What I've forgotten to teach my daughters: how to accept a compliment
Receiving a compliment makes me cringe, my heartbeat feels as though it should be audible through my ribcage, my palms become sweaty and I inevitably throw the compliment away with such force that I end up appearing rude and ungrateful.
Ironically, I compliment people all the time. I make sure I tell mentors and tutors I have worked with why they've been incredible, right before I apologise that they've had to put up with me. I always tell my friends well done for getting a good grade or achieving a personal best, or for doing whatever it is that makes me proud of them, and what makes them proud of themselves.
My inability to accept a compliment has been exposed over the past month or so because I have qualified with a Masters in Midwifery (with 77% to boot). I can say that here because social media is relatively faceless. I don't have to make eye contact with you as I tell you, I don't need to pretend I'm not flustered when you congratulate me for doing it while bringing (or dragging) up two small children, and I don't need to rapidly change the subject... because you're not here and you can't see me squirming. I announced this achievement to family via text message and to friends via Facebook. The news was sneakily embedded within a post about half term, complete with pictures of pancakes gobbled up by sticky children, and my girls climbing a huge rope ladder, for which I obviously complimented them.
Having someone recognise that you're doing a great job is validating, yet I find it horrifically uncomfortable. I'm actually going to blame my mum for this, she's socialised me into this behaviour. I spent my formative years living with a woman who studied for a biology degree whilst working to keep a roof over our heads and raising myself and my brother on her own (sounds familiar). By and large, she didn't have anyone paying her compliments, she just had kids to cook and clean for, to raise, to steer away from delinquency. When she did get a compliment, they were a bolt out of the blue, and she'd bat them away. Consequently, I learnt to do that too.
My daughters are six and they've started doing that too. They come home dragging bags full of crumpled drawings, glue infested projects, wibbly handwriting like spiders' legs scattered across the page, and they bat away praise because that's what they've seen me do. I'm guilty of socialising my daughters into not being able to accept a compliment. Now, I'm not talking about swooning when someone says you look nice or your hair is silky, I'm talking about the stuff that matters. The compliments about how great you are as a person, how well you're doing, how you're incredible for keeping it all together. I wonder whether their inability to accept a compliment will develop, or whether I am in time to nip it in the bud, and I ask myself whether it will be related in any way to their self-esteem and their sense of self worth.
Yesterday was an interesting lesson for me. I spent the day with a friend in Bath, the city in which I gained a degree in languages and politics twelve whole years ago. This friend is a fully-fledged feminist speech and language therapist living with and benefiting from the patriarchy (her words, not mine). She doesn't seem to struggle with accepting a compliment, she appears to have always known she would be good at things and she grabs life with both hands because, well, why wouldn't she? She absorbs compliments, not in an egocentric way, but in a humble and understated way. She has the decency to accept your good opinion of her, and she has enough self-esteem to appreciate but not depend on your validation of her. I've never really considered her in this manner before, and maybe that's why I love her so much. Her self-assurance is neither obvious nor crass, it's just a given. She's excelled in many things throughout her life but she doesn't need anyone else's validation.
This leads uncomfortably to my next musing, which is that maybe I am actually seeking validation from other people because my own inner critic is so loud and, quite frankly, likes the sound of her own voice. Or, maybe, it's her that makes me bat away compliments with the ferocity of a Wimbledon pro. I don't just bashfully swot a compliment away with a demure aside, instead I opt for a full-on assault or denial. I actively try to prove the giver of the compliment wrong by replacing whatever they've said about me with something negative or (often) really quite acerbic. Case in point, yesterday I messaged a friend to share a minor achievement with her. By anyone else's standards, it wouldn't have been worth shouting about but for me it was a monumental step in the right direction. She replied with a message of support, 'team awesome'. Now, I could have responded with a gracious and human-like 'thank you', but I volleyed back a response that either set me out as a narcissist seeking a snowballing of praise from her to deny my rebuttal, or as someone with significantly low self-esteem whose inner critic was affronted and intent on self-sabotage: 'hmm team awesome may be a bit ambitious, I'm going for team mediocre'.
People who know me know that I'm not really one to settle for mediocre. I don't even bother making pastry because it always turns out so so, and when I found out I was pregnant with twins my dad laughed at me and accused me of being a perpetual overachiever. Anyone who has ever encountered me in a job interview knows I can fight for something I want, and that I can silence my inner critic long enough to appear to be a confident and competent person.
I have to be honest, my inner critic is my best friend and worst enemy. Most days I hate her, she cripples me with self-doubt and she provides me with the ugliest narrative of myself. She tells me I'm mediocre, that I'll never be good enough, that I'm a bad mum, have no friends and no clue what's going on. My inner critic gives me a narrative that risks turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and she is powerful. She knows me better than anybody else, she knows which strings to pull, which words cut like a knife, how to turn a good thing into a moment of doom and desperation. She thrives on negativity and doubt, she prevents me from reading positive feedback provided by mentors, and she is the source of anxiety. She is so powerful that she becomes my best friend and confidante at times. When I hit a low point I love her. I love how awful she makes me feel, she provides the validation that I am as terrible as I think I am. She makes me feel the need to punish myself for all of the things that she tells me I am guilty of being. The chronic self-harmer in me relishes the relationship I have with my inner critic because she gives me carte blanche to abuse and mutilate, to destroy what little self-esteem that may have been lurking and biding its time until I am back on form.
I am unsure how to beat my inner critic once and for all. Maybe in small doses she is essential, provoking reflection and consideration, although granted she needs to be a little more objective and a smidgen kinder in her pursuits. I start my journey as a newly qualified midwife tomorrow and I don't want to end up being someone you could label arrogant or sure of herself. I do, however, want to be able to accept a compliment graciously and be more like the friend who absorbs compliments, but does not depend on them for validation. By starting to accept compliments I may be able to build my self-esteem and resilience, consider my role objectively, silence my inner critic or, at the very least, begin her transformation into a more amenable version that I can work with. Importantly, I'll hopefully model positive behaviour to my daughters who will thank people when they tell them they're doing something well.
So, having spent years dedicating myself to the goal of becoming a midwife (tick), I am now beginning to prioritise me. I've begun (tentatively) running and doing some art work again, dabbling with a tin of pencils, pens and a ream of paper providing my brain with some much needed solace. My biggest challenge is going to be this: I'm going to stop telling the world I am mediocre when someone tells me I am doing well, and start accepting compliments.
Step 1: To the friend whose message of positivity I crushed yesterday, I apologise for turning an achievement into an opportunity to beat myself up. I rescind my last message yesterday and hereby replace it with this:
