@twizzay For all compliments or just ones that seem over the top or not genuine?
@twizzay Would you say that the "inability to overcome" could be seen as trauma, in the sense of "feeling helpless in the face of a grave danger"?
It would fit well with what my (amateur) experiences with similar things are. Like affirmation tells you you can relax, but that is connected to the helplessness before? Your last paragraph sounds very much like that.
I wonder if specific affirmation, constricted to one topic and "up to now" being adequate would be any different?
huh, yeah, something like that.
To be totally honest, I struggled really bad with a few addictions in my younger years and kinda wrecked up my life at the time. My inability to overcome them when I finally wanted to made me bitter about myself, I guess.
and honestly, I still harbor intensely negative feelings about my ability to grow/develop at the rate that I want to.
In some ways, it's made me a bit more calloused. It's rare that someone says something to me that actually cuts deep enough to really leave a mark. I've cut deeper than most of the things people say about me. Which is fine, I guess.
Contrastingly, though, when someone offers something positive, and I find a part of myself believing it, I suppose there is something in me that kinda goes off. Like a little alarm saying 'if you choose to believe this, and get comfortable with the idea that you are “good”, then you'll never get any better than what you currently are' and that idea pisses me off.