No better time for your shine, you're a star (no better time for your shine, you're a star)
Oh, you're beautiful, oh, you're beautiful

And there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

Scars to Your Beautiful lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group