Praise and Compliments

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I value some praise, but it crosses my mind most times, that they see the task in it self something that doesn't require so much effort. I find it demeaning when people compliment me just because they expect worse from me. Its like that Seinfeld episode where Kramer is mistaken for mentally handicapped.

I love gettting compliments. I love giving them too but people can sometimes think i am being insincere, or lying, or I want something. I just give compliments for the pure pleasure of it but I guess perhaps a number of people do not, so compliments can make people suspicious.

I always think they are lying to me or are trying to be nice to me because they think I am mentally slow or something. I never say thank you when people pay me a compliment. I like to say I know I am good and do not need your lies but I just keep my mouth shut and go back to work.

When I was little I believed every single nice thing anyone ever told me. Come to think of it, I did all through my teens to. Gullible, like: Why would they lie? My mother told me I was too easily flattered and I shouldn't believe the nice things people said about me, except maybe teachers.

Boyfriends would be really angry with me because I insisted their friends weren't hitting on me, but just giving me nice compliments because they were nice people who liked me.

Yeah, I roll my eyes at myself. I went to not believing compliments at all but figuring most compliments if not all came with an ulterior motives. The only compliment I'd believe was a good grade on an exam. It's only recently that I've begun to question this dogmatic approach. My husband and my psychologist both told me that if I evaluate compliments logically as an afterthought, I can probably figure out if there was an ulterior motive. It all comes down to my utter inability to determine when people lie. I'd consider this one of the main drawbacks of my autism, it makes me very vulnerable.

I get suspicious if someone lays them on too thick. I like to be praised occasionally if I think I did really good work. If someone compliments me too much, I wonder what their problem is and dislike them more.