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I need to lose some weight. I just returned from a week-long fitness “boot camp” that helped motivate me. This morning I went to an exercise class at my local gym. I watched myself in the mirror as I moved through the motions of exercise and found myself making comparisons between myself and others in the class. I was unfamiliar with the routines so I was awkward and out of synch with the class. I disliked my image. And my inner voice was humiliating me….calling myself uncoordinated and fat. It was not a fun time.
Driving home I was mulling over the experience and thinking about how I allowed my inner voice to attack me and say so many cruel things to me….things I would never say to another person. I wondered why I wasn’t praising myself for the effort I made in class and all last week. It made me think about one of the conversations I’d had at fitness camp last week. A woman said she gave her critical inner voice a name and everytime “Marilyn” began a mean inner dialogue, she’d talk back to her. So today, I named my nasty inner voice. The name I came up with was Julia….wow, my older sister’s name. And a lightbulb went off. I loved my (now deceased) sister very much. But she was very critical of me growing up. My mother always told me she was jealous…..but I adored her and accepted her criticisms not realizing until today that in some ways she scarred my soul.
Have you named your mean inner voice? Have you learned how to tame her cruel remarks?
I need to lose some weight. I just returned from a week-long fitness “boot camp” that helped motivate me. This morning I went to an exercise class at my local gym. I watched myself in the mirror as I moved through the motions of exercise and found myself making comparisons between myself and others in the class. I was unfamiliar with the routines so I was awkward and out of synch with the class. I disliked my image. And my inner voice was humiliating me….calling myself uncoordinated and fat. It was not a fun time.
Driving home I was mulling over the experience and thinking about how I allowed my inner voice to attack me and say so many cruel things to me….things I would never say to another person. I wondered why I wasn’t praising myself for the effort I made in class and all last week. It made me think about one of the conversations I’d had at fitness camp last week. A woman said she gave her critical inner voice a name and everytime “Marilyn” began a mean inner dialogue, she’d talk back to her. So today, I named my nasty inner voice. The name I came up with was Julia….wow, my older sister’s name. And a lightbulb went off. I loved my (now deceased) sister very much. But she was very critical of me growing up. My mother always told me she was jealous…..but I adored her and accepted her criticisms not realizing until today that in some ways she scarred my soul.
Have you named your mean inner voice? Have you learned how to tame her cruel remarks?
I haven't. I never thought about doing it. I might try it. And no I have not tamed the cruel inner metal abuser. Sometimes I make progress but then slide back into it.
That's great the thought process gave you a breakthrough.I know what you are talking about though. Sometimes I say such terrible things to myself I am actually shocked. I would never speak to another person I loved that way. Or to anyone for that matter.
On this subject now I am thinking about it, perhaps I could use the mirror work I am always telling other people to try, to break this terribly damaging habit of berating myself. Hmm. Every time I start screaming at myself, I could run to the mirror instead and tell myself how much I love me instead.
Thanks for starting the thread. It's interesting and your post has given me much to think about.. I suspect it will probably be moved, so I'm glad you posted it here first and I saw it. I don't go to the other forums as often.
I call my cruel inner voice "Mommydearest." My mother suffered from narcissistic personality disorder and she was very good at criticizing me - especially when I had done nothing wrong. I spent years and years in therapy thanks to my mom. Nothing that I ever did was good enough - absolutely nothing. As a child, I deliberately stopped doing things she had asked me to do because I knew my efforts would only be rewarded with her words of dissatisfaction. For example, I could go clean up the kitchen for her after we'd have dinner. I'd wash all the dishes and pots and pans by hand since we didn't have a dishwasher (other than me). Then I'd wipe down all the cabinets and counters and sweep and mop the floor. My mom would come look at the sparkling clean kitchen and say, "I'm going to stop letting you do the washing up because I've noticed that you always rinse the dish sponge in warm water and leave it beside the sink when you finish. Don't you know that rinsing something in warm water encourages germs?"
So, I quit. My mother didn't have to ever "let" me clean up the kitchen after that comment. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, and I did my best to fill my time after school with extra-curricular activities, so that when I finally got home, dinner (and clean-up) were long over.
Now, I have learned to recognize when Mommydearest has shown up in my head yet again to let me know what a worthless person I am - just in case I might have forgotten in the 3 minutes which elapsed from the last time she told me this. I counter Mommydearest by telling myself how amazing I am. Another person who had the misfortune to be raised by my mom would most likely have committed suicide by now, and certainly become a serious drug addict at the very least. Probably be in prison if the suicide attempt didn't work.
But not me. I'm super girl! I put out my arms and soar above all the rest. I am WOMAN! Hear me ROAR! I chuckle to myself when I think this way, but it certainly beats crying or - worst of all - giving up. Let those who don't know any better criticize me if that's what they feel they need to do. On my good days, I ignore my theoretical IRL critics and I certainly ignore the voice of Mommydearest.
And I make a point out of ALWAYS rinsing my dish sponge in warm water.
Ummm, yes, the first Mean Inner Voice that came to mind...actually, the only one...was also my mother. Betcha many women could say the same, and many men could say it about DearOldDad.
