Dear Lily:

I read a bit through your previous two threads, you might want to do it yourself sometime and take notes. I think I gave you good input regarding the inner critic, core beliefs and more. Maybe re-reading my past input to you when you are calm and taking a few notes, letting  ideas sink in, may help you now.

For the purpose of understanding what is happening with K, let’s look at what you wrote Jan 2016 regarding the man in the dormitory: “From the  start he  didn’t accept when I said no. He  often pressured  me  to have sex and wouldn’t leave my room when I told him to… I’m very bad at saying no.. I actually was attracted to him. So yes, I wanted sex and sometimes even enjoyed it, but that doesn’t mean that he can come into my room whenever he wants and pressure  me  to have sex!” Two years later, Feb 2018, you wrote  about the same man: “The crazy thing is that  I still feel attached to him and even miss  him somehow? Some part  of me actually wants to respond to him… I think the problem with that man was, that  I was doubting my own judgment. I felt that what was  happening was not  good and  that it was  an unhealthy relationship. So I tried to end it, but he always came back like nothing serious had happened. And  I opened  my door for him because I felt  guilty, I hoped we could  talk things out  and fix it. I wondered  if I was the abusive one… If it is clear  to  me that someone is behaving rude, I think  I would react differently. I feel confused”

My input: there were a few motivations in your state of mind at the  time, a state of mind that still exists with K:

1. You are a social being, a social animal, all humans are. You have a need and  a desire at times to interact  with  people, to be in other people’s company. As a social animal you get emotionally attached to other people, even  without liking them. All humans get attached  to others without even liking the people  we get attached  to.

2. You are a sexual being, a sexual animal, all humans  are. You have a need and  a desire  at times to experience sexual stimulation and  feelings, sometimes when approached sexually before being touched,  sometimes following  being  touched.

3. Like all humans you too have an inner critic that criticizes you every day, telling you what you are doing wrong, that what you just said might have been the  wrong  thing to say, and  like all humans you kind-of hear other people thoughts  about you, criticizing you (the inner critic projecting itself to others).

So far, #1, 2 and  3 exist  in you same as in every other human being. #3 though is especially dominant in you, a very strong, insistent, stubborn critical voice. It repeatedly tells you that  you are wrong, bad  (even toxic, “what if  you are the toxic person” is the title of your current thread).

Even when clearly the other person is wrong (the man in the dormitory), the  inner critic still tells you that it is you, not him, that is wrong. Next you feel guilty for being wrong and you try to make it up to him for your perceived wrongness/ badness, and you get confused, seeing at times that he is wrong  but believing your inner critic when it says that you are wrong, not knowing what is true to reality, lost not knowing what is really happening. Not being able to evaluate situations and people correctly, not for long.

You try best  you can to  do the right thing by  people based on the voice of your inner critic, warn them of the  evil that might come to them because of associating with you. Your oral herpes and  eye infection get your inner critic all… excited, sort of, as  it energetically points out  to the visible badness and  wrongness about you.

Basically, you are a normal human being with a severely oversized, unreasonable, insistent, persistent and stubborn inner critic. Your inner critic has long passed any semblance of reasonableness. It simply doesn’t make sense!

Sure you should  not kiss a person when you have oral herpes and stay away from people when you have  the flu, be socially responsible this way, but you overdo this social responsibility by a lot.

What  can I  say… you are not  a bad person.  You are a  good person. But you have an insane inner critic that tells you otherwise and insists on it!

I figure when you fought with your sister as a child and your father took her side repeatedly, no matter  how wrong she was, letting you know that you were at the wrong, that you were bad, he  must have  been very persistent in that behavior, insistent, stubborn, emotional, so his mental representative (your inner critic) is also persistent, insistent, stubborn, emotional and very convincing.

To live a better life, you need to  shrink that inner critic by a lot, learn to  not believe  it. Guided by a senseless inner critic that ignores reality leads to a senseless life that .. ignores reality.

I would like you to stop presenting yourself to  K and to anyone as a bad person, because it  is not true to reality.

anita