And what it might mean if you recognize yourself here
Someone gives you a genuine compliment—not flattery, a real one—and you deflect it. Change the subject. Make a joke. Explain why they're wrong about you.
Someone asks how you're really doing, and something in you tightens. You give the surface answer. You move on.
Someone offers help without wanting anything in return, and instead of feeling grateful, you feel... suspicious. What's the catch? What do they want?
If any of this sounds familiar, keep reading.
• • •
See if you recognize this:
You're more comfortable giving than receiving.
Transactions feel safer than gifts.
When someone sees you—really sees you—your first impulse is to hide.
Deep down, you suspect that if people knew the real you, they'd leave.
You're exhausted by relationships but can't figure out why.
Something feels missing, but you couldn't name it if you tried.
This isn't a personality type. It's not introversion, or independence, or self-sufficiency.
It's a learned response. Something got installed in you—probably before you had words for it—and now it runs in the background, shaping everything without you noticing.
• • •
At some point early in your life, you learned a lesson. Not through a lecture. Through experience.
The lesson was: your need for real connection is a problem.
Maybe someone said it out loud. "You're too sensitive." "You're too much." "Why do you always need so much attention?"
Or maybe it happened without words. You reached for closeness, and someone gave you things instead. Gave you help. Gave you solutions. Gave you everything except the one thing you were actually reaching for: presence. Being seen. Being with.
And they acted like it was the same thing.
Or maybe it happened before you could even walk. A parent who hovered with anxiety whenever you tried something new. Their worry teaching your body, in a language deeper than words: you can't trust yourself. You need external support even for basic things.
However it happened, the lesson landed:
Something is wrong with the part of you that wants to be truly known.
So you learned to stop reaching. Or to reach only halfway. Or to pretend you weren't reaching at all.
• • •
That old lesson is still running. It shows up as:
Deflection. Someone offers something real—a compliment, attention, care—and you bat it away before it can land. You're not being humble. You're protecting yourself from something that used to hurt.
Suspicion. When someone is genuinely kind, you scan for the angle. Because the lesson taught you: people who seem like they're giving freely are actually setting up an exchange you'll owe on later. Easier to keep it transactional from the start.
Exhaustion. Staying defended takes energy. You're monitoring, managing, making sure you don't need too much, don't ask too much, don't be too much. It's tiring in a way you've normalized because you've never known anything else.
The missing thing. There's a hollowness. You have relationships, maybe good ones. People who care about you. But something doesn't quite reach. You're in the room but behind glass. You can't name what's missing because you learned to stop looking for it a long time ago.
• • •
Here's what got installed:
"Real love is what people do for you. If you need something more—something deeper, something that isn't about doing—that's your problem. That's neediness. That's weakness. That's too much."
This is a lie.
Not a malicious lie. The people who installed it probably believed it. They were taught the same thing. They were trying to help you survive the way they learned to survive.
But it's still a lie.
The truth is: you have two channels for connection. One is functional—people doing things for each other, providing, helping, the practical stuff of care. This channel is real and it matters.
But there's another channel. Call it presence. Being-with. The part where someone actually sees you, not your usefulness or your role or your performance—just you. And you see them. And for a moment, neither of you is alone.
That channel is also real. It also matters. It's not optional. It's not weakness. It's human.
The lie says: the second channel is fake, or dangerous, or only for children, or something you should've outgrown.
The lie is wrong.
• • •
The tricky part: the lesson installed in the body, not just the mind.
You can read this and think "yes, that makes sense, I should let people in more." But the next time someone offers genuine kindness, your body will do the same thing it always does. Tighten. Deflect. Suspect.
Because the part of you that learned the lesson isn't the part that reads articles. It's deeper than language. It's in your nervous system, your reflexes, the split-second reactions that happen before you can think.
So you can't just decide to be different. Understanding helps—that's why you're reading this—but understanding alone doesn't change the reflex.
What changes the reflex is experience. New experiences that teach your body a different lesson.
• • •
Notice when you deflect. You don't have to stop doing it. Just notice. Someone gives you a compliment and you make a joke—catch that moment. Not to judge yourself. Just to see. Oh, that happened again.
Noticing is the beginning of choice. Right now the deflection happens automatically. When you notice it, there's a tiny gap. Eventually, that gap becomes room to do something different.
Practice receiving, small. Start with things that feel low-stakes. Someone holds a door—let it land as kindness, not just logistics. Someone says something nice—before you deflect, take one breath. Let it exist for just a second.
You're not trying to become someone who basks in praise. You're trying to teach your body that receiving isn't dangerous. It needs gentle practice, not forced transformation.
Find people who are also working on this. You don't need perfect people. You need people who understand that this is hard. Who won't shame you when you deflect or armor up. Who can stay present with you while you learn to stay present with them.
Healing happens in relationships. The wound was relational; so is the repair.
Let it be slow. You're unwinding something that took years to install. It won't dissolve in a weekend. Progress looks like: I noticed the deflection a little sooner this time. Or: I let the kind thing land for two seconds instead of one.
That's enough. That's the work.
• • •
Imagine someone offers you genuine kindness, and instead of tightening, you just... receive it. No suspicion. No scan for the angle. No deflection. Just: thank you. And you feel it.
Imagine someone asks how you're really doing, and you tell them. Not the performance. The truth. And it doesn't feel like exposure. It feels like relief.
Imagine being seen—actually seen—and instead of hiding, you stay. You let it happen. You let yourself be known.
This isn't fantasy. It's what's on the other side of unlearning the old lesson.
It takes time. It takes practice. It takes relationships where the practice is safe enough to attempt.
But it's possible. The part of you that learned to close can learn to open. The reflex isn't permanent. It's just old.
• • •
If this article made you uncomfortable—if part of you is already explaining why it doesn't apply to you, or finding the flaws, or feeling defensive—that's okay.
That's the old lesson, doing its job. Protecting you from something that used to hurt.
You don't have to override it. You don't have to force yourself to believe anything.
Just notice that it's there. The discomfort. The impulse to dismiss.
And maybe wonder, just for a second: what if it didn't have to be this way?
That wondering is the beginning.