My mother was left with five children ages from 6 months to 12 years. No child support. Little familial support, even though she moved us all back up north from Texas back to her home town so she would have her brothers near her.
Yes she did say mean derogatory things to me, and that is probably where I picked up the habit. But I choose not to blame her for my adult failings. She was poor and had to work at a menial job with as much overtime as she could get just to put food in our mouths. No child care for us after school kids she must have worried herself sick about what we might be up to.
I can't even imagine the kind of strain and anxiety she must have carried, and all alone. So yeah the habit may have started from my upbringing, but it is my responsibility to break it now and I've been trying for many years. The things I say to myself are much worse than anything she ever said to me, and I suspect she said the same things to herself, too.
I remember..Mom always made me a mincemeat pie for Thanksgiving because she and I were the only two in the family who liked it. When her arthritis got bad, one year she couldn't get the jar open, first, and making the pie crust was really too painful for her. She called me in tears saying horrible mean things about herself, because she couldn't make my pie. That was when I realized, even though she might have done it to us, she was doing it to herself as well.
So my mother is absolved of all blame.
I am not talking about other people or their mothers, just me and mine, so no one needs to get all up in arms that I am trying to sound holier than thou. Mothers like Colorado Rambler described...and what we see in the news...I can't even imagine. CR has the right attitude and must feel so proud to have overcome such beginnings. I wonder if I could have.
By the way my 'best friend from high school' is still my very close dear friend. When we talk about our childhoods she always says the same thing "no offense but you were abused when we were growing up, your mother was really mean". I just say yeah I know and change the subject.
PS I married a man just like my mother only worse, brow beat me into the ground until I got out.
Last edited by catsmom21; 04-02-2022 at 05:28 AM..
I remember the first time I noticed mine. It was long before I had any information about models of psychology.
My daughter needed correcting and I said something to her and left her room. As I stepped into the hall I realized what I had said was not what I really wanted to tell her but rather what my mother would have said to me. I had to go back and tell her I made a mistake and we discussed it differently.
Those voices seem predominantly those of our mothers but added in, I think, are a number of authority figures who have played a part in our lives and each successive one can reinforce that negativity towards self if they haven't been done in a kind and constructive way. And we do no small share on our own of hearing negativity even when it doesn't exist because of our twisted perception from past experience.
An unhealthy or unaware mom/dad can set the groundwork but I think we, experiencing a pattern of correction and our negative feeling state, are the ones who reinforce each successive one block by block. Mom may be gone but we are still building.
The voice becomes ours, actually is ours. That of our little self who was listening, trusting and believing what we were told. We've internalized it.
I think it's important to own it as ours because only through ownership do we have the power to change it. So
I think of my voice as my Little Girl. She is comforted by not having to be in charge since she's confused about this love/hate thing going on and I, the adult voice, take over and tell her it's okay.
We're humans and we make mistakes. But we're okay.
I am not talking about other people or their mothers, just me and mine, so no one needs to get all up in arms that I am trying to sound holier than thou. Mothers like Colorado Rambler described...and what we see in the news...I can't even imagine. CR has the right attitude and must feel so proud to have overcome such beginnings. I wonder if I could have.
By the way my 'best friend from high school' is still my very close dear friend. When we talk about our childhoods she always says the same thing "no offense but you were abused when we were growing up, your mother was really mean". I just say yeah I know and change the subject.
PS I married a man just like my mother only worse, brow beat me into the ground until I got out.
Thank you for your kind words. Those who were raised by a narcissistic parent often have major self esteem issues. I know that I do. My mother had a very difficult life herself right from the very start. It was one of those family secret things, but I am fairly certain that my mother's father - my grandfather - was a very abusive man. I also strongly suspect that he abused my mom in more ways than one. I never met him because he died when he was still relatively young. I don't think I missed out on anything in his regard. So, I have to work on understanding and forgiveness for my mother.
I can't imagine my mom even knowing what my favorite foods were, never mind going out of her way to fix them for me and crying if she was unable to do so. That memory of yours must feel very bittersweet.
It has been a while since the negative inner voice has made an appearance. Like some of the posts before, the source is from childhood. It's painful but I am done with it. How do I keep it tamed? I changed the people I spend time with and their positive feelings, words, and actions keep me going for a long time. I bet they could keep me going for the rest of my life. I want my daughter to feel the same way.
.... Have you named your mean inner voice? Have you learned how to tame her cruel remarks?
No. It's just one of many personal streaks. I have a mean streak and a compassionate streak and several other personal streaks that I won't go into here. But they are all ME, I accept them and take personal responsibility for them all as separate aspects of ME which taken combined altogether equal the greater whole that is ME. So I don't give separate names to any of my streaks. If I did that then I might suspect myself of being stricken with multiple personalities disorder.
I don't attempt to tame or diminish any mean remarks that my mean streak says to me because when my mean streak speaks out it's usually being 100% brutally honest and truthfully goading me about things that I need to hear and consider seriously using my critical thinking skills. Usually it's about important things that I've been deliberately avoiding, procrastinating about or refusing to admit to myself.
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