Complimentary, my dear Watson

[j4]

When somebody gives you a compliment, how does it make you feel? Is it a good feeling? Is it a physical feeling, or is it thinking something good -- thinking as words, I mean -- or is it more like the way you experience things like warmth and comfort, or what? Is it something you want to go and get more of somehow, like a food you like; or is it more like something that's nice when it happens but you can't make it happen again (though you might be able to increase the chances of it happening again), like winning a competition?

[If you're going to try to answer any of that lot, please don't just say "Oh, you know," because I don't. Imagine you're trying to explain colours to someone who's been blind since birth.]

On the University Counselling Services website, it says "Allow yourself to feel pleasure at what you have achieved and reward yourself for each achievement." I don't understand what they mean by "allow yourself" -- it sounds as though they're accusing me of preventing myself from feeling pleasure at it. If I am, then it's only in the same way that I'm preventing myself from feeling pleasure at eating Marmite. I just don't like the taste; in the same way, I just don't feel anything at the stuff I've "achieved". I don't think I know what counts as an "achievement", because it seems to be at least in part circularly defined as "the things you've done that make you feel good about yourself". I don't have any of those. Really, honestly, that's not just "false modesty", it's genuine total incomprehension. I do not know what it feels like to "feel good about myself". If it's something I've felt, I wouldn't know how to identify it, and I certainly wouldn't be able to correlate it with the things I've done in any meaningful way.

There are things I've done that other people say things about, and mostly I wish they wouldn't, because I don't like being praised for things that I don't consider praiseworthy (the best analogy I can find is to suggest that you imagine how you'd feel if somebody said "You're really good at getting drunk", or "You bully people really effectively"). Then there are things that people don't say things about. They're less of a problem. I don't really feel anything about them. Then there are things that, when I do them, it makes the slightly queasy feeling of guilt in my stomach go away for a couple of seconds before I remember the next thing I'm supposed to be doing and haven't done yet. Is that absence-of-discomfort what "feeling good about myself" means?

And I really don't know what "rewarding myself" means. I don't want a candlelit bubble-bath, chocolate, a day of pampering at a health spa, a manicure, etc. I don't want or need any more CDs/books, and if I bought myself a CD or a book every time I managed to do the little things I do (like managing to do the laundry or tidy a room or send an email or something), I'd be even more broke than I already am. The only "reward" I want, the only thing that I can think of that I want, is to actually be a functioning member of the human race. If I could produce that for myself on demand, I wouldn't need to balance chocolates on my nose as a "reward" for getting up in the morning. I can't do anything, and I've tried so many different shapes of stick and so many different flavours of carrot.

I don't know how to fix this. The thought of being like this forever makes me cry, and I'm tired of crying, it makes it really hard to even pretend to do my job.

Comments

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

When someone gives me a compliment I tend to feel uncomfortable and will ignore it or just make a non-committal noise if I really have to.

-x-

I don't like being praised for things that I don't consider praiseworthy

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can certainly understand this much; there have been times when I've been praised in such a way that I assume either people have totally missed the point, or I've been making efforts in completely the wrong direction.
But when I'm praised for achieving what I was trying to achieve, or for looking like someone I'd like to look like, then it glows.

Re: I don't like being praised for things that I don't consider praiseworthy

[j4.livejournal.com]

Then it glows

What does this mean, though? How would I know it if I felt it? Is it a physical feeling, a mental feeling, what?

I can't think of anything I'd be likely to be trying to achieve that I'd want to be praised for. Most of the things I'm trying (and failing) to achieve come under the heading of "actually being a functioning member of the human race". Does that just mean that I'm doing the wrong things? I can think of things I'd like to do that I'd think were more worthwhile, but I can't imagine how it would feel to be praised for doing them, because I've not done them, and have no way of doing them. If that makes sense.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It can have a physical component; sort of a glow, not unlike the sort of warm flushy feeling that comes with first being hugged by someone by whom you've really wanted to. Emotionally it's like being fed - in particular, for me, like being fed somewhere I had long given up on ever being fed. Hard to adjust to, but nice.

Also, many of the compliments I have had over the past few years that have lingered have been for things that I have been trying hard to achieve, and that has a really heartening element. Things like being a safe person to be around and shoulder to cry on and person to be opened up to; have always wanted to be that and done my best to be so, and there's a great pleasure in that being recognised and judged a success.

Also also, there's the question of who it's from. Having good things said about my writing by a professional writer whose work I greatly admire and whom I don't know well in person, for example, is a different sort of heartening to having it ooged over by friends of long-standing. The latter is encouraging and helpful and helps motivate me to write more, but the former is a different sort of special.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That went off almost finished; what I want to add to the last para is, getting a positive judgement from someone whom at some instinctive level it is obvious really knows what they are taslking about in that area has weight.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I swing between desperately craving any compliments at all for any reason and feeling uncomfortable and wanting to scream 'Don't you see, there isn't anything special here!'

