fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1963 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1963 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

12. [SPOILERS for ASOIAF]

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13. [SPOILERS for Game of Thrones]

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14. [SPOILERS for Prototype 2]

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15. [SPOILERS for Young Justice]

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16. [SPOILERS for Avengers]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

17. [TRIGGER WARNING for suicide]

[Oblivion]

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18. [TRIGGER WARNING for rape]

[Spartacus: Blood and Sand]

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19. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse/rape? I think. better safe anyway]

[Rihanna, Man Down]

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20. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #280.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

man, i feel you. with art rather than writing, but i totally feel you. for some reason people reassure you that oh no you're great or whatever bullshit they try to calm you down with, and that just makes everything worse. feels like being patronized more than being complimented. as though everyone else is aware of how much you suck but they're just too soft to tell you to your face
any time you create something, all you can do is brace yourself for the onslaught of insults that will come your way. and of course nothing ever does. you are your worst critic every time.

i feel you

You do realize that you're experiencing warped thoughts though, right? I mean, you are basically building up a conspiracy theory centered around yourself where everyone (including/especially the people close to you) is lying to you just to spare your feelings about your work and keep you in the dark about how terrible you are or whatever. Do you understand how much of a warped interpretation of reality that is?

And I mean. I get feeling like that. I've taken it to even weirder degrees, wondering that maybe I'm not really smart at all, or not a good work at all, but just all along people have been coddling me or something, and my whole life is a lie! But then I realize how absolutely ridiculous that is, and why the fuck would anyone bother doing something like that? I'm not inherently special that the world is going to warp around me just to save me from realizing how terrible I am. Ergo, my accomplishments stand.

Use Occam's razor. The simplest explanation for people telling you that they like your work is that most of them probably like your work. No twisted conspiracies about how you're actually terrible in their eyes. No projecting baseless interpretations of other people's motives onto other people.

An important part to improving your self-esteem is realizing when you're having twisty thoughts like that and telling yourself that no, that doesn't make sense and I am using logical errors to make myself feel worse about myself. It's not always easy, but it's something you have to do if you want to try and stop thinking that way and feeling terrible about yourself. It's definitely hard. For some reason feeling terrible about yourself and being self-deprecating is incredibly seductive. Maybe it's just easier, or you've been doing it so long it's just what your comfortable with, or maybe society has drilled humbleness so far into your head that it actually makes you anxious to admit you might actually be good at something. It just is. But that doesn't change the fact that feeling bad about yourself is... y'know. Bad.

I've definitely been on both sides of the equation, but I've gotten a lot better at not putting myself down. Give myself positive criticism with my negative (Okay, so it's not perfect, but I definitely improved with [this], even if [that] and [that] are messed up...). However, dealing with another person who is aggressively self-deprecating is just... it's incredibly tiring, and after awhile it gets kind of insulting. There's only so much "No, no, it's really terrible! I'm awful!" you can take while trying to reassure them that "no, You're not terrible! You're decent/acceptable/good/great!" before you just want to be like... "Well, fuck you. Fine. You're terrible. Is that what you want to hear? Because clearly the honest opinions of your friends mean shit-all to you, and you must think we're all idiots with zero taste, but clearly you and you alone are the One True Master of judging quality! Good luck with that."

And the thing is, chances are they don't think that, not really. They're not consciously thinking 'Man, my friends are dumb and can't judge quality to save their lives'. But, well... If you're aggressively self-deprecating, there's no way around the fact that's what you're implying. Even if you don't think it out loud, the other side of "No, really, my work is bad" when people are telling you it's not is "You're a liar/can't judge quality at all". And frankly, realizing that help me deal with accepting compliments. I'm still not great at it, but I can at least manage at "Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!", because whether or not I'm satisfied with it, it's a super douchey move to try and invalidate someone else's opinion of your work out of the need to put yourself down.

...I guess I just have a lot of feeeeelings about this sort of thing, as someone with really low self esteem who's slowly trying to improve it. I'm sorry if I sounded angry or condescending through any of that rambling. Sometimes it's harder for me to forgive flaws in other people that I've experienced/have myself. Sorry.

oh no, i am absolutely aware of this. my thought process is a result of about two decades of crushingly low self esteem and other unfortunate factors. i'm completely aware that i'm seeing things that are not there and that i'm being ball-slappingly ridiculous. but you're right, it's a self-defense mechanism that's gone out of control and i am having incredible difficulty reeling it back in. i tell myself i'm making something out of nothing, but that doesn't make the feelings any less real, you know?

and you didn't come off as condescending at all? i dunno i have poor reading comprehension so if you were making jabs at me then i sure missed them!

I think what you are saying is very true, it's like learning to accept compliments. If someone says your dress is lovely, it's too easy to say "this old thing?" or whatever. I've had to learn to just say thanks when someone says something nice. However if I say I think I look terrible, or feel fat and ugly, and the people around me handwave it, or say they think I look fine, or whatever, it doesn't remove those thoughts from my head, because I think they are humouring me. Problem with that stuff is that IRL we do that all the time, we may actually think IDK, that the trousers the person is wearing really are too tight, but when ask we say "Oh no they look great! " so it doesn't help.

This is why the answer is no to base your self esteem on what others think. I'm about a million miles from achieving that but I know it's true in theory. We should be able to accept criticism and compliments. If someone is rude or unfair in criticising us, then we need to be able to discount it, just as if they are obsequious for whatever reason we should know that's wrong. (It's the flip side really but I've seen it so often in the work place, screwed up junior staff flattering their managers with all sorts of nonsense, and I guess it goes for the hangers on with celebs as well. If the people they were flattering were truly secure they would see it for what it is. )

I think I'm whittering here but like you it's something I feel strongly about, as someone who plays exactly the same game of putting myself down all the time, almost obsessively.

By the way, the bit where you say how if you keep putting yourself down your friends get sick of it, I've been there, and what then happens is your thoughts become "I'm such a bad person that even all my friends are sick of me", It's a downward spiral no matter how you look at it.

[ SECRET POST #1963 ]

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