Picked Apart
Have you ever found yourself feeling "picked on" or "picked apart" by others? By this I mean feeling as though people are pointing out things about you, usually in a negative way, that start to make you feel self-conscious or uncomfortably self-aware. Others may mean well when they point out some deficiency in your appearance, the way you speak, sound or otherwise present yourself to the world. While this may seem like a form of constructive criticism (after all if no one tells you how will you know how to fix it?), it may actually have a very different effect than the one intended. Instead of feeling grateful for receiving the help, you may be left feeling wounded, defensive or even angry.
To illustrate, a client recently told me about an interaction he had with his girlfriend. He came home from a long and somewhat anxious day at work, ready for a warm greeting and a big hug. Instead, his usually supportive and loving girlfriend pointed out a tear in his trousers. She went on to tell him about how she’s not sure that he’ll be able to keep his job if he walks around that way with a hole in his pants! Well, how do you think this made my client feel?
When someone perceives and then makes note of a part of our Self, be it in a positive or negative light, they are often overlooking the bigger picture--they are missing the proverbial forest for the tree. Having any one part of our Self paid unwanted attention to can lead us to feel as though there's something about the totality of who we are as human beings, each of us with his or her own distinct and unique personality, that is not being noticed. We may feel good in the moment upon receiving even complimentary feedback about our appearance, but when this is repeated to us in a not fully contextualized way, we begin to feel somewhat paradoxically invisible to others. We as individuals are more than just our choice of clothes, our weight, voice, work performance or any other single attribute. We are an amalgamation of our many unique traits, be they apparent to the outside world or only known to the few intimates with whom we share the thoughts in our minds.
With this knowledge in mind, how can we provide necessary and constructive criticism to people in our lives? Whether it is with our coworkers, employees or family members, we do sometimes have to draw attention to certain behaviors or aspects of their behavior in order to maintain a balance in our relationships. We want to be helpful while at the same time being effective and generous in our communication with those we care about most.
Criticism, advice or any other type of personal suggestion can only be truly absorbed when the person you are speaking to feels that you understand him or her in a deep, holistic way. Pointers about someone’s appearance are best appreciated when he or she trusts the source of the advice as someone who understands and supports him or her as a total individual. The same is true about providing positive feedback or giving a compliment. It will be better received when the person to whom you are speaking has been reassured, implicitly or explicitly, that you really "get" them, support them and know that they are more than just the sum of their many parts. In the workplace, it may be necessary to make this total support explicit by discussing the specific behavior in the context of an assurance that the person’s job is well done overall, and by reiterating your appreciation for his or her efforts. With close friends and family, showing your affection for them over time and being careful to balance criticism with appreciation will make this process more implicit smoother and organic.
Another question worthy of addressing is how can we cope with the consequences of being made to feel self-conscious by others? In thinking back to the illustration of my client whose girlfriend pointed out a tear in his trousers, what might he have been able to do with the feeling that he was not being seen for who he was in totality? How might he bring himself back together from the “picked apart” feeling he experienced?
This leads us to a deeper, more existential issue, that cannot be addressed fully in this post. Despite what we may have learned growing up in a society like ours that values independence, self-sufficiency and a pioneering attitude above all things, we do, in fact, need each other. We need people we trust and can rely on in order for us to feel good about ourselves and to know that we are worthwhile as individuals. While we may like the “sticks and stones” philosophy of relationships, the truth is that a mean word or an unsatisfying interaction with a partner, family member or friend really can hurt us at the very deepest of levels. It is in the eye of our closest relations that we see the reflection of our self-worth, and it is the sort of positive, affirming interaction that rebuilds us when we feel that we are, indeed, coming apart at the seams.
When we begin to feel the way my client felt, we may need to turn a trusted friend or loved one to help us put the pieces of our splintered Selves back together again. We need them to lend us their full empathic attention and show us they care, understand and still value us, despite the blow we received earlier. Of course, this is harder to do when the very person we rely on most has been the cause of our feeling that we are not being seen in a wholesome, affirming way. In this case, we may need to do what my client ultimately did. He expressed to his girlfriend how he felt when she commented on his deficiency and how disappointed he was at not receiving her warm greeting. He and his girlfriend were able to talk it through, giving him the opportunity to feel heard, understood and put back together once again.
