Addressing Self Criticism

ron , that link at the bottom contains a fantastic exercise.  

It was eye opening, wasn't it? It does go right at the inner critic, and I felt relief and a kind of hope and gentleness after I listened to it.  It reminded me of the growth I've had, and my strengths. 

I've done a loving kindness meditation in the past and it was helpful at that time.  I will look for one on my meditation app and do it again.  I got out of doing certain things during the pandemic, and also in my relationship (I got distracted and busy with other things!).  But I'm pretty much settled back with a sense of balance and self care time. 

Im glad you're here.  I'm sorry you can relate to my childhood experiences, but then again it gives me kind of a sense of not being over there where no one understands me.  Isn't it strange how we turn out with different attachment styles? It dawned on me- another thing that might have contributed to the giving up state of being avoidant is that I am the last born, a twin, in a house that didn't welcome any more children but was Catholic so no birth control allowed.  I was bad news instead of celebrated.  I just learned that my grandmother on my mom's side resented having children instead of having a career, she was kind of a trail blazer as was her mother before her.  So the less nurturing (to put it mildly🤣) maternal style prevailed in my family history it seems.  

My dad also came from a Catholic family where beatings were used for correction, which is strange because I've seen so many family photos of vacations so I thought that they were a nice family.  I thought he had it made but apparently he fled home with alcoholism and tremendous anxiety.  I think he might be FA, avoidant and my mom, maybe FA anxious.  And maybe other stuff in there with my mom, PD traits or mental illness to a degree that she was able to function but impacted her relationships pretty badly. 

My inner critic has backed down since I posted this.  I've been talking a lot with other women and being very candid about my experiences knowing they would be able to empathize and be encouraging and validating.  I know some pretty amazing women who have a lot of wisdom and experience.  I think that connecting with "sisters", "aunties" and mother figures outside of my dysfunctional family system has been the most healing of all.  That feeling of being seen, truly loved, understood, and belonging with women who are each on their own powerful journey has healed me a LOT.

I have a couple of thoughts as to why we ended up with different Attachment Styles even though our childhoods have some similarities. It sounds like you were placed in an “you are on your own emotionally” situation growing up with very little nurturing. My mother was a low functioning BPD, completely lacked boundaries, was prone to intrusive nurturing, emotional incest (treated me more like a spouse than a child) and had extreme anger issues. I wasn’t so much lacking in nurturing as I was overwhelmed with unhealthy nurturing. My sister and I were sabotaged by her so we would “need her” to get things done. You were forced to be completely self-sufficient, whereas I was not allowed to be self-sufficient at all. Because her extreme anger was completely unpredictable, I had to be an empath just to survive. I learned to pick up minute clues about her moods which, unfortunately, makes me much too sensitive to pick up on my romantic partners moods. We might have different Attachment Styles, but I feel that we are on similar journeys!

I wonder if that's also on his website. I'll take a look!

Ok, so I read the Pete Walker material linked above. I see that he's describing two aspects of the critic: one dealing with perfectionism and one dealing with endangerment. I identify with him in my experience of having silenced the perfectionist over time. However, looking back I can see where perfectionism was absolutely debilitating. It had to do with personal expressions of myself in particular. I made some art that other people were amazed at and had deep appreciation for, and I was eventually convinced to market and sell it. That could have been more successful than it was but I was made sick and anxious about what I perceived to be imperfections and marks of incompetence in my work. I had terrible anxiety and shame about my pieces. I eventually abandoned them for many years because of the discomfort associated with them. Then, many years later, dig them out and discovered a new relationship to them. During that time I had done a lot of work in self development, some therapy, and I had come out of the trance of dysfunctional living quite a bit. I had found some peace inside myself. The difference was striking.

I used to be praised for how much workload I could handle without making mistakes. And of course, behind it was the anxiety of perfectionism standing there with a whip made from razor blades, ready to flog me should I slip and reveal my incompetent nature. It's really rather absurd. People around me were able to make mistakes, drop the ball, and solutions were found. In one job I had, it took eight years until I discovered a mistake in my work, and only after that time was I able to take it relatively in stride. In my mind eight years of outstanding results could justify dropping the ball, just this once. Really hard on myself if I let someone down or caused trouble or inconvenience. Really had to prove that I was good because of the internal shame I carried.

