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Yes absolutely. It's that simple but also complicated for too many reasons. If a compliment comes from a person who doesn't write I suppose it doesn't bother me. However being around other writers I do appreciate a compliment from them. Already a predicament which keeps flip flopping.

One time a student gave me a compliment and he went on and on about how much he appreciates this or that and so on. It ruined about 3 days for me. I suppose I felt like a fraud or maybe some shame that being naive is what gave him this perception. Either way I just couldn't accept his praise. I didn't sleep well for those three nights.

I have this fear that all I will ever be is a community college teacher for poetry and that my dreams as child of being a writer are somehow being squashed by academia. I don't think this is true at all but it's a bit difficult to explain. But I do think academia can be a sort of a bubble and we can lose perspective of where we are. Maybe part of it is fear of losing perspective if I allow myself to accept and worse, enjoy a compliment?

When I was in school nothing felt worthwhile doing unless it was challenging. I'm almost 10 years out of grad school and I keep trying to make things more difficult than they need to be. Spinning ones wheels isn't a good challenge or useful difficulty.

So yeah, I'm hard on myself. I never wanted people to think I was a "loser" or uneducated or somehow less than.

I'm grew up extremly poor. Education was the only thing I had going for me. I hardly fit in. College was fantastic and I was treated very fair. Not so much in grad school. I was on scholarship to an elite private school. No one knew I was on aid. I was naive about the whole thing really. That's really when lots of doubt and first bouts of back pain really started. Trying to live up to this full ride scholarship I had been given. At times from certain profs who knew I was on aid, they almost rubbed my nose in it as a way to get me to be a certain way.

In the end I lost my scholarship and took out loans. I felt liberated and yet very afraid and uncertain about my future without that monetary safety net.

I'd like to learn to let this all go.
I feel I am being as unrelenting to myself as some of those profs were.

I agree with you, I'm just not that good at self compassion...yet