A hard pill to swallow: accepting the strength and influence of my outer critic

[GarlicMaster]

I needed to get a few things off my chest...

I recently just finished reading Walker's book on CPTSD and was immediately able to recognise and see myself in the description of what he calls the "inner-critic". I guess I would describe myself as a "shamed-based" personality; shame seems to be at the core of all of my emotional issues. For many years doctors and therapists diagnosed me with anxiety, but in the past 5 months I have come to realise that my anxiety is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem.

The anxiety I experience is predominantly the social kind. I have always found it hard to relate to how other anxiety suffers describe their experiences. I don't have irrational fears about my health or safety, nor do I get the sudden feeling of intense fear/panic that some of my friends (who suffer from panic attacks) tell me about. My anxiety seems to always stem from the negative voice inside my head telling me that I should be ashamed of myself (that I am a "bad" person), and that people are judging me. I suppose it is for this reason why I struggle so much when it comes to interpersonal relationships (and have a tendency to keep people at arms length).

A few weeks a go I decided to give up alcohol. Since my early teens I have abused both alcohol and drugs to help ease my social anxiety. While I was never chemically addicted, I felt that I was on a slippery slope and that my dependency on alcohol to help "sooth" myself was becoming extremely dangerous and unhealthy. The incident that lead to this decision (which I won't go into here as it is still a little difficult for me to talk about); lead to one huge toxic/shame attack that lasted for several days. Towards the end of this episode, (with the help of Walker's book) I was able to confront my inner critic on a number of occasions and "stop" it in it's track, and practice self-soothing instead of constantly beating myself up. I believe that I made significant progress and the week after I had recovered from this, I felt the most confident and positive I have felt about in a long time.

Unfortunately, however, this past week has brought with it new demons and challenges for me to conquer. I recently got engaged and my social anxiety has come back with a vengeance as I try to navigate through the social aspect of what comes with planning a wedding. Honestly, a part of me wants to elope secretly so that I don't have to deal with people (especially family); but I know that this would just be running away from my problems (and I don't want this either). My fiancée's father is coming to our apartment for dinner tonight so that was can discuss wedding plans. I'm already stressing out about what to cook for him (I'm convinced he will hate whatever I make, even though I know that this is just an emotional/irrational reaction). I'm terrified about our apartment not looking clean enough and that I'll be judged for this (I'm currently not employed so I do most of the housework, etc). Truthfully, all I want to do is just lock my bedroom door and run away from this...

I'm beginning to realise how strong my "outer-critic" is. My OC is the reason why I feel that everyone is out to judge, mock and reject me. It causes me to go into "shut-down" mode where all I want to do is run away and hide from people who just want to help me. It's painful to admit, but my OC also makes me incredibly judgemental of others. Even though I don't voice these opinions I cannot deny that they exist (in my mind) and are the reason why I find it so hard to just sit down and have a "relaxed" conversation with someone (without needing alcohol). It makes me very sad how my OC has made me push so many people out of my life....

This has all be a very hard pill to swallow and I am struggling to fight of the voices in my head that are telling me what an awful person I am.

[Pieces]

As long as you're not aware of something like this there is no way to change it so you've already made the first step

I think what could help is instead of getting engaged with these kind of thoughts and feelings you could just be aware of them and letting them be. Just look at the thoughts and experience that you're not those thoughts, you're the one who is aware of them here and now. To get caught up/lost in thoughts you have to give them most of your attention, the moment you realize you're lost in thought is the moment to redirect you attention (not thoughts!) to the present moment and then notice ''I got lost in thought and now I'm back'. Then you can start thinking about how to constructively work on what you would like to see happen and maybe even feel some relief and satisfaction when you accomplish those things

It's very hard to do when you whole life you've been stuck in thought and your whole system is conditioned to be that way, there is also no point in getting angry at getting lost in thought because it happens unconsciously, that's what dissociation is; you not aware the moment is happens. What you can do it unlearn to blame yourself (that's just more critic stuff) for it (it's how you're wired at the moment) and get back in the present.