Being on a journey of opening up means sometimes other people are going to point things out to me. I have long struggled with being too hard on my self. It obviously comes from feelings of shame associated with my stuttering and the other hard times I faced in childhood. I never learned how to accept compliments and let them in.

This is not just a stuttering thing. Women who have been abused have issues with self-worth and esteem. Sometimes to the point of feeling they deserved the abuse. In my case, I certainly thought since I wasn’t good enough, I deserved the criticism and negativity. That’s where I developed the negative self-talk.

As an adult, I have had such a hard time saying thank you when someone compliments or encourages me. I tend to shake it off, play modest, or say something like, “oh, you don’t mean that. You’re just saying that. That’s nice, but . . . .”  Always a but.

Anyway, as I spend more and more time on ME and being open to my feelings and how they feel (!), interesting things keep happening. I spent some time with J the other day, and we talked about feelings, and I got teary as I often do. Admitting that I have such feelings as sadness and longing, anger and loneliness, gets overwhelming. Why? When you have spent as much time as I have “blotting out” those feelings, I actually feel them when I talk about them now.

I was sharing a story with J, and I was cool and collected in the telling. I was sharing how smart I had been as a kid, but hid it because of the stuttering. I happened to say something like, “and I’m still smart.”  J stops me, with this weird smile on his face, and he doesn’t say anything for a moment. I felt uncomfortable. You know those uncomfortable, awkward silences. So I start thinking, ” Did I offend him? Did I say something he didn’t understand?”

He says, “That’s the first time you have ever complimented yourself with me.”  I choked up and got emotional. He says, “no one ever complimented you when you were a kid. That’s something you missed out on. That’s why its so hard to do it for yourself now. But you just did, and I caught you. I liked that. Hope you do too.” 

This was a bittersweet moment, like others I have had. It felt good having J point this out to me, but sad at the same time realizing that I had missed out on this.

That’s it – just wanted to share that brief moment my friend and I shared.

It really caught my attention. Yeah, it did!

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