[j4.livejournal.com]

When you're desperately craving the compliments, do you feel good after you get them? Or is that when the swing happens?

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about (bit of) this a fair bit over the past few days.

I *can* get a glow-ish feeling from achievement or praise, but the praise can only work as an add-on to the achievement. Example: If I make an interesting,, pretty-coloured well constructed skein of yarn, I'll look at it and think 'I *made* that! Go me!' and feel slightly smug, and a bit happier, and if people compliment me on it that happy-metre might go up slightly. But if I spin up a skein that I'm not happy with (and this is far more common) I'll not get that initial 'wow' and if people compliment me on it I have to restrain myself from pointing out every last one of its (to me) numerous and glaring flaws, and I end up feeling worse about things.

And it's much easier to be happy, I find, with a *physical* thing I have created than with any amount of other achievement - hence my deep escalator failure feelings right now, that are not being compensated much at all by the fact that I have used *three* up ones already today and that's a thing I couldn't do three months ago.

We were also talking about rewards on Monday, and the impossibility of making them work most of the time, specifically, again, for gettng me on the escalator. Margaret suggested that I could see Glastonbury as a reward, or purchase myself some spinning bits, but that's not going to work because it'll happen or not, anyway, regardless of me getting on the escalator. So the only reliable reward is feeling better because you've done a thing you should've. (Although if I ever *do* get on that down escalator, I will probably be giddy-high for days afterwards.)

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'll look at it and think 'I *made* that! Go me!' and feel slightly smug, and a bit happier

Ah. ... I think this is the bit I'm missing. To the best of my recollection, I've never felt that. But then, I've never done anything that's the sort of thing that would make people feel that, as far as I can tell. (Though thinking that could be just because I've never felt it. IYSWIM.)

So the only reliable reward is feeling better because you've done a thing you should've.

Hmmm ... mostly, though, it's not "feeling better", it's feeling "less awful". Which I suppose is the same thing in a way, but I sort of wish there was something more exciting to aim at than "feeling slightly less shit for a couple of seconds".

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of trouble believing people are right when they praise me, as traditionally I don't get much done that I consider worthy of praise. But I try to be glad about having made someone *else* happy enough by my actions that they wanted to vocalise that.

I don't know much about being a functioning member of the human race myself, but I do know that *my* human race would be a lot less functional without you in it, so that's something maybe.

[uon.livejournal.com]

If someone compliments me ("You're a good programmer"), I tend to feel very uncomfortable, disbelieving, and confused: is this person confused, misinformed, after something, or just taking the piss? Figuring out how to respond is something I find commensurately difficult. Effusive praise is a pretty good way of making me avoid you.

If someone compliments something I have done ("I really like this program you wrote"), I tend to feel warmed and cheered up, as if I've just received good results from a hard exam. I feel reassured that, however much of a fuckup it might have been, someone else has liked what I've done.

I've got any number of daft theories about why one of these situations makes me feel uncomfortable and the other doesn't, but life is too short as it is.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in the daft theories if you have time to write about them any time...

BTW I just realised I never said that I really liked the badger kanji you did for me. I need to get round to uploading it and replacing my crap icon with your good one.

[liv]

I think happiness is a form of faith, to a very large extent. If good things happen, it's almost always possible to put a rational argument for why one shouldn't be happy about them. After all, there are so many miserable things happening in the world at this very moment, and so little certainty that the good situation will persist. So when you make posts like this I can only nod; I can't give you any reason you why you're wrong to look at things in a negative light. Like any sort of faith, it's hard to attain if you don't have it to start off with, because you get into a chain of meta: in order to have faith, you have to have faith that the faith is worth wanting. Being pleased with your achievements is a subset of this, I think.

With that preamble. When someone gives me a compliment, assuming it's a wanted compliment, I feel pleased. It's a lot like thinking something good, if I'm to pick out of your options. It's on the same continuum where the trivial part of it is the feeling that comes with realizing I actually have slightly more money than I thought I did, and the extreme version of it is how I feel when someone I've been pining after for ages turns out to reciprocate my feelings.

In some ways a compliment is like a kind of present. As such, I can sometimes feel embarrassed by too big a compliment that I don't feel I deserve, and there's also a secondary embarrassment of not knowing how to reply. It does make me feel good about myself too; not so much because I think I have no good qualities until someone comes along and points them out, but because it makes me feel that I'm the sort of person who is worth the bother of being nice to.

