Dear Lara:

The message from your mother was  “The world is bad”, suggesting to you that other people meant to hurt your feelings, “always assumed the worst of people”. She would  get angry at other people who interacted with you, and she “would automatically be angry and say ‘how could she say something like that to you!”, for example.

But then, she assumed the worst of you too, this is why you had to defend yourself against her (“It was always a struggle to defend my view against hers”). When you said something she disagreed with, there was that “disgusted look she gave  me, like I was the worst person on the planet”.

I will focus on your mother at this point because she was the one with the anger, and a parent’s anger is very powerful in a child’s experience. Your father’s input was harmful but not close to the extent of your mother’s harm done to you, because he was not angry, she was.

Let’s look at the sentences you have voiced out loud, the “you” means Lara: “I hate you”. “You are a bad person” “When will you finally end it?” “Why can’t I be better?”

There  is a concept of the “inner critic” a well known mental entity, the mental representative of the parent that keeps criticizing us in the absence of the parent. Everyone has an inner critic. Yours voices itself out loud at times to no one in particular.

When your inner critic says “I hate you”, that is the  mental representative  of your mother saying that, because when she looked at you in real life with disgust, that is what she was saying without words. Same with “You are a bad person”, this is what her disgust said without words. And  it fit with what she  did say about others and you, everyone is a bad person. Then a part of you is looking for a solution: change from bad to good (“Why can’t I get better?”) ,or get  rid of the bad person (“When will you finally end it?”)

Your inner critic, like everyone’s, is automatic and we can stop its input if we notice it and concentrate,  and its tone of voice, inaudible, does change  (It’s automatic  in that I am not aware when I start talking, but with concentration I can stop midsentence and not finish. Tone of voice depends on my stress level… when I am really angry with myself over something I might actually shout”).

Most of us live with an inner critic that sometimes.. silently shouts at us.

anita

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Dear Lara:

I submitted a post to you on your new thread  before reading your recent entry on this thread. Well, it is your very active, aggressive inner critic voice who told you in the event you  described above something like this:

-everyone is standing looking at you because you did something wrong.. again! What did you mean by that thing you said, “well off you go”? What a &&^* thing to say! And in a military tone! How unfriendly! They are all standing there looking at you because they are thinking how *^(& you are! And you didn’t even say Merry Christmas! Plus, to make your performance even worse, there was not even a  reason to hurry everyone. You hurried them for no reason!

(“everyone was still standing around and then looking at  me for some reason and I was like ‘well off you go’ with a slightly military tone… I thought ‘yeah or you could have said Merry Christmas… worrying what people are thinking of me… we might not have needed to hurry so much… ”

I believe that the voice that “shouting stuff” at any one time is either your aggressive inner critic voice or it is the part of you that is suffering under the aggression and tyranny of that inner critic, the part that “spend the whole way back and the  next day agonizing“.

anita

You’re welcome, Lara.

I don’t think it’s too important to nail down the perfect term; if it sounds similar to coprolalia, you can then research solutions and see if they help.

Since you’re not into online journaling or keeping a journal for privacy reasons, I’d suggest typing in Word, reflecting on what you wrote and then immediately deleting it. Or if you prefer paper, write and then rip it up or burn it. You can even go without journaling altogether and spend 5 to 10 minutes in the morning and evening to reflect on your progress. But you don’t have to do anything that doesn’t feel good to you.

About the event you described, bravo for fearlessly making 2 announcements! Being a leader means you have to make decisions that won’t always please everyone (e.g. being rather firm about leaving). Living your life trying to appease others is a prison. Did you have have good intentions? Did you do your best? That’s all that matters.

Like I’ve said before, it sounds like you’ve come a long way, Lara—just keep going. Own your decisions and tell your inner critic that you can take care of the situation. You don’t need others to validate your existence.

Please don’t feel obligated to reply unless you have other questions. Just do your thing!

Much love.