What lay behind my inability to accept praise

Since the end of last year, I have been receiving ongoing therapy to regulate my autonomic nervous system. It involves capturing bodily sensations and using them as a gateway to realize my true feelings, allowing deep insights to emerge naturally. I receive this therapy online from a therapist living in Shikoku. It is a convenient world we live in, isn't it?Details of the therapy are here

The insight I had the other day was deeper than I expected, so I decided to write about it.

I teach high school mathematics as an online tutor. However, I find it hard to have confidence in myself. Is my ability not enough? Am I inferior compared to other teachers? I need to study more, and so on... This leaves me with no peace of mind.

In reality, I have received quite a few words of joy from parents and students. When I taught middle school math to a friend's daughter for a day, both mother and daughter were overjoyed, saying things like, "The explanation of the word problems for simultaneous equations was excellent; things I hadn't understood until now were solved in a flash."

Here is one incident that shows just how much I cannot internalize praise. I printed out the initial request email from a high school student I am currently teaching and read it over and over. It contains their current learning situation and the problems they are having.

I see, compared to that time, things have improved significantly, and I have actually received happy words like "I rely on you" and "I am grateful." I looked at the text and told myself over and over, "I am doing well." Only then could I vaguely understand it in my head, so to speak.

The friend mentioned above said, "You should have more confidence." I feel like I have heard those words about 10,000 times. I decided to explore my inner self with that as the theme.

My mother is someone who cannot be satisfied unless she is number one. Since I was a child, whenever I started talking about something, she would always interrupt and take over the conversation. Then, she would talk endlessly to me, a child, about how amazing she was.

She is also actively involved in social activities. Supporting the disaster-stricken areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake is one of them. She travels regularly from Kansai to Tohoku. If you are thinking, "How admirable!", please read on.

"Everyone relies on me."
"That person is useless because they are so-and-so!"
"Nothing would work if I weren't there."
are her catchphrases.

It is not just in disaster-stricken areas; she has long had a habit of finding people who"cannot get by without me."people. For example, Person A, whose family life is bad and who is constantly in trouble; Person B, an old friend who has been married three times and has had bad luck with husbands all three times; Person C, who has virtually no private life because she is caring for her live-in mother; Person D, who lost her parents early, is all alone in the world, and has a sensitive personality with no friends... (It's amazing when I write it out like this)

The dinner table was a place for my mother to show off her power.

She would say that she cooked so skillfully, thinking about nutritional balance with organic vegetables and proper meat. No one else works as hard as she does to cook. Everyone else has a sloppy diet with retort pouches and such. Be grateful and eat it.

Eat your side dishes in order. Don't just eat the side dishes; eat your rice properly too. Why are you looking so sullen? Aren't you happy? And if a child spills something or makes a mistake, thunder strikes.

...I can't taste the food.

Even regarding my studies, for example, when I got first place in my grade on a middle school test, she would say it was amazing, but then"Even I could get first place in middle school, so you (my name) should naturally be able to get first place, right?"in that tone, and I would be confused. What on earth is this person saying? Now I understand that this is a power play.

In short,because my mother's praise always contained poison, I had learned not to accept itas a survival strategy. If I accepted it with great joy, I would be poisoned.

The students and parents in front of me are not throwing bait mixed with poison at me. However, sadly, the habits that have been ingrained in my bones for survival are not so easily broken.

After all, for humans,survival is the top priority.Living is what matters. That is why I deeply, deeply ingrained it so that whenever praise came, I would "always" go into alert mode. It wasn't so much that I thought about it in my head, but that the sophisticated workings of my body (autonomic nervous system) made it so. Because when your life is at stake, it is too late to think about it in your head before acting.

Unlocking this requires the help of a professional. The therapy I am receiving is a gentle method where I perform simple exercises and notice how my bodily sensations change. The therapist does not ask many questions or give advice. As a result, the cocoon that was visible to my mind's eye has thinned a little, and I have begun to see people's faces on the other side.Details of the therapy

The therapist suggested that the cocoon might be "dissociation".

Small children are helpless. They cannot survive without clinging to their parents. The reality before them was far too harsh. The pain was so great that feeling it would have caused them to break. And so, they chose the method of not feeling (not as a conscious thought, but as a bodily function to protect themselves).

It seems I dissociated frequently throughout nursery school, kindergarten, elementary school, and junior high school. It was a terrifying and sad era where I had no choice but to go to school, unable to defy the intentions of my parents, who were absolute authorities.

Time has passed, and even though the terrifying situation has long since vanished, the bodily function that protected me remains, so it is only natural that I cannot accept praise from others.

First of all, cheers to myself for having survived that way! And, while being accompanied by my therapist, I hope to soften these old mechanisms, become able to accept the kindness of others, and work a little more easily.

My thoughts on therapy have been posted.

(Added on March 10)

I read through the textbook and created handouts in preparation for class. At that time, I feel like I didn't hear much of those worried voices like, "Is this okay?", "What if the students grill me?", or "Did I overlook something?" I think the level of worry decreased by about 30 percent. I also don't really feel the physical changes that usually accompany mounting worry, such as stiff shoulders or a tightening in my stomach.

[Related Articles]
Maybe it's not that I "don't know how to refuse," but that my body isn't in refusal mode
Thoughts from shortly after starting therapy ~I have recovered quite a bit~
"It's painful for some reason when I'm with my parents" Spot on. As expected, my parents are people it's useless to talk to
My mother, who has a somewhat childish side. That's why she can't accept the reality of her child (me)

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