There's compliments on things that I've achieved (I'm so impressed you got a PhD! I really like this journal post of yours! Thank you for making such an important contribution to this community!). Compliments on things that are just the way I am and I don't really take credit for (you're so pretty! you're so clever! you have a lovely name!) are still nice to have, even though they can be a bit more awkward. It's analogous to being given chocolate, (not so much to eating chocolate, it's not a physical pleasure I think), it's just, yay, someone is being nice to me! I matter to this person!

[cosmolinguist]

Garrison Keillor has got my upbringing exactly right, and he's a lot more eloquent about it than me, so if you know anything about him, you know the kind of social mores I grew up with: it's not a matter of having low self-esteem, or being deprived of praise or appreciation, or anything like that; such things just simply aren't an issue, and if you don't ever think of them, then you don't worry about them. I didn't, at least. This sounds like the kind of thing that leads into "Then I realized, of course, that I'd been extremely unhappy", but I didn't, because I wasn't (or so I think).

As I got into my teens, when everyone is sensitive about everything, I started to hear that I had poor self-esteem and that I was rude to people who gave me small compliments. And to some degree, these things still happen; stealthmunchkin thinks I have an absurdly low opinion of myself whenever he tells me I'm the greatest, funniest, beautifullest, whatever, and I sort of shrug it off. He thinks it's unfortunate that I don't realize how cool I am.

But I just shrug off nearly everything sometimes (this is a trait that was also praised for in my youth: "nothing bothers you", my elders would say admiringly, "it all just slides off like water off a duck's back"), and that's probably why I'm though to be either disturbingly down on myself, due to my lack of enthusiasm on the subject, or very impolite, due to my lack of enthusiasm in receiving compliments. I'd never thought of myself like this until it was pointed out to me, and that's when I started worrying about it and being unhappy.

I'd never thought of myself like that. I thought more like you seem to, that doing the minimum needed to get by is no reason to reward myself. I wasn't interested in rewards, I was just doing what I thought I should.

I was, tacitly, brought up to believe that you shouldn't congratulate yourself too much, that no one likes bragging or arrogance. Going for gracious modesty, I found myself a blundering adolescent loner. I've tried to improve on this but my immediate reflexive response to nice said about me is something along the lines of denying it. Admittedly, telling the person they don't know what they're talking about doesn't sound like the nicest thing for me to do, when I look at it that way.

Though it varies; if someone I know, like, or just admire is doing the complimenting, I'll probably do that "glowing" thing other people have mentioned (especially if it's a nice thing delivered by Internet or some other medium that means the person's not actually there with me at the time), which, in my case, means being happy and bouncy, to a degree that depends on the compliment and my feelings for the person giving it. It feels like I just got a little zap of extra energy. It's not like food to me, but I do like your competition analogy; I think I'd agree with that.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I generally seeing a compliment as being a bit of a quid pro quo - I do something and if [x] likes it or thinks I have done it well they might return it with a compliment. I feel pleased in this situation. There's the situation of course where you might be read wrong, or someone you completely disagree with compliments you, but that's not the real issue here. I think people may not be defining between 'saying nice things about one in day to day life' and what I consider 'a compliment'. But fannydangling about definitions is what I do - compliment me, hobag.

But it does lead me to something, the 'reward' system you mention before fails when it's trying to address issues of 'coping'. There's not much sense in rewarding yourself for getting out of bed, but what I do is think about it reciprocally, vice versa there's nothing in it for you to dislike yourself about getting out of bed, and reduce it to null-value tasks in yr head, which clears up more space for "complimentary activities" or whatnot.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

If someone complements me directly, I feel uncomfortable, and have a tendency (bad, I know) to assume the complimenter is saying nice things as a sort of social glue or even lying to make me feel better. Over-the-top praise is a good way to stop me doing whatever-it-is that supposedly earned it. It feels a bit like being invited to participate in a conspiracy whereby you and the other person pretend that you're really great, which just feels dishonest to me.

OTOH, if I accidentally come across something positive that was said/written/whatever about me in a place where I wasn't supposed to be able to hear/see it, then I do feel pleased -- I think because it's more disconnected from the social mind-games that people use as a matter of course in communicating directly. That's a bit like a release of tension, insofar as it is physical. Normally if I hear comments about me that weren't meant for me they're not good ones though. :(

[rgl.livejournal.com]

I feel slightly irritated by people complimenting me as a person, not least because I then feel I owe a compliment in return, which I don't like. Mind you, I don't like being hugged either...

