You know all those posts about ways to make it easier to tell your mean inner voice to shut up? Like “imagine they’re an annoying kid on x-box” or “imagine they’re trump” or “give them an annoying name” etc.
If those things work for you don’t read on. If they don’t, though, and telling them to shut up doesn’t make your self criticism go away, it just makes it challenge you and spiral further into upsetting thoughts—
I really recommend looking into Internal Family Systems therapy.
Instead of being about shutting up your inner critical voice, you listen to it and figure out what part of you is saying that and why, and then you address the root causes of those fears and insecurities
For example, say you have the thought “ugh I look disgusting today” and telling that voice to shut up might make it just fire back with “I’m repulsive, I’m worthless, I should die” and get progressively more extreme and negative
An IFS model might identify that voice as a Part that sees your physical body as an objectified signifier of your worth. You can then address the Part and ask “who taught you that?” or “what are you afraid will happen if you like your body? Did someone hurt you for your body? Do you think if you hurt yourself first they won’t have reason to hurt you? Maybe you trying to hurt yourself is actually you wanting to protect yourself from a greater harm from someone else. Maybe you just want to be safe. That’s okay, you deserve to feel safe. And I have other ways to feel safe now besides self harm, I’ve learned new things to do. Let’s do those.”
Then you’ve made that part feel addressed so it settles down and let’s you take care of it instead of getting louder and more defensive and agitated. So the voice in your head will stop being cruel and find healthier ways to address its fears.
And of course, this is really a strategy for you to confront the fears beneath your self hatred and accept and work through them instead of trying to suppress them with more anger and self hatred at having those fears in the first place.
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but that’s an interesting way to look at it… how do you get to those root-cause questions? It seems like that takes a LOT of digging and knowing yourself or why the critic’s saying what it says to get to the point that you can address those call-outs in such a pointed way.
The best I’ve been able to figure out so far has been the whole, “well, my puppy-ass brain peed on the carpet again. Time to put it back on the newspaper and gently tell it that it’s okay it made a mistake and try again.” (And I’ve fallen off the horse on even that, haha!)
ime a good place to start is to ask yourself some information gathering questions:
in what situations in the past have i felt this way [the sentiment the voice is expressing] before? were there any that were recurrent or made a particularly big impression?
in what situations in the past has somebody told me this before? was it someone who had an important role in my life/development?
what is the action urge associated with this? what does this part want me to do to resolve the problem? what do i feel like that action would change or accomplish?
what triggered this? was i just in a situation or thinking about a situation that was stressful or upsetting OR that reminded me of one that was? when have i been in this situation before? what happened last time? what messages did i internalize?
word of caution: if you’re very traumatized or dissociative it may not always be safe to get right into this and there may be work you want to do to make your Parts less volatile before trying it. in that case, just trying to be compassionate to yourself and gently remind the upset part of you that you are safe, deserving of care, a good person, etc can be a good start.
I’ve seen way too much negativity toward butch lesbians this pride month so here’s your unfriendly reminder that butches are incredibly brave for even daring to exist openly and you literally cannot be a femme lesbian if you hate butches.
okay but neville longbottom as head of gryffindor house and there’s all these stories of him going head to head with an army of werewolves, being tortured by death eaters and killing Voldemort’s snake with godric gryffindor’s actual sword but when the students see him he’s like cradling a pot plant and crying cause he saw someone lost their pet on the noticeboard and they’re like “that guy? are you sure it’s that guy”
BONUS: one of the older student’s get dared to go up and ask him if it’s true and neville just makes direct eye-contact and says “voldemort was a punk bitch” and continues knitting a lil baby sweater for a mandrake
Ok I saw a rb of this with some context and I only remember like half of it so I’m also using Google I may get some of this wrong
But apparently the “first errand” thing isn’t just a cute little fact about the little kid, it’s a totally real thing done in Japan to teach kids that they can like rely on the community to offer assistance if they need it. They send their kids (like 2-3 years old) out alone to perform a relatively simple errand like going to a convenience store and buying a carton of milk. (There’s even a tv show where a camera crew follows children as they accomplish this first errand.) It’s not uncommon to see kids as young as 6-7 riding the subway alone because they’ve gained this sense of independence that comes from knowing that there will be people to help out if they need it.
Oh my god that’s even better
As someone who grew up with a paranoid and over-protective mother, this both warms my heart and terrifies me.
okay but neville longbottom as head of gryffindor house and there’s all these stories of him going head to head with an army of werewolves, being tortured by death eaters and killing Voldemort’s snake with godric gryffindor’s actual sword but when the students see him he’s like cradling a pot plant and crying cause he saw someone lost their pet on the noticeboard and they’re like “that guy? are you sure it’s that guy”
BONUS: one of the older student’s get dared to go up and ask him if it’s true and neville just makes direct eye-contact and says “voldemort was a punk bitch” and continues knitting a lil baby sweater for a mandrake
a smug indulgence. tell yourself, “i’m gonna do this thing because i like it, and there’s nothing you can do to make me feel bad about it!” eat that cake! read that romance novel! be free!!!
