Hi Freddie,

yeah I think you are partly right about wanting to prove I’m not a bad person and that if she could give me another chance maybe id prove my worth or be able show I could fix things.

I naturally dwell on stuff so just keep replaying past encounters with her picking apart what I did wrong, but I’ve always been like that.

The critical voice in my head is trying it’s best convince me I won’t meet anyone like her again and I’ll die alone, gotta love that self talk.

Okay, so it seems you’ve got a very strong inner critical voice, who is bombarding you with accusations that you’re a bad person, unworthy of love, that you are guilty for the breakup, and that you’ve ruined your chances and will die alone.

The inner critic is attacking another part of you, which is your inner child. That’s the part who feels unlovable, unworthy and guilty for everything (and not deserving love). I am not sure how aware of you are of this part of you, but when you say or think thoughts like “No one likes me”, “I’ll never be good enough”, “I’m so pathetic”, “No one will ever love me” – these are the thoughts and beliefs of your inner child.

So what’s happening is that the inner critic is viciously attacking this vulnerable part of you. And the vulnerable you (the inner child) really believes that he is unlovable and unworthy.

For starters, you can introduce another voice, or another part, which is the observer. This is the part that is observing what is going on inside of your mind. You have already activated the observer to a certain extent, because you are aware of the inner critical voice and the negative self-talk.

Now expand that to also notice the thoughts of the helpless, fragile you, i.e. your inner child (those sound like I mentioned above). And so now you are observing the interaction between your inner critic and your inner child.

Try not to identify with either of them, but just observe their interaction. This will create some distance from the inner critic, so that you don’t trust him completely and don’t feel crushed by his accusations.

Because what is happening at the moment is that your inner child completely trusts your inner critic. Your inner child believes those vicious accusations and criticism. The goal in our healing is to stop believing the inner critic, to silence him over time, and at the same time to soothe, protect and show compassion for our inner child.

Does this sound plausible? Do you think you can try activating the observer part and observing the internal dialogue, but not identifying with either the inner critic or the inner child?

im getting back in the gym, I’m starting to draw again which fell to sidelines the last couple of years.

That’s great, Freddie. Taking care of your physical well-being and also getting in touch with your creativity are both great ways to keep your mind off the suffering and create a positive spiral in your life. Just keep doing it!

Got a cbt session booked but not till august and the doc has prescribed me some anti depressants so maybe they will help. I just feel lost, hurt and broken at the moment which kinda sucks.

I hope you can feel a little better even before your therapy session in August. Let me know if the method of the internal dialogue that I mentioned above makes sense to you?

Hi Freddie,

yeah I think I understand what you are saying about the critical voice, never really know how to access my inner child or where them wounds stem from, the way I think about and talk to myself has always been the same.

Okay, so you’ve always had this critical voice inside your head. When you hear the words used by the inner critic, do they sound familiar? Have you heard those words before? Is there an image that comes to mind of a past situation or an event (specially in your childhood or youth), where you were blamed for something you did, or something that happened?

I am asking because this is how it might get clearer how this voice came about.

Sometimes I have a high opinion of myself, like when I first left the relationship part of me was thinking I could find something better, I sometimes feel like that’s a bit narcissistic or even self sabotaging because I know the end result when things don’t work out or go wrong is how I’m feeling now and the low opinion of myself.

Yes, it’s normal that we actually have more of those internal voices. We can e.g. have a spiteful or a grandiose voice that says “I’ll show everyone how capable I am, just you wait!”. And then when we don’t succeed in whatever it was that we’ve planned, the inner critical voice shames us with an even greater vigor, saying things like “I knew it wouldn’t work, you’re such a loser, you’ll never amount to anything”. So yes, we can have more inner voices, besides the inner critic and the inner child.

I know it’s not healthy and this mindset is scaring me at the moment as this is the lowest I’ve ever felt, and I’ve never beat myself up or had negativity this powerful about myself before.

It seems your ex had a very strong impact on you, and her opinion mattered a lot to you. And when she blamed you, it didn’t feel good. I mean, you really believed her. You took on the blame. You believed that you are insensitive and that the reason for the breakup is your anxiety. That’s what she told you. And so she reinforced what you believed about yourself: that you’re not good enough.

Perhaps what further contributed to you feeling bad about yourself is that her friends blamed you too. Maybe having more people gang up against you served as a “proof” to you that indeed, it’s your fault. Even if these people didn’t know your side of story and just blindly believed whatever she told them…

I think I will try journaling maybe getting all the nonesense down on paper will help me realise it’s not the whole truth and that I have worth. I will try observing my thought patterns like you said and try and be more tuned in to how I speak about and to myself and try and start challenging the negatives.

Yes, try to keep a distance from that critical inner voice. Know that it’s not the truth about you. And yes, I think journaling would be helpful. You can start with “Right now, my critical inner voice is telling me xyz…” And then perhaps thoughts will start coming and you’ll get insights about this voice that you haven’t realized before. So yeah, put it on paper, not in order to reinforce it, but to put some space between yourself and this voice, so you can observe it/ study it.

Hi Freddie,

you are very welcome!

I can’t think of any standout moment from my childhood that would spark the critical inner voice, I have always let people put me down and let myself be the punchline to others jokes. Had a lot of friends who weren’t really very good friends growing up, I let myself be pushed around a lot and people pleased.