When people compliment something I've done I sometimes find it useful as it helps me to build up a picture of whether or not the thing in question is worthwhile/interesting/whatever, and I would like to feel that something I have done (separate from me as a person) is good. I guess that would be an external (not quite the same as objective, obviously) definition of a positive achievement. However, as my dad would say "never accept praise from someone from whom you would not also accept criticism". It should be pointed out that I think my dad considers his professional life a failure because he never got an FRS or a knighthood, so his attitudes aren't necessarily the route to happiness.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Permissions and injuctions, maybe they've been reading Berne, one of my pop-psychologists of choice?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Eh?

[karen2205]

When somebody gives you a compliment, how does it make you feel?

Depends who has said it/in what context etc. Generally it's a physical feeling of pleasure tending towards embarrassed blushing. Sometimes it's a feeling of self satisfaction - that tends to be when someone finally notices what I've been doing and I feel I deserve to have whatever I've been doing recognised. Sometimes my reaction is one of complete disbelief - this tends to be when 'compliments' come from men who are trying to pull me and I'm fairly certain they don't actually believe what they're saying to me.

the things you've done that make you feel good about yourself". I don't have any of those.

If you reword it to 'the things that make you feel happy' do you have anything?

I understand what you mean about other people praising you for doing things that just don't seem like achievements to you. I felt that when my LPC classes were amazed at how fast I grasped the tax stuff on the course. It's not an achievement - it requires, so far as I can see, a bit of common sense, logic and some maths. The same is true when I get stunned reactions when I tell people that I once performed ressucitation on someone - there was nothing brave or special about it. There was simply someone who'd stopped breathing and I had the skills to help him till an ambulance arrived.

But it's things like this that other people will see as achivements because they don't have the skills to do them - for example I know you to be musical so I go 'wow' at what you can do musically. To me, as an outsider, what you've done musically *is* an achievement because my talents don't lie in that direction - I could never achieve what you've achieved in that field.

The only "reward" I want, the only thing that I can think of that I want, is to actually be a functioning member of the human race.

Well, from the distance you seem to be doing a pretty good job of it - though I understand you're not. I suppose my suggestion would be to work out exactly what being a functioning member of the human race means to you. Does it mean alphabetising your book collection? Getting to work on time? Repaying your debts? Spending time with friends? Break it down into manageable tasks and then as you complete each one you can compliment yourself for completing it since it's one small step towards being that functioning human that you want to be.

I guess it might also be an idea to think about the difference between compliments coming from other people and how you react to them and how you feel about yourself. They are two different things (and yes, I'm sure you realise this, it just looks like you've jumped from one to the other in this post).

[j4.livejournal.com]

If you reword it to 'the things that make you feel happy' do you have anything?

Um... yeah. No. I don't know. I was going to say that reading makes me happy, but actually it just stops me having to think about anything real for a while. But it's not a thing that "makes me feel good about myself". It makes me feel nothing about myself. That's why it's good.

I don't think I know the answer. I'm not sure I understand the question.

To me, as an outsider, what you've done musically *is* an achievement because my talents don't lie in that direction - I could never achieve what you've achieved in that field.

That's nonsense, though. I'm a just-about-competent violinist, and a rusty pianist. If you'd been playing piano for over 20 years and violin for nearly 20 years you'd probably be as good if not better.

My parents got me to take music lessons and I just did them because, I dunno, they were there. I enjoy playing piano, and I was okay at it when I was at school, but I'm really not very good at it now. I enjoy playing violin in an orchestra because a nice sound can be made even if I don't play very well myself.

I suppose my suggestion would be to work out exactly what being a functioning member of the human race means to you.

I don't know, because I can't do it. It means being able to do things, even just the little life-maintenance things, being able to think, being able to learn, not being so USELESS at EVERYTHING. I want to not spend all day every day feeling like I'd rather be dead. If everybody else feels like that all the time and just gets on with their life anyway, then I'm even more monumentally useless than I thought, because I can't just get on with it. :-(

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

"...it sounds as though they're accusing me of preventing myself from feeling pleasure at it."

Not far off the mark, for some. Maybe not for you, but I never really mastered taking compliments or praise gracefully - obviously, I appear to - but inwardly I cringe, feel awkward, undeserving and cheap.

I guess praise is something that was used too overtly to manipulate me in childhood, cloyingly and repeately for no more than just being me and, equally, withheld manipulatively when I struggled with things that were actually difficult and wondered if they and I were actually worthwhile. The hostile uses of faint praise and sarcasm featured in my school years too; useful in Banking but decidedly not a benign upbringing.

In adulthood, I would say that satisfaction, satiation and acceptance of my own worth are mis-wired and disfunctional; part and parcel of depressive illness, and I suspect that that is the way I am, for life, no matter how much better I am these days in terms of life, living and mood.

Still, this works:

I'll look at it and think 'I *made* that! Go me!'

