• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Inner chatter

Status
Not open for further replies.

Venusian

MyPTSD Pro
I am reading a book my therapist loaned to me and I was having trouble trying to do the exercises in it. I picked it up a few moments ago to try and read and do the exercise again and suddenly realized that I had already answered the exercise on a post here today.

Our minds are never completely at rest. The voids between our conscious thoughts are filled with the things that give us our world view, our social skills, it is the way we perceive the world through our experience and what we have been taught. One aspect of my "Inner Chatter"" I posted in 2 places today, on another thread in the discussions and in my diary. I woke up to the thought "Children should be seen and not heard". I have hated that saying but I also followed it because that is what I was taught but I never knew where it came from. I tried very hard not to pass that on to my children, I hope I succeeded. I think I have succeeded since my daughter takes the time to listen to her own children.

The thought is still a part of me, I get stressed and I revert to feeling like a 5 year old. I was not missed when I was kidnapped, no one listened to me and my injuries were invisible. I had to be quiet or I was choked, my air was cut off and only allowed to breath when I was silent enough. I could not say anything when he let me go because no one would listen and he made me promise to not tell or he would take me away again. I still feel that way, I am trying hard to change it but it is a slow process. That was 43 years ago now and it has only been the last few months that I could talk or even think about what happened without feeling his hand around my neck. It was only this morning that I could remember hearing those words coming from one of them.

It isn't just the memories of the trauma that make me feel that way, it was all through my marriage. I believed I had no voice because I still felt like a scared 5 year old whenever there was a little bit of conflict. It was whenever any conflict happened at work, I had no voice. I always felt like a child at those times when I needed to be a grown up the most.

Has anyone ever thought about what their "Inner Chatter" is telling them and how it impacted their lives?
 
I will have to think a bit about the specific inner-chatter. But, I connected instantly with that expression of "children are to be seen, not heard," which goes right along with "don't be such a tattle-tale," and, my older brother's warning, "I swear I'll kill you if you tell." They all went a long way to my being terrorized and voiceless in my childhood home which still haunts me.

I'm so saddened by what happened to you. Inner-chatter can be useful when we sit with it and examine how it socialized us into hopelessness.

What was the title of the book?

Thanks for starting this thread.
 
Ok, now I've got it: I consider inner-chatter what I call "haunted voices" (I guess that's Whitney's "tape recorder"). This list is what I hear in my head all the time that I have to fight against and realize it's not me being self-loathsome of me, but rather, things told to me by others -- from when I was very little to an early teen:

"you're such a sorry freak"
"you better watch your step or Katie-bar-the-door"
"you're getting too big for your britches, little miss priss"
"you're just weak-ass-shit"
"you better straighten up or so-help-me-god I'll skin you alive"
"you better stop your sniveling or so-help-me-god you won't have any sorry tears left to cry"
"you're looking for trouble and you're two shakes away from finding it"
"you're one inch away from getting a whipping that'll make you wish you'd never been born"
"you're itching for a whipping"
"you better hush-up or you won't know what hit you" -- blah-blah-blah...

Eventually, I realize what's going on and say aloud to those ghosts: "Oh, yeh, well f### ALL-y'all! Now scat! -- this is MY house!"

I read somewhere about the development of a child's brain, that a child doesn't develop the skills to interpret figurative language until about the age of 8 or 9; until then everything is taken literally. Perhaps that's one reason why the ghosts are so hard to banish permanently.
 
Has anyone ever thought about what their "Inner Chatter" is telling them and how it impacted their lives?

Hi Venusian

I often think about my Inner chat. When it is there and I recognise it I think I am being irrational and should by now be able to deal with things as an adult. However, a lot of chat is echoing the statements thrown at me from my 'parents'. I have no idea how to deal with this now as an adult and revert to childlike quietness out of fear of retribution if I do speak up. I never feel I have the right to speak or always think I will say the wrong thing. I then get very anxious inside, kicking myself later for not being grown up and say what I thought about things.

I gather this is because I have no social skills in this way. I was never taught how to be around people, how to talk to them, I was never allowed. That old saying ' speak when spoken to' always came up, but they stopped people from talking to me. If I said anything I got this disapproving look from 'mother' that made me think I was doing wrong and would be punished. If I tried to join in conversations I was told to, 'shut up it was nothing to do with you' or 'you do not know what you are talking about' or 'stop trying to get attention' or a massive arguement would happen because I have not explained myself properly or they have not listened properly and I was always in the wrong no matter what.

The inner dialogue is a very powerful thing as it fuzzies my rational thoughts and makes my fears and anxiety grow. I feel I have to learn the skills of conversation to help me maybe. Who knows really, I just know I hate it when this talk is there as it definately holds me back.

best wishes
Saffy :)
 
The inner chatter has also been referred to as the Inner Critic, especially for complex PTSD sufferers. I always have had inner chatter and I think that is a function of a busy mind. But the inner critic started to emerge it certainly did not always guide me right and is disturbing to the core. Self criticism seems like it will always create anxiety and fear. I often feel like the condition knows exactly the best way to beat me up and wear me down.
 
Interesting thread and so amazing to see how much we all have in common. I too come from a home where my dad was always saying children should be seen and not heard. Iam just now realizing how lonely I was as a child.

I had no one to talk to about what was going on around me. I am working really hard on not going negative on myself. I notice it is strongest when I am the weakest and down and depressed. But I catch myself. The real challenge is trying to be positive at these times.

Wow, we have so much in common. I never learned basic social skills. I was unaware of the cues. I did not know boundries. I did not know myself. I was too busy trying to survive. I am so weary of it all.

Now I am just beginning to learn how to live. I am making baby steps. And it is a two step forward, three steps back process. I wish I could go to a finishing school and learn some things. I could do with some assertiveness training as well. It is hard to try to learn how to be social so late in life. But at least it can be done. Thank you for this thread.
 
I wish I could go to a finishing school and learn some things.

Oh Gizmo that is one I have not thought of in years! All my neighbors went and I have to say they are good people but I know they did not learn much more than "Stand Tall" "Be Kind" and never wear too much makeup!

You have such a good heart, I do not personally feel you need to learn about being a good person; you already are. Socializing is a different aspect and takes time and you have been working on this!
Hugs, Whitney:tup:
 
Thanks Whitney so much. That just made my day. Big smiles:DBig hugs for you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top