For years and years and years, compliments have made me incredibly uncomfortable to the point where it takes a lot of restraint just to avoid telling the person how wrong they are for saying something nice or positive about me. There are, maybe, a few people I really respect who I can accept something nice from, but generally speaking, I would much rather somebody say horrible things to my face than nice things.

I don't really know why it is. There have been times I've made the mistake of saying something on Facebook about myself that I thought was just humorously self-deprecating, and suddenly found myself having to respond to a combination of people trying to compliment me, and people trying to take out their own anger on me by subtly implying that I need to stop fishing for compliments. Which leads me to telling people how horrible I really think I am and how I'm not fishing for compliments and that I just wish everybody would tell me I suck. I guess people are so used to everybody on social media doing their best to present the perfect version of themselves that they can't comprehend how somebody could be saying bad things about themselves without it being a plea for attention and compliments.

It's really weird to me though that praise is so difficult for me. I mean, I generally hate myself and have no self esteem, but it's strange to me anyway. Maybe I just don't like being corrected when I say something negative about myself and somebody tries to tell me I'm wrong. But, even having somebody just say something nice to me in person can be really, really difficult. Over the years, I've learned to stop reacting badly to compliments outwardly because people seem to think it's so disrespectful, so I just smile and say, "Oh...thanks" followed by a humorously self-deprecating remark and another smile. I used to pretty much explain to people why they were wrong for saying nice things to me. Still, it's really, really uncomfortable.

Yet, if somebody says something mean to me, it is almost satisfying in a way...especially if I think there's some truth to the statement. If I think it's bs, then it's no big deal to me because I just think, "whatever..." and carry on with my day.

Maybe this is all just normal behavior for depressed people? It doesn't really bother me much and doesn't cause much problem in day to day life now that I'm aware of how my response effects others, but it's definitely strange to me that I almost crave verbal abuse. It might make more sense if I were a cutter or liked being hurt physically, but I'm a total wuss.