J
just me here
I have started to come to grips with an aspect of my disorder, and wonder if it is similar to others with the same diagnosis of CPTSD.
We may or may not have been abused as children, it might have been early or late and it may have come in the form of physical or mental abuse, and we all reacted to it differently.
I have become aware of the suggestion that as abused children, we started to "meld" the outer criticisms we received from abusers with our own inner critics, something I would call a concious or define as a part of our human nature that causes us to self monitor our own behaviour in the interest of fitting in and being a part of the 'pack'.
Thats what I think of when I hear the term 'inner critic'. And I do agree that I have allowed the words of others to become part of the way I think about myself. I don't have a filter, I don't discount others criticism of me based on their lack of knowledge of me, or based on their own inability to meet their own expectations. If someone has a bad day and lays into me, I repeat the words over and over to myself, they become part of the voice of my own inner critic, and I carry them with me basically forever.
An example to help form my question for you:
If someone yells at you in traffic, do you even listen? Do you listen but discount the criticism because the person doesn't know anything about you and their opinion carries no merit? Do you think about the possibility that they may be right, but discount it because they are just a jerk venting in traffic? Or do you add their critique to your own self criticism and adopt their words as part of your inner self talk about trying to be as good a driver as you can? Or do you find yourself triggered into what I have just learned is an emotional flashback and you start thinking that if you werent such a self involved defective mess of a human being, people wouldn't see it so quickly and vent their anger on you in traffic so readily. If you were just normal, people would treat you better.
I am glad I have a concious and that I self monitor my actions. I try to be a good person, to do the right thing. But along with these positive traits, I also have an inner critic that repeats the criticisms I have picked up from my parents, teachers, neighbors, disgruntled customers, therapists, kids I played football against, jerks in traffic, jealous coworkers and ignorant bosses, you name it, if someone critiqued me, I gave them the power to climb right onboard with all of the others and do it longer than they ever imagined their criticism would be remembered.
Is it like that for you?
We may or may not have been abused as children, it might have been early or late and it may have come in the form of physical or mental abuse, and we all reacted to it differently.
I have become aware of the suggestion that as abused children, we started to "meld" the outer criticisms we received from abusers with our own inner critics, something I would call a concious or define as a part of our human nature that causes us to self monitor our own behaviour in the interest of fitting in and being a part of the 'pack'.
Thats what I think of when I hear the term 'inner critic'. And I do agree that I have allowed the words of others to become part of the way I think about myself. I don't have a filter, I don't discount others criticism of me based on their lack of knowledge of me, or based on their own inability to meet their own expectations. If someone has a bad day and lays into me, I repeat the words over and over to myself, they become part of the voice of my own inner critic, and I carry them with me basically forever.
An example to help form my question for you:
If someone yells at you in traffic, do you even listen? Do you listen but discount the criticism because the person doesn't know anything about you and their opinion carries no merit? Do you think about the possibility that they may be right, but discount it because they are just a jerk venting in traffic? Or do you add their critique to your own self criticism and adopt their words as part of your inner self talk about trying to be as good a driver as you can? Or do you find yourself triggered into what I have just learned is an emotional flashback and you start thinking that if you werent such a self involved defective mess of a human being, people wouldn't see it so quickly and vent their anger on you in traffic so readily. If you were just normal, people would treat you better.
I am glad I have a concious and that I self monitor my actions. I try to be a good person, to do the right thing. But along with these positive traits, I also have an inner critic that repeats the criticisms I have picked up from my parents, teachers, neighbors, disgruntled customers, therapists, kids I played football against, jerks in traffic, jealous coworkers and ignorant bosses, you name it, if someone critiqued me, I gave them the power to climb right onboard with all of the others and do it longer than they ever imagined their criticism would be remembered.
Is it like that for you?