I fact, it rocks. I feel that a lot. And so should you, re-reading some of the things you've written and posted; you write beautifully, and there might be a great deal of satisfaction and fulfilment to be had in writing more.

Whether that would be satisfaction and fulfilment for you is, of course, another matter. I do not know what works - or could work - as a 'carrot'; I don't think I know you at all, J. Others do, and maybe they - and you - know very well indeed but haven't realised yet, or maybe haven't articulated the knowledge particularly well. See what turns up on LJ, on this post and elsewhere; see what works on a better day and hopefully remember it on days like this.

[ali-in-london.livejournal.com]

When somebody gives you a compliment

Assuming that it is someone whose opinion I respect and they're complimenting me on something that is actually legitimate, then I tend to feel the same way that I feel when I manage to solve a puzzle or work something out. It feels like I've been given something, a warm fuzzy thing, that bobs around me for the rest of the day and sometimes for longer. A few people have said it's like a hug and it is but only if the hug is from someone you really like hugging. It's not like a social "hello, nice to see you" hug.

I'm not sure I can fully define "legitimate". It can depend on the person giving the compliment, so someone who never cares about appearances in any way saying that I look nice isn't a legitimate comment, and I'd probably actually feel quite negative about it. Or if they're trying to compliment me on something I don't really care about, then I'd feel vaguely happy, but in a detached way.

But under the right conditions I feel a definite feeling, and it does seem to be similar to the feeling that other people here have described.

[taimatsu]

I don't know how you might fix this either. :(

Compliments... depends on the compliment. If I have, let's say, worked pretty hard to make myself look good (the hair, the makeup - always a trial, the outfit, the shiny shoes, whatever) and someone then says 'Gosh, you look nice!' or similar, that makes me feel happy, warm inside, and pleased that someone has noticed my hard work and likes the result, and I will generally smile and thank the person. If I *haven't* made an effort, and someone compliments me on my appearance, that would surprise me and, depending on the person, possibly elicit self-deprecating comments about my size or my complexion. I've no idea why that is.

Compliments don't often make me feel *uncomfortable*, unless I were being mistakenly complimented on something which wasn't my work or to my credit, and I wasn't immediately able to rectify the error.

They aren't usually something I want to go and get more of in quite the same way as biscuits or chocolate raisins. If the thing on which I am being complimented is important to me anyway, like a task at work or a craft project or a gift or something, then I would do it and try to do it well whether or not I was likely to be complimented on the result. The likelihood of compliments might make me strive a little harder for perfection, but not much. If, on the other hand, the thing was partlcularly difficult or unimportant, the possibility of being complimented on the outcome wouldn't be enough to make me slog through it just for that.

The appearance thing is quite good as an illustration of this for me. I like looking nice, but to meet my standards of 'nice' requires a heck of a lot of hard work and faff with makeup and depilation and more makeup and tweezers and hairpins and ironing, and often I don't bother. It's important to me to look appropriate, whether that's in the office, at a LARP event, or in a goth club, and I will put the work in to look appropriate and feel good in what I'm wearing, but not just so that I get complimented - it's too difficult a task for the effort to be worth it just for that.

I wonder if that makes any sense, or is at all relevant to what you asked.

[missjudas.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. I don't know if this will help you, but I will try.

You have memories, yes? And you can recall those memories, yes? For me, a compliment is something I store away in a little compartment, like a memory, and I save them up. When I feel doubtful about my capability, the way I look, whatever, I dig around until I find the appropriate compliment and think about whether the same person would still give me the same compliment now based on my current actions/how I look now/whatever.

When I think of compliments I have received, they reassure me, made me feel more confident about my thoughts/actions/feelings.

As for how they affect me at the time, they have much the same reassuring effect. They make me feel happy, and this is a purely something that I experience that causes the more physical (?) effect of making me appear more confident and outgoing in company.

However, this probably only applies when I feel that the compliment is justified. If it is completely unexpected, or I have no idea why that person would compliment me on that particular thing, it makes me feel embarassed.

Does any of that help answer your question?

How do I feel on being complimented? (1/3)

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if these will be of any help, I can only really talk from personal experience, and that of close friends. And I'm sure we're not universal or anything, so I guess a big pinch of salt is in order.

On the direct question in the first paragraph: Often I feel annoyed at someone for praising me because I worry at how third parties will act if they find out. If you win an award then, unless you make some effort to somehow impotentize (is that a word, it has the right connotations, anyway?) the compliment, then you risk well, for me loneliness: people thinking I'm scary, or aloof, but I guess that's pretty close to the fear some people have of being beaten up, or the like. So really, I think, "why did you have to do this, oh complimenter, and make things more difficult"? Also, if someone compliments me for something I know, or suspect is bad, they just go down in my estimation. Sometimes I do things which aren't my best and I'm going through a rubbish phase, which is kind of depressing. But I really hate it when people try to pick oyu up by saying "it's not that bad" (even if it's not), particularly when they insist, because I end up thinking they're dim or patronising, or just don't understand. I don't think that in hardly any senses I like compliments, particularly as words, or as gifts. I'd much prefer to be given 'slack' as the result of a good thing, for when I can't find a way out of a being shit phase.

