go easy on my friend!

[aroraborealis]

Sometimes, people around me say really terrible things about themselves. I mean, okay, we all do it, right? But sometimes people say them out loud, to me, in a way that I think is meant to be apologetic, but also seems to be seeking at least an implicit agreement. "I'm such an idiot!" you might say, after making a mistake, or "Wow, I'm a jerk,"

Comments

[kcatalyst]

I think, possibly wrongly, there's a useful distinction to be made between self-denigration and self-critique or self-acknowledgement. When I forget something, it's not uncommon for me to say "I'm such an idiot." or "I'm not very smart." But it's not at all the case that I think I'm a stupid person about everything. I have a faulty memory for specific kinds of things and it bites me on the ass a lot in ways that I try to manage. But I'm good at other stuff and am lucky enough that a lot of that stuff falls into Smart Person territory that people give me money and respect for.

So when I say I'm an idiot, it's not associated with bad pathways of never amounting to anything, It's somewhere between a self-monitoring system and a joke. And I think those are really useful things.

So I think the right response will depend on where someone falls in that space. If someone's seriously beating up on themselves, as a boss I think it can be useful to provide some reassurance as to their general worth as an employee. But I would find it really disconcerting if I got back a "don't be so hard on yourself" in reply to a tossed off "I'm such an idiot." I'd be tempted to respond "Don't worry, I'm massively arrogant! I'm just acknowledging that I am also forgetful."

I think that's a very important point

[drwex]

What I read you to say is that there isn't a good generic response - that the response depends on what one knows of the speaker.

My own personal style is to acknowledge and move on. I'll usually respond with something like "don't sweat it, let's figure out how to..." I imagine that it helps the speaker to hear me respond directly but not dwell on it, and being positive- or forward-focused is usually something people can agree on, regardless of what they've done.