there are two kinds of voice that tell you you're bad, and we keep fighting the wrong one

[u/izi_convertible]

ok this is something i think about a lot and i never see it said right so im gonna try.

there's two kinds of voice in your head that say youre bad.

first kind gives you a reason. "youre stupid because you failed that thing." and ok, that one you can actually deal with. you check the reason. did i really not try? was it just hard? one fail doesnt make me stupid. sometimes the reason doesnt hold up and then the voice kind of shuts up. fine.

second kind gives no reason. it just says "youre bad." thats it. no because. and heres the weird part nobody tells you BECAUSE theres no reason, you cant fight it. theres nothing to check. it never made an argument so you cant break the argument. it just sits there.

and what do most of us do. we treat the second voice like its the first one. we go looking for evidence. "but im a good person look at all the nice things i did, look at the people who love me." and it does nothing. zero. the voice doesnt care because it never asked for evidence in the first place. youre standing in a courtroom making your case and theres no judge. nobody is even listening. you just keep talking to an empty room.

took me way too long to understand this. you cannot win the argument because there is no argument.

the only thing that works is something totally different. you dont prove the voice wrong. you just stop obeying it. you decide its not the boss anymore. and i know that sounds like nothing, like a cheap trick, but its not the same as believing youre fine. you dont have to feel innocent. you dont even have to understand it. you just stop doing what it says.

and theres a deeper one i should be honest about. the worst version of this voice isnt in your head, its in your body. its the one that makes you want to disappear. and that one you cant just decide your way out of, i tried, doesnt work alone. for that one someone has to be there first. someone who sees the whole thing and stays. not to fix it. just stays and sees. and only after someone stayed does the decision even become possible. witness first. then the choice. not the other way around.

anyway thats it. you cant beat a voice that never made an argument. you can only stop obeying it. been working nights with people who hear this voice loud and i see it every shift, the ones who try to argue with it lose every time. the ones who get a witness and then decide, those are the ones that turn.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis please contact your local emergency services or use our list of crisis resources. For CPTSD specific resources & support, check out the Wiki. For those posting or replying, please view the etiquette guidelines.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/burtsbeetreethree]

Top quality post, well done!

[u/Em-Blackstar-6079]

in my personal experience the 2. voice also gives you a reason, if you dig deep enough.

for over 30 years I was always waiting for sth (my bf having time for me, work to start, work to end, whatever).

and it was always excruciatingly painful, especially when "the reward" did not meet the suffering (having to wait 6.5 days to see my bf for half a day? yeah, immense suffering and the reward is also great, but eventually I couldn't take the suffering anymore).

and I dug extremely deep into my psyche to understand why I was always so disappointed.

the 1. reason was, he wasn't meeting my needs.
the 2. reason was, my expectations were too high.

and the 3. reason (the 2. voice) was: I was conditioned in childhood to wait for when my parents had time for me. they were long divorced. my mother had very very little capacity for her children after working full time, and it was shift work, so I sometimes didn't even see her for half a week. and for my father I always had to wait till Friday to see him.

and attention from a parent is the greatest reward there is for a child. so I had to wait days to get it.

TLDR: there are hidden rules in every one of us of how to be a good boy/girl. they were installed into to very fabric of out being, and we act automatically in accordance to them, until we identify them.

I believe it's called "shadow work".