I see.. so you don’t remember any particular event, just that you allowed people (whom you thought were your friends) to ridicule you and make fun of you. You talked about it on your previous thread:

When I was younger, early teens and younger I people pleased to feel accepted among “friends” but they never turned out to be true friends and I often had my confidence knocked and let myself be pushed around and the butt of some jokes.

You also said you didn’t confide in anyone (although you did share some major things with your father), but you didn’t talk about this bullying to anyone:

I didn’t really confide in anyone just dealt with it myself and bottled it up I suppose, I used to talk to my dad about stuff if anything got majorly on top of me, but my terrible friends I tended to just put up with on my own.

May I just ask whether you have siblings, and if perhaps they too made fun of you, or you felt you’re worse than them?

yeah my ex had a big impact on me and I think I’m struggling because she used to have such a high opinion of me and now it feels like she doesn’t recognise me or can’t see any of the good I contributed to her life only the train wreck the break up became.

Oh so she had a high opinion of you? But she wasn’t very happy with you when you tried to talk about the sensitive topics,  right? Because then she accused you of being insensitive…

I suppose how quickly she’s been able to turn off her feelings and start something new is making me feel like she met someone better. I know that’s the critical voice talking again and I am trying to not listen to it as much, just hard when it’s always been there.

Yes, that’s your inner critic saying that. It’s more likely that she met someone who won’t question her (at least not yet) about those sensitive topics. Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t want to have children, and I assume she doesn’t either, and so it won’t be an issue. So it’s not that he is better, he just might be more suitable for her needs. They might be more compatible in the issue of children, for example.

Whereas you would like to have children, and I guess you’d want your partner/spouse to be on the same page, and not to have to drag her into it. If I remember well, you mentioned once that she came around to having children, which means she wasn’t that willing at first, but you managed to convince her, right?

Hi Freddie,

i have 2 older sisters and a younger brother, I was never bullied or anything by my sisters but I guess they sometimes babied me and maybe saw as their play thing.

Oh I see. You know, it could be that when those supposed friends of yours bullied you, you thought you need to stay strong and not tell your parents, because you would be seen as a baby. So maybe the fact that you were babied and perhaps not taken seriously by your older sisters led you to believe that you’re weak or somehow deficient, and that they are better than you. And not only that, but you silently suffered and kept it a secret from everyone, not to be teased even more?

I do feel inferior to my siblings, they have all done well in life, both my sisters have families of their own. My younger brother has a good career and is financially sound and has a confidence about him that I envy.

How did your sisters treat your brother?

yeah my ex sang my praises, another reason why I’m beating myself and thinking I lost something good. She did shy away from certain topics though, her debt, her daughter and kids. Maybe she bigged me up and showered me with praise to keep me rocking the boat. I do think she genuinely loved me which makes her making such a u turn even harder.

Well, her love was conditional. Everything was fine and rosy until you touched certain topics. I don’t know if she was consciously manipulative, but maybe she did praise you while you behaved the way she wanted you to behave. And when you brought up those sensitive topics, she suddenly shut down and blamed you. This probably made you feel rejected, and you didn’t want that – so you simply dropped those topics.

when we first got together she said she didn’t want kids and we should have worked that out there and then but it was early days and we liked each other so we ignored it. I brought it up maybe 2 years in again and she said she could see herself having a kid with me, but there seemed to always be a reason to delay it, work, new jobs and then marrriage.

Yeah, it does seem she didn’t really want to have kids, but maybe she said that to please you. Or to let her off the hook. But probably she didn’t really mean it. It appears like she was a mother unwillingly and didn’t really want that role. Probably she would have kept delaying it eternally, if you proceeded with the marriage. Or perhaps she would have become an unwilling mother to your child, which is unfortunate. Because it certainly wouldn’t have been good for the child…

Hi Freddie,

I think I internalised the bullying and teasing out of not wanting rock the boat, look weak

Maybe you believed that you need to be “tough” and take the bullying, because you didn’t want to be seen weak? Also, perhaps you felt excluded because your sisters were sticking together – they were like a “gang” against you alone. So perhaps when you got a little older, in your pre-teens, you sought the company of bigger boys whom you tried to fit in with, and it turned out they ended up bullying you?

My sisters treated my brother as the baby of the family I guess but he was always more confident and sure of himself from a early age so never had my insecurities.

Yeah, our reaction (and our experience of the situation) always depends on our character, even if we were treated the same as someone else. So it’s possible that your brother didn’t take their babying as something negative, as something that diminishes him, while you might have…. In general, you might have been more sensitive to your parents’ and siblings’ treatment, while your little brother was more resilient?

im trying to tell myself that the breakup wasn’t all my fault and that she brought some issues to the table too,

Yes, being secretive about her debts, as well as refusing to participate in her daughter’s life and being secretive about the reasons are definitely major issues that she had…

I’m trying tell myself we wouldn’t have had a kid, or worse like you said had one she couldn’t feel maternal too

Yes, I think she was stringing you along, telling you that “she could see herself having a child with you”, but not really showing any signs that she is interested in having children or that she even wants to be a mother to her own daughter. So I think she never wanted to be a mother, but it was just something she was telling you because I guess she could – you would always back down and drop the subject. Until the moment you got engaged, when it became a burning issue for you and you refused to back down.

It’s just hard letting her go at the moment and I’m still kidding myself that we could work it out

How do you think you could work it out, if she doesn’t want to have children? Would you be willing to drop the subject and agree to a childless marriage?