“Sorry, I’m a complete mess”: can self-deprecation ever be good for you?

Written by Lauren Geall

As Stylist’s digital writer, Lauren Geall writes on topics including mental health, wellbeing and women’s issues. She’s also a big fan of houseplants and likes to dabble in film and TV from time-to-time. You can find her on Twitter at @laurenjanegeall.

We’re often told that being able to laugh at ourselves is important – but when does self-deprecation go too far? Stylist investigates.

I’m in the middle of talking to my flatmate about my outfit plans for Saturday when she interrupts me. “What did you just say?” she asks, looking at me with one eyebrow raised.

“I just said I’m going to try and not look like a potato,” I reply with a smirk. “That’s always the goal, of course – but this weekend, I at least want one photo of me where I don’t look like a complete mess.” She stops what she’s doing and turns to me, both eyebrows raised now. “You’re doing it again, putting yourself down. Stop it!”

This isn’t the first time she’s told me off about my self-deprecation – and it probably won’t be the last. In fact, over the years, a number of friends have told me off for making these kinds of comments, whether they be about my poor level of fitness or my tumultuous emotional state. I’ve been the one giving out these lectures, too, to friends who won’t own their cool sense of style or colleagues who downplay their talent.  

Laura Mathias, from Manningtree, Essex, is all-too-familiar with the urge to self-deprecate. The 31-year-old, who lives with alopecia, describes self-deprecation as her “go-to” – especially when people compliment her looks.

“It’s always been something I turned to,” she tells Stylist. “In the past, if someone complimented my appearance – for example if they complimented my hair when I was wearing a wig – I felt the need to say, ‘Oh, it’s a wig but thanks’, because my hair loss made me feel like a fraud.”

While Mathias says she’s working on overcoming this specific urge to self-deprecate – starting by accepting compliments about her hair as a compliment of her taste in wigs and ability to style it – she says she still struggles in other areas of her personal and professional lives. “I have way too many examples of not dealing well with compliments,” she adds. “The instinct to rebuke a kind word with the word ‘but’ is strong!” 

Despite the legacy of the 2010s’ #girlboss movement (which was all about self-promotion at all costs), it’s clear that many of us are still struggling to ‘own’ our best bits, or at least prefer putting ourselves down to bigging ourselves up. But while I understand that belittling myself all the time isn’t a good thing, I also don’t agree with the idea that having a laugh at yourself is necessarily a bad thing, either. Life is ridiculous, and why shouldn’t I be allowed to laugh about the time that my ‘dramatic’ eyeliner looked like a splodge of black ink on my face, or deconstruct the hilarity of my 2013 tweets?

It wasn’t something I’d given proper, if any, consideration to before, but with so many people pulling me up on my urge to self-deprecate, I started to question whether I had a problem. Is my self-deprecation really as harmless as I think it is? And if so, when does it start to become a problem?

As it turns out, the answer is complicated. Dr Meg Arroll is a chartered psychologist on behalf of the wellbeing brand Healthspan. She explains that self-deprecation is a type of “internal and external narrative of the self” which sees people “downplay, undermine or gently ridicule” their achievements, and that an urge to self-deprecate is linked to the idea that we need to be accepted by those around us. 

“We live in complex social groups as human beings, which is key to both our individual and species’ survival, so it’s normal to want to be accepted and ‘liked’ by others,” she explains. “In general, boasting, bragging and conceit are considered undesirable social behaviours, but self-deprecation, on the other hand, operates as a way to boost the self-esteem of other members of the group by negating the gifts or qualities we have.”

In this way, Dr Arroll explains, our urge to self-deprecate in front of others comes from our innate survival mechanism – aka the ‘fight or flight or flee response’ – which tells us that being liked is the key to survival. It’s why so many of us struggle to accept compliments, especially in front of a large group of people, because being perceived as threatening to the rest of the group can make us feel at risk of rejection.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – and laughing at ourselves is OK, Dr Arroll adds. But if putting yourself down becomes part-and-parcel of the way you socialise, it can start to become a problem. 

“If self-deprecation becomes part of your regular script, it can become maladaptive – there is balance to be had,” she says. “It is OK to accept a compliment, feel pride in yourself and engage in active self-care – in fact, it is as vital for survival as being accepted by the group. Indeed, chronic internal self-depreciation may be a signal of cognitive distortions such as ‘minimising’ that are related to low self-esteem, depression and anxiety.”

Perhaps, then, keeping an eye on how often I self-deprecate is more important than I thought. I’m still a fan of being able to laugh at myself, but it makes sense that learning how to take a compliment would probably be better than putting myself down 24/7. If you’re constantly thinking about your bad sides, or at least playing down your good bits, it’s only natural that you’ll exacerbate any feelings of insecurity or low self-esteem that are lurking in the background. On the flip side, learning how to embrace compliments – or at least not shut them down the moment they leave someone else’s mouth – can help you to feel more confident and empowered in the long-run. 

The key to doing just that? Paying more attention to your inner voice. “While it’s fine to have a good laugh at ourselves, if you’re constantly putting yourself down in your mind and out loud with others, start to pay a little more attention to that inner voice,” Dr Arroll suggests.

“Our thoughts are intertwined with our feelings and behaviours, so by shifting to a perhaps more congratulatory inner narrative, you will most likely start to feel brighter and more optimistic too – and we know optimism is associated with better physical and mental health outcomes.

“The fantastic aspect of this is that we can actively change our inner voice. In times when the world around us may seem chaotic and unpredictable, our internal script is something we can write and rewrite ad infinitum so that it serves us well.”

If, like me, you find it hard not to self-deprecate on the regular, then getting to know your inner voice might not be a bad idea. And if you don’t like what it’s saying, you have the power to teach it a lesson.

Images: Getty

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