Thanks everybody for your thoughts. I've read your comments several times over the last couple of days because this a topic that is important and unsettling for me. I like what you all said. I think what I take from all your posts is if I knew myself better and believed in myself more I would not have as much difficulty with criticism. These are things I need to work on to enable myself to better sort out criticism. I usually am pretty passive in my response when i get criticism, and as one of you said, it would be better for me to explore it. I think my first reaction is to reject criticisms out of hand(and the other person may not even realize it because I don't say it), It is very hard for me initially not to dismiss a negative criticism because I typically believe it is an negative and true reflection of my worth as a person. My self esteem cannot take the hit, so I "throw the baby out with the bathwater." Later on, I will plague myself endlessly about "well maybe that criticism was right" and then I decide " I am a terrible person." And I think I end up just going round and round, feeling very insecure.

Any way thanks to all for your support and ideas.

And "wants to fly" I didn't see your response as hijacking the thread at all. Real-life examples are always helpful to me!

Meta