I Can Take the Criticisms; It’s the Praise that Hurts

Yesterday, as a great big part of feeling less than well, a fair amount of time was spent catching up on watching TV shows that were taped earlier in the week. The title for this post - I can take the criticisms; it’s the praise that hurts - came up while watching Project Runway when one of the designers broke down while hearing the critique of his dress which was, ultimately, pretty favorable. What caught me about it was how relevant it seems to be for those who are struggling with their eating disorders.

There was a time, before I was ready to confront the fact that I had anorexia, when it was easy to listen when someone chewed me out, or told me I screwed up. The words “good job” or any sort of compliment was totally lost on me. When I’ve looked around to others, it seems to me that it’s a pretty common reaction to have.

I guess that it probably has a lot to do with the fact that, while in the throes of eating disorder behaviors, the negativity takes over. “I don’t deserve this.” “I don’t want. . .” It’s all about the “nots” - and about justifying them.

I guess a lot of it has to do with being so self-critical. There’s this sense that nothing can ever be good enough, not because of someone else’s estimation, but because I could look back on any situation and see ten things that I could have done differently and, whether or not they would have produced a different outcome, I was certain that they would have been better.

Now, given that I’m still not feeling 100%, I’m not completely sure of where I was going with this post (it has no plot, no rhythm and I don’t think anyone could dance to it either). But I’ll just keep going and see what happens (something that I wouldn’t have done in the past, something I never would have done if I were caught up in my eating disordered behaviors because I was too much of a perfectionist; chances are good that I would have deleted everything, slammed my laptop closed and given up instead).

Even though I used to have no problem with criticism, I find it unsettling now. At the same point in time though, I don’t take it personally - I’ve even laughed about it. For example, there was an article I wrote for a client a few weeks ago. He didn’t like my writing style and sent it back with “check spelling and grammer again.” Yeah, that’s write, he wanted me to check the spelling and grammar and sent the comment with a spelling error. It’s all good.

I’m better about the praise too - at least some of the time - but that took a lot more effort. When someone suggests that I’ve been doing well at something, I can say thank you. Rather than ten things that I could have done better, I can usually only find one or two - but it’s still progress. And maybe that’s good enough.