If you're accepted, with a but... But your eyes are brown or but your gay, or even "I love you but if you are gay, so help me." These are things you cannot change about yourself; this is the harshest form of "acceptance with a but."
The second form of acceptance.... With a but, is the one with something you can change about yourself, but may take time. This can be an inward or an outer refusal of true acceptance.
Like "I love you, but if you’re a bit on the heavy side" or that your hair is too long or you have a piercing they don't approve of, or maybe a tattoo they shame you for getting (before them or while your with them).
I was always accepted with this but factor. I hated it, and for the most part I can accept everyone (except myself) for who they are, even if they don't see it because I hurt them, because I am not perfect at all.
So the factor turned inside. I never cared how people saw me, I have had odd beards, like a tiger or wolverine. I have two septum piercings and one 2 gauge in each ear.
I speak like I think and I write how I speak. Thus the oddness of verbiage and grammar, I don't care for perfection. I want to show you I am real too. Not some corporate spy sent to make money for the drug companies or someone out to make money for himself. I am me.
It turned ugly on the inside. I am 6'4 and 156 lbs., and still this wasn't thin enough. Always had to lose more, more working out! More binging which lead to vomiting which lead to more eating and then more working out.
Until my body was eating my muscles and I was wasting away. Slowly, I am recovering.
Then, without realizing it, I used this same but factor upon others, especially the one I loved. It wasn't a but, something about you... It was a "but if you can't see how you hurt me, I can't acknowledge how I hurt you."
It may not seem the same, but the 'but factor of acceptance' built that mentality in me.
I am sorry.
