compliments too far and few

I think I had a particularly bad month morale wise mid March/April. Came back from holidays feeling absolutely shattered, demoralised and unmotivated. As I explained it to a work friend, I felt so unappreciated and unsupported. Intellectually I knew the right approach to most of my (difficult) work tasks. But nothing works on your own, it needs support and recognition or you need an encouraging word or (sadly in my case) to tell the complainers to rack off.

Anyway, I finally had enough, and knowing that my manager was never ever going to give me the recognition I wanted (and deserved) I started working out who could and finally, six weeks later, made first contact with a professional mentor that has been lined up for me. He's helping supervise my research project. He listened to me explain what I'd done so far (hours and hours on my own) and told me that I was fantastic and an intellectual genius (no, not really). But it did make me realise that I have for far too long underestimated myself and have great trouble getting my ego and my self esteem match my actual abilities. So sad. Listening to compliments from him made me all teary and emotional. I think that I'm far too receptive and sensitive to the criticisms that come with daily life and have, unfortunately, spent too much time in the company of emotional cripples.

Not enough affirmations.

Mr A agreed with me that job titles your organisation gives you can be awful and also contribute to this inability to be proud of your achievements.