Dear AcceptMe:

I too cared a lot about what you care about, what people think, not to mention what they say about me. I used to imagine people saying the worst things about me. I found out that the “voices” in my head were the ones most critical of me, an ongoing self criticism, telling me things like: “You said the wrong thing!… You should have said that!…You shouldn’t have said it that way… what will they think (Dread)… I should have, I shouldn’t have…. and on and on and on.

It is only recently that these voices in my head (also known as the Inner Critic, the out of control superego, in Freud terms) quieted down. I still hear them, a moment ago, I did. I looked around for a consequence (that wasn’t there) for something I did wrong.

Once you find the origin of that Inner Critic being so… overly critical of yourself, the first person or persons in your young life who criticized and rejected you, maybe through psychotherapy if this is emotionally too difficult (as it was for me)- then through insight and mindfulness skills, these voices, over time, quiet down.

I moved away thousands of miles from the people who knew me so to start a new life, one free of the old mistakes, that was many years ago. The people changed but the voices in my head were the same, until I went to therapy five years ago… then I started the difficult work, still in progress.

anita