Feb
20
BPD and the Pathological Self Critic
Filed Under General
In a book entitled Self Esteem, Mathew Mckay, PhD and Patrick Fanning write indepth about disarming what they call “The Critic”, a name they assign to that voice in one’s head that is always populating negative, self loathing, and self critical thoughts.
McKay and Fanning offer a very insightful view of “The Critic” and believe in order to get rid of this voice’s negative self talk, it must be disarmed.
Though the authors do not get into specific mental illnesses in their book, it is easy to draw parallels between their analysis of negative self talk and the low self esteem factor that comes with BPD.
For me, the voice is absolutely abusive: bad memories, criticisms, and unpleasant thoughts constantly fill my head. McKay and Fanning talk about one’s self esteem “going through a cuisnart” (food processor) when “The Critic” is at its best.
Here are a few examples of how my critic abuses me:
1.) When in social situations, the critic puts me down and offers thoughts that I am boring, unattractive, unexciting, and not worthy of being around others.
2.) When my mind wanders, the critic rear’s its ugly head taking on various forms of people, places, and events that were traumatic and negative for me. In other words, when I just want to sit and relax, the critic starts instant replays of events that were painful.
3.) When in a situation where I am performing a task, such as attempting to compete in a tough athletic contest, taking academic exams, or playing an instrument in front of a crowd, the critic downs me so much that I lose concentration and completely blow my performance. This causes me great pain, because when I am alone, practicing my various tasks, I do them fine; but when the time comes to put it all out on the line, I choke, screw up, and end up with disappointing results.
4.) When trying to motivate myself to do something, ie. workout, create websites, clean my apartment, get out of the house, or socialize, the critic always uses negative voices to motivate me. In other words, instead of building me up and making me feel good about myself, the critic motivates me with negative self talk and replays of past painful events. Yes, the critic does succeed and getting me to do the task, but the enjoyment and self fulfilling aspects of going about the business of life are completely muffled and lost.
Those with BPD have harsh, awful, and cruel critical voices.
To make mine go away, I try to use some of the strategies described by McKay and Fanning in their book, but sometimes those are just not enough.
This is one aspect of BPD that troubles me: When will these awful voices that in the long run only serve to hurt and ruin me be silent?
What will it take to actually believe in myself and be confident?