I’m Proud of You
Four of the most important words you’ll ever hear.
I grew up in a supportive environment. My parents encouraged a lot of my hobbies — when I wanted to draw, they bought me supplies, and when I wanted to play the piano, they sent me to lessons. I wanted to join the Cub Scouts, so they supported me for about a decade of random scout activities.
When I was diagnosed with my mental illness — first depression, then bipolar — they didn’t hesitate to take me to a psychiatrist. They wanted the best for me, and to them, that meant modern medicine and therapy. They were not shy about that, and they encouraged me to participate.
As such, one of the things I heard regularly was how proud they were of me. It wasn’t an everyday thing, but whenever I had some sort of achievement — anything from a successful piano recital to having a breakthrough in therapy — they would say that they were proud of me.
It was something, in retrospect, that I took for granted. I lived in a community with seemingly idyllic upper-middle-class families that were always happy, so I assumed that every kid knew that their parents were proud of them.
Turns out that’s not the case.
Living with my partner has opened my eyes to a lot of family dynamics that I never experienced growing up. Everything from multiple divorces to abusive parents, she experienced so much trauma growing up that I never knew about. It has been a learning experience to hear about her upbringing, and I learn new things all the time.
One of the things I learned recently was that nobody ever told her that they were proud of her. It’s not that her achievements went unnoticed, although many of them did. It’s just that her family dynamic was such that those words were never spoken to her.
This wasn’t something I ever thought to ask about, as it was one of my many ingrained notions of childhood and was such an inconsequential thing in my mind. It’s not that I thought that hearing it was inconsequential, it’s just that I thought that everyone heard it growing up. Apparently, that also applied to people with crappy upbringings.
I found out how wrong I was during one of my wife’s therapy sessions. We normally have therapy at the same time, and with COVID, we would have our telehealth sessions in different parts of the house so as not to interfere with each other. However, we don’t necessarily mind each other sitting in, and sometimes she asks me to sit in when I’m available.
Her therapist, who had been working with her for a few years at this point, made the offhand comment that she was proud of how far my partner had come. My partner proceeded to break down in tears. She had never heard those words spoken to her before.
Both of us were taken aback by this revelation. It took a minute for each of us to process it, and we were both a bit shaken afterward, although for different reasons. For her, it was a new concept. For me, it was shocking that it was so new to her.
I think it’s important that people know when we are proud of them. Aside from it simply being a good communications practice, I think that we all need the reminder from time to time that who we are as a person is important to someone.
There are times that we are complimented on our work — many people hear things like “good job” and “you did well” often enough about their jobs or their skills. However, I feel like that’s a different category altogether.
Having someone say that you did a good job is a bit more objective and detached. It is a compliment on a thing that you did or made, a note about the quality of the work or the product of that work. While these compliments are nice, they can often be somewhat impersonal.
Telling somebody “I’m proud of you” is a compliment to them as a person. When you tell someone that you are proud of them, you are telling them that you believe that their life has value to you, that they are a worthwhile human being who is capable of doing good things. It is fundamentally different from a one-off “good job” compliment — one compliments the work, the other compliments the person.
Really, that’s all any of us want — to be valued as a person. Having someone recognize you as a good and valid human being can make a huge difference in your life, and I don’t think enough of us get that kind of recognition.
So, for anyone out there who needs to hear it, I’m proud of you. I’m proud that you’re working so hard. I’m proud that you’re dealing with your problems. I’m proud that, even though life may be bad right now, you keep getting up and putting one foot in front of the other. I’m proud that you’re trying to be better, that you’re working on yourself, that you’re working so hard and doing the right thing even if nobody else recognizes it. I’m proud of you for facing your fears and trauma, and for trying to be a better person in spite of how difficult it often is.
I encourage you to tell the people in your life that you are proud of them. Remind them that you think that they’re pretty cool people, and tell them that explicitly and unquestionably. Lots of people don’t like taking compliments, but tell them anyway. As the kind of person who sidesteps compliments by default, I have found that it’s really hard to brush off those four little words.
I’m proud of you.
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