These days, it's just the guilt, in terms of the perfectionism. And some negative comparisons. This is mainly centered around my guilt in parenting. Failing my children, hurting them, creating burdens that they will carry and unpack as they can, just like I have. You'd think that I was having these kids by myself with perfect men and therefore I am the sole cause for their wounding, when if fact the father has deep personal problems that have persisted through decades and are severe... no growth, only decline. But no, I should have done better, could have done better, should not have been broken. I should not have been broken. I cry to type that. That's the core belief. None of what happened to me as a child justifies or explains how broken and in pain and confusion I was. As a child, as a teenager, as a young woman and as a mother and a partner I failed and should have done better, been better, had it together and not caused any harm. I have so much pain around my children. They are doing fine, they have come through their childhoods with so much more self awareness, hope, and healthy relating ability than I had. I've been on this journey for years with them, and The healing is real. They are grieving the outcome with dad, he's got serious issues. I was forced to raise them without help, without cooperation, providing everything on my own with no emotional support from my family (naturally) and absolutely no practical support from their dad. In fact, their dad was an endangerment to them. This isn't a subjective analysis, the courts found it to be so as well. It was the worst way to have to single parent. It's always been a struggle to survive. Until more recently in the last decade, we have the stability and happiness made possible by my own healing and the successes I've found in life because of that.

They are going to be ok, more ok than I ever could be at their ages. I'm SO thankful, don't get me wrong. But I have a hyper vigilance to correcting any mistake I ever made. I am way harder on myself than they have ever been. Not infrequently, one of them will out of the blue share a good memory from something we did together and I'm struck by how their memories are not blotted out by pain. There was a lot of good in spite of the difficulty, but I was the mom trying to work through the difficulty and being eaten alive by my own guilt and confusion. so the guilt has persisted. I want to be free from it and I habitually try to reason my way out of it. My brain clicks on to analyze and I can't find the logic behind letting it go. Does that make sense? My brain has decided that I will have to work very hard on myself until everyone is safe and that brings me to the next part... endangerment.

I have a persistent sense of endangerment that is strengthened by being HSP. The painful history combined with the HSP trait of caution... it can be a real burden. I'm vigilant about the prudent decisions, the safety of myself and everyone around me, and behind that is an excruciating fear of not being able to prevent a harm or a loss. But we cannot prevent all harm and all loss!! So when the Endangerment Bully pays me a visit I feel discouraged and as though I have to tough my way through, I have to dig to find the meaning in this life of loss. Because of the way I can connect authentically now and reach out to people, I CAN find that meaning and that hope and I'm ok. But what I'm saying is, this is a cloud I didn't recognize was a part of the inner critic... the endangerment piece. So now I understand just a little bit more that sentence I read in the Healing DA thread... "They are driven by mortal fear."

Would any of you care to share your battle with the inner critic? I sure can emapthize and could use some empathy myself. I'm so afraid someone will judge me for all this. I have shared about it with my partner, and with some trusted friends. Everyone has been supportive. I wish that was enough to lay this to rest. I clearly need to go deeper to overcome this. And it's not constant. It's just something that is easily triggered by seeing pain or hardship in my kids and pain and hardship is a part of life for any young adult.... why this unreasonable expectation I have of myself? Because I look back on the years when I was struggling so hard and I ridiculously believe I shouldn't have been struggling. This is something I hold against myself, not others. My kids, my nieces and nephews, my clients, they come to me for empathy and support because they know I won't judge them, and I can encourage them. I can easily see why other people struggle and it makes sense to me when someone is conditioned negatively, they live a life of pain and it's a victory to overcome it. How then can this still exist in me? Is it because my mother is the one who shamed and guilted me, outrageously? She projected a lot of her failures on to me. She was very active with that. It was a constant until the day she died. I have some unprocessed grief around her and her passing, and me never being able to make contact with who I hoped she was because.... she wasn't who I hoped she was. It's not fully resolved in me.

Whew. That was a lot, more than I intended and I will leave it for now .

I have a close associate who is a psychologist, and we have shared a lot about our lives and our journeys as women. She has suggested that we find a retreat of some kind to go to together, to help each other heal and to do some ritual around letting go and forgiving ourselves for our traumas and everything that came out of them. So she's looking for a way to make that happen. I think it will be really helpful and I trust her 1000%. She totally gets me. And she needs that healing too. So that's going to be interesting and share about it when/of we are able to make that come to pass.

Thank you alexandra, I was indeed overwhelmed and I still feel this heavy weight of having to make sure everything will be ok. I like that I am responsible, reliable, dependable, a good problem solver, and motivated to act when danger or challenge looms. I just can't seem to disconnect and relax from that. I'm always ready to offer assistance to my kids, or to anyone. my kids don't take advantage of that, they have learned good coping and problem solving by now. But I feel as if I have to hold the world together to be safe and that I might somehow fail. Not because they are ultra needy... but because I am ultra responsible with guilt involved and a sense of endangerment.

Acknowledging the overwhelmed and scared little kid in me trying to do the best she could to take care of it all hits a pretty painful spot. Cry-worthy that is.