What does it mean to reward yourself? (2/3)

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I think that part of the problem I have with rewards is the manner in which rewards are biased towards presence in the polarity of presence and absence. Rewards tend to involve an extra thing, or experience, when much of my stress comes form an excess of such. I'm much more inclined to make myself as thin as possible, as unoccupied, spending as little as possible, dealing with fewer things. The World is Too Much With Us (http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2380.html), and everything.

Also, I wonder if it's not because the system of rewards that are available, or are presented as rewards so as to place them in easy reach of the mind, is largely hedonistic. I've always been a little uncertain in hedonism, because I can't really describe in (externally plausible) terms of happiness what I crave for in those terms: it's much closer to something like Connection, the positive opposite of loneliness, and that's just not something which is available for someone to give themself. Sometimes pain, is closer to providing that connection, in the way that the mechanism of pain is something external which is inside us, almost like a parasite, and operates without reference to reason or aprehensive conciousness. The way it's so deep inside can provide a real connection.

On May Day I walked to Wandlebury to see the Morris Dancers. The event itself was very much ambivalent, there were all kinds of disconnections there between me and the event, but the dry sickish feeling in my throat and my drenched hair and skin, because I'd been walking too fast, too long, through a thunderstorm, that was a real connection to nature.

I once had an experience -- which could have come about by numerous mechanisms given the little information which this paragraph supplies about its induction -- where I felt something which was axiomaticly superlative in terms of pleasure. Its sensual properties were derivative of that, such that where my assessment of the sensations which would cause sush a superlative experience change, it is the sensations which change, in my memory, rather than my assesment of it.

This is strongly demotivating in terms of rewards, particularly in our society, where there's a kind of treadmill of incremental desire which provides support to people, constantly providing a direction of motion in a finite domain.

I'm often close to at a loss as to how to structure a system of rewards which are primarily Mutual Accumulative Absents providing Conneciton despite the usual implicit mandate that they are Reflexive Incremental Presents providing Happiness.

I don't think it would be difficult in some other societies. But that thought itself reduces the value I place on the rewards that we are presented with by it.

Derrida also says something which is interesting, I think, in this context, about communicaiton. He mentions how, in my interpretation, communication is both connective and separative. That it connects is orthodox and doesn't need explanation, but also the presense, or need for communication, is also illustrative of the disconnection between people which requires it to take place. That there is a desire for a multi-channel universe, for exmaple, and that there is so much need for discussions like this, really, and advice like the above, is illustrative of the width of the chasm which is opening up and individuating people. And I see that discourses like this can, themselves, illustrate and lead to a sense of an atomization.

I only mention these things because of the little I know about you, they seem like some might accord with how you feel. I don't know what good that might do, though!

Allowing yourself (3/3)

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I think the way that I currently interpret the meaning of "allow yourself" in terms of how I tend to think is like the below (complete with fatuous exmaple!). I think it's mainly actually a disguised imperative, masquerading as a permissive.

• Identify internal texts or narratives which have present the thing to be "allowed". ("I'm worth it")
  
• Identify those texts/narratives which criticise those allowing narratives. ("They're only saying that so that I buy their shampoo")
  
• Correlate the former with positive polarity of authentic, inner, essential, and the latter as fake, outer, derived. (eg "The inner me thinks I'm worth it, but there's something from ... which is nagging me, saying I only believe that because of advertising").
  
• Once you have done this, then with the aid of our society's bias toward polarised dichotomies, you now naturally do the former rather than the latter.
  

I think it's only really one stage beyond an imperative like Cheer up!, (which is necessarily the case, really, as people are sad for so many reasons). I think it can be a useful overview of a mechanism, once you are certain that the ultimate goal is desirable, otherwise you get stuck at the lack of motivation in each of the steps (particularly the correlation). But by thd stage you desire the end-result, you've already almost won the battle without its aid.

