[QuixiHubris]

A little preface: When I get embarrassed or make mistakes or am suddenly ambushed by the Mega Existential Blues, I tend to Google things like "am I worthless?" or "bad at being alive," etc., just to quietly vent to myself while searching for depression resources.

Doing this recently, I came across this blog entry. Here's a quote that resonated with me:

"On the outside you may look like someone who can never take criticism, becoming defensive at the slightest hint to imperfection, but in reality you are already so caught up with feeling so bad about [who] you are that you just can’t process the external criticism on top."

Which... wow. Suddenly, I'm understanding how I can be both self-hating but also self-defending. I have a powerful impulse to defend myself and my mistakes, despite having a generally low opinion of myself in the first place.

Anybody else relate to that? What are your thoughts?

[ShadowGX]

Yep, that describes me too. I don't take criticism well at all, even if it comes from a source I trust I can often get defensive about it. Then on the other hand I'll sit there and belittle myself in very unhelpful ways... Ugh.

Yes I can relate. We are usually our biggest critics and I know I beat myself up far too much. Recently I’ve been faced with lots of constructive criticism at my job. The whole place is being cleaned up but initially I took the criticism quite personally and didn’t handle it well. Just yesterday I was noticing the improvements in my work and feeling good about that. Sooooo.... I guess we gotta stop being so hard on ourselves?