bdd/anxiety+compliments

[Jean-Paul]

part of my anxiety is based on my appearance. people close to me have told me i have BDD, etc.

i have an unhealthy focus on my appearance and certain features as a part of all of the rest of it.

i have noticed when people see i am feeling unwell (due to my anxiety), they sometimes give me a compliment to help me feel better or to be nice. i don't like it because it makes me even more paranoid and it's hard to not immediately accuse them of lying with a "yeah right" or whatever. it's hard to not get stuck on thinking about my appearance after that.

is this just something people say to women as a way to try to make them feel comfortable? i suppose they have no way of knowing i don't like how i look and consider it to be a sneaky comment. i don't know if they they are using that as a device or really mean it. i suppose it shouldn't matter.

does anyone ever do that to guys though? like, you should smile more, you are too pretty to frown/too cute to frown? i don't think so.

do you ever tell girls they are pretty as a way to break the ice or be nice in general despite whatever they look like? wouldn't it be best to focus on something else? i suppose it is just something to say when there is nothing else.

okay or not okay? only okay if they are actually pretty? why? etc

 

[herbavore]

They once did a study where people were put in a room with mother holding an infant. If the infant was dressed in pink, the people in the study would always comment on the babies appearance as a way to make pleasant social contact with the mother. If the same infant were dressed in blue, they commented on something about his personality, such as, "Look at him go. Nothing's going to stop that li'l guy!" If they dressed the baby in ambiguous clothes (yellow or green, say) the person would do everything possible to ferret out the gender of the baby before paying a compliment. And so it starts!

I had to look up what BDD was (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder). I know that I compliment both women and men on their appearance if I notice that they are feeling nervous or bad. It is probably because that is the only obvious thing I can think of to compliment if I don't know them well, but I get your point that it may actually make people feel worse. I know that compliments usually make me feel better so I guess that's where it comes from.

 

[RedLeader]

I'm a thinker, and I'm not very animated in person at all. People always like to say things like "you should smile more!" or "you don't look like you're having fun." When this happens, I typically go from having fun (just not expressing it through animated facial movements or interpretive dance or whatever) to only then getting annoyed and dragged down by the comment. I find that some people on the far ENFP end of the Meyers-Briggs spectrum especially almost seem to not understand that some people do exist in a very stoic state comfortably and that there is nothing wrong with it.

As for complimenting women, I'll give an example. A friend of mine came into my work tonight to borrow something, and she looked really good in the leather jacket she was wearing. I didn't compliment her about it, though. Not because I didn't genuinely think she looked pretty, but because I'd then get paranoid that the compliment would be too much and she would perceive it in her head that someone she sees as a platonic friend is giving her compliments just to try and get into her pants.

 

[Jean-Paul]

well. thank you for the two responses or whatever. right now, i feel like. i try to be stoic to survive shit because that is how i go through life without the one (at any given time) person i can be honest about all my shit with. this has shifted in my life from parents, to friends, to boyfriends, to friends.

i think that no matter what, if a compliment in and of itself is enough to rattle me...i am probably not fit to be working with the public. maybe people are taking the piss out of me and maybe they are not. either way, i don't know and as stoic as i act, i do care.

maybe just reevaluate the next time you do this to someone you don't know. it's the norm, but should it be? something so close to unabashed praise and also to just pity.