[totorojo.livejournal.com]

Lots of other nice people have already left you lots of nice replies to this and I'm not sure if I can add much of value... But for what it's worth, how I feel on being complimented:

Like many people have already said, it depends a lot on what I'm being praised for. If it's something physical I generally feel quite odd about it, although it's not an unpleasant feeling. I get a lot of random compliments in this country (Japan) simply for being what I am - a tall, blonde (ish) European. Strangely, that seems to be enough. In those cases I don't feel much. Mainly a little awkward and bemused. I kind of wish people wouldn't do it, because there's an element of "oh you wonderful tall foreign person, you are so much more than us!" which is just plain wrong. I feel guilty I guess. Guilty that these people want to put me on some kind of pedestal that I don't feel I deserve to be on. Though there is certainly a part of me that draws self confidence from it. The irrational fear of having random people in the street stare at me for being ugly (!) has almost vanished in the years I've lived here :P.

Then there are compliments on achievements. These are mainly embarrassing. Mostly because I either feel that whatever I have done is really not worth that much, or that people are mistakenly thinking it to be something more than it is. It's nice to have achievements recognised, but this "niceness" is more intellectual than emotional. The emotional response is embarrassment and a vague feeling of guilt. I then (to the occasional irritation of the compliment giver I don't doubt) try and explain to people why said achievement is not as great as they think it to be. ^^

I think the kind of compliment that means the most to me and that really produces an emotional response is that kind that praises your character. If someone tells me I have a trait that I value in others and myself then I respond on an emotional level. I'll take the example that others have used and say it feels something like a nice hug or a glowing feeling. If it's something really nice I feel something like a rush of joy. With me the most intense responses are usually linked to compliments about being able to connect to people or help people. When I'm told that I'm easy to talk to, or understanding, or that by talking to me the complimenter was able to feel better about their problems... I'm a total sucker for that. :P

...

This may not be the best time to say it, but while we're on the subject - a compliment for you! ^^ I think your writing is wonderful. Some of your entires are so perfect I'd want to print them out and save them so I could read them all my life. (Apologies if that sounds too cheesy - perhaps I'm not much good at giving compliments either ^^)

[totorojo.livejournal.com]

Ah, forgot to add. When I am effectively told I am a nice person (compliment type 3) its not as simple as just joy. There's "touched", "embarrassed", "humble", "grateful", "undeserving" and a load of other stuff mixed in too. There is also a touch of "go me!" which I am usually not proud of myself for thinking.

Anyway, having re-read your original post I'm not sure if this is really the sort of answer you were after, but I hope it helps somehow. I've had a pleasant half an hour of non-working writing it anyway ^^.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

A compliment as a physical feeling is warmth, looking upwards, breathing easier and above all being able to relax. It's independent evidence of the worth of something I've done (or a quality I have) and thus a judgement which I can trust more than my own assessment. A compliment which I think is empty ('you have such nice handwriting!') I just ignore as a how's-the-weather social tic.

Criticism, whether explicit or implicit, has the reverse effect: a chill, tension and the feeling that I'll have to try harder.

Many people have commented that a compliment makes them feel uncomfortable. You might want to ask in that case why people give compliments.

[j4.livejournal.com]

a judgement which I can trust more than my own assessment

I don't understand why this follows from the other. It's an independent assessment, therefore it's a second opinion. I can see (at least intellectually) why it would reassure you if it collaborates your own assessment of yourself, but I can't see why it would be inherently more trustworthy than your own assessment of yourself. (For a start, as a relativist, I don't believe that other people necessarily share my values/priorities, so I don't believe -- and often have more evidence to the contrary than otherwise -- that they're necessarily assessing me in the light of the values/priorities which are meaningful to me.)

A compliment which I think is empty ('you have such nice handwriting!') I just ignore as a how's-the-weather social tic.

It's interesting, then, that when I say 'you have such nice handwriting!' to you, you nearly always reply "not as nice as yours". Is that also a social tic? Is that the standard response to those sort of empty compliments? I've been told in the past that doing that is self-deprecating; but if you do it, I'm inclined to doubt that it is, since self-deprecation is not a quality I've ever observed in you.

Criticism, whether explicit or implicit, has the reverse effect: a chill, tension and the feeling that I'll have to try harder.

Okay. Now imagine getting a non-stop stream of criticism in your ear, every waking moment, and through most of your dreams as well.

The chill and tension (you put it well) are there nearly all the time, lurking underneath whatever I'm thinking or feeling or doing. The tension is like the feeling before an exam you haven't revised for, but on which your entire future depends; the chill is like 4 a.m. loneliness, it's like thinking about somebody you love and remembering that they're dead now.

Try harder. Try harder. Do more things. Do them better. Be somebody else. Be anybody else. Try harder again. It's never enough. ("Which GCSEs did you only get 'A's in?") You're never good enough. It's your own fault if you fail. You just didn't try hard enough. Pills don't work? You didn't want to get well. Counselling didn't work? You're resisting treatment. Try harder.

The problem is, often I don't know how to try harder. I feel I need to try smarter rather than harder, but I don't know how to do that either.

Many people have commented that a compliment makes them feel uncomfortable. You might want to ask in that case why people give compliments.

Okay, then: why do people give compliments?

I give compliments because I thought they made people feel better. It sometimes makes me feel a bit like a vegan attempting to cook a tasty steak tartare for my friends, but I try anyway; just because I don't like something is no reason to withhold it from people who do like it.

One theory I have is that people give compliments to make them feel better about themself: "I have given somebody a compliment, therefore I am a good person." This doesn't work for me either, but as I suspect I'm just terminally autistic in this area I don't think that necessarily implies that it isn't true of some people.

[rmc28]

I've been thinking quite hard about this since I read your post. How I feel about a compliment depends on the circumstances, and how genuine I feel it is. Thinking a bit harder, I break that "genuine" down into three inter-relating factors:

* Whether the compliment is sincere: i.e. is the person actually impressed/pleased/thankful, or are they just saying it for some ulterior motive, e.g. to make me like them or to distract me

* Whether the person knows what they are talking about - either they are an expert themselves, or what I've done is for them (e.g. any of my users in my job).

* Whether I am satisfied with whatever is being complimented.

So these interrelate - if I've done something well, and I know I did it well, and I'm complimented by someone who knows what they're talking about, and they do so sincerely, then it feels very genuine. On the other hand if I rushed some crappy thing through and I know and the complimenter knows that it's a rush job, a compliment seems rather unpleasant and not genuine. On the third hand, if it's something very small that was very easy for me, but I *know* that it meant a lot to the person (e.g. changing a report for a user slightly, but significantly to them), then thanks and praise feel genuine if rather awkward, and I usually try to explain that it wasn't any great feat on my part.

So, a genuine compliment reinforces my own pleasure in the achievement. The more I respect the other person's knowledge, the greater the reinforcement. If it's for something I feel I rather bodged, then I feel rather mixed up: embarrassment, awkwardness, "I don't deserve this". The latter feeling is perhaps closer to your description of your reaction to compliments.

You describe not knowing what it feels like to have a sense of achievement. How do I know I've done something well? I suppose the same way I know anyone else has done something well - I rate it against the requirements, but also against the general standard around me. If I need to make myself something to eat, then my goal might be as simple as "stop being hungry", or might be slighly more complex "eat lots of vegetables and not too much fat". I can generally always meet those goals for myself. However, most people I know cook better than me. I get very tense about cooking for other people, because that makes the goal "give these people an enjoyable meal" and I'm never sure if I've done that well enough, because I know I never reach the standard of most people around me.

How does it feel, to have a sense of achievement? I get pleasure, or at least satisfaction, from "meeting goals", whether it be "plan a weekend away" or "hang the laundry out". It manifests as an internal "well done, job done" and feels ... well it feels *good* - I'm sorry for the incoherence. It feels perhaps like a brief hug from someone I love, or a smile, or a pleasant warmth. For a very little thing, it might be a very little "well done", but it's usually there.

I get an aesthetic pleasure out of a well-planned event, with the timetable fitting together well to suit the temperaments involved, or a well-written piece of code or report. If I happen to have written it, then the sense of "I made that" gives me a happy glow, a "well done" smile or warmth on *top of* the aesthetic pleasure in the abstract.

Genuine compliments on things I've done which fall into one or both of the "aesthetically good" and the "met a goal" categories, reinforce the pleasurable feeling. Non-genuine ones, or genuine ones on things where I can't honestly take satisfaction in the thing being complimented make me feel rather worse, more like what you describe. So I think your problem with compliments is driven by your more general problem of not feeling as though you achieve anything - there is nothing for a genuine compliment to reinforce.

[rmc28]

... continued (bloody LJ comment limits)

Here's where I'm going to sound really harsh, and you're probably going to feel attacked, and I'm sorry for that, but on balance I'd rather tell you what I observe.

What it feels like from the outside, talking to you, is that you discount everything that you do. I'm certainly not saying that you do this deliberately, but you do observably do it.

It's as though your normally excellent ability to distinguish quality breaks completely when applied to yourself. Where possible, you describe things as "mediocre", perhaps the way I view my cooking, and where you can't honestly say that you've done something mediocre, you call it "pointless". It's a very effective way of denying yourself any achievement, and you do it consistently to yourself - as though anything that j4 does must by definition be either mediocre or pointless. And yet you manage to compliment and admire other people who do the same or very similar things - somehow they're not mediocre or pointless if other people do them.

I don't know what's happening inside your head to cause this, or if you can do anything with this observable inconsistency to fix your self-assessment. Maybe a gradual approach over time will work. I doubt there is any quick fix.