On the way to work one morning, I was momentarily distracted
and my car crossed the fog line and hit the buzz strip. I
immediately swerved back onto the road. And at the same time
I felt a very strong criticism coming from the driver of the
car that was closest to me. I felt caught, judged and angry
at that person. Then I realized that I had made the whole
thing up in my head. I in fact had no way of knowing what
that driver was thinking or whether or not he or she had even
noticed what had happened.
This event got me to thinking about criticism and how it works.
I realized that, when I am feeling criticized by someone who
has neither said nor done anything to indicate criticism,
that criticism is necessarily always coming, not from them
but from me, from my mind, from the voices in my head. I further
realized that the same thing happens in my head when there
is some indication that they are critical of me regardless
of whether the evidence that they are feeling critical of
me is great or small. I am still creating self-criticism in
my head. Furthermore, if they are feeling critical of me,
that doesn't necessarily mean that I should feel critical
of myself. But I tend to feel critical of myself anyway.
Now maybe you don't have this experience, but if you have
a history of childhood trauma, my bet is that you do have
some struggle with yourself around feelings of criticism.
In my own case, my perpetrator was constantly finding things
to criticize me for. He was undoubtedly finding a great deal
to criticize in himself, but I of-course did not look at it
that way at the time. Each time he criticized me, I also criticized
myself. I criticized myself for making myself vulnerable to
him. I felt that I had somehow blundered by giving him something
to criticize. Obviously, even if my behavior had been perfect,
if there were such a thing, he would still have found something
to criticize me for. His criticism wasn't about my behavior.
It was about whatever was going on inside him. Maybe he felt
jealous, resentful, envious, or threatened.
In any event, this constant barrage of criticism left me with
a head full of critical thoughts about myself just waiting
for an opportunity to assert themselves. So now, as I go through
my day, I am constantly on guard. I expect criticism. I hear
criticism in my head. I see criticism or the potential for
criticism all around me. I am constantly considering the potential
for my being criticized. In fact I find it very uncomfortable
to hear someone else being criticized. I think that it stirs
up fears of my being the next target.
I think that most people who have suffered childhood trauma
have similar struggles with self-criticism. In fact I think
that most of these people have been subjected to a great deal
of criticism growing up. But even in those cases where they
were not criticized directly, I think there necessarily must
have been a lot of implicit criticism and/or self-critical
thoughts that they took from their experience. They may have
identified with someone else who was being criticized or abused,
and experienced guilt by association. Or they may simply have
wondered, "Why me?" and then tried to answer the
question. When we ask "Why me?" we tend to come
up with self-criticisms as the answer. All of these self-critical
thoughts get stored in our heads and brought into play whenever
circumstances trigger them.
There is another phenomenon that occurs with regard to criticism.
When I first started therapy, one of the things my therapist
taught me was that "criticism is always a projection."
At the time that he said it, I thought he meant that we criticize
in others what is in fact wrong with ourselves. In those days
my inner critic had the upper hand. In retrospect, what I
believe that he meant was that whenever we are feeling critical
of others it is because we are feeling critical of ourselves
in some way. This being the case, we can use our critical
thoughts about others as a signal to remind us to look at
how we are feeling critical of ourselves.
Desired Outcome: To become better able to recognize our own
self-criticisms and to distinguish them from criticisms from
others, to stop ourselves from projecting our self-criticisms
onto others, and to become better at questioning the validity
of those self-critical thoughts.
Discussion Starters: Were you criticized as a child? Did you
fell criticized as a child? Did you blame yourself for what
happened to you? Did you find fault with yourself for what
happened to you? In what ways are you still self-critical?
In what ways do your tendencies to be self-critical impact
your life today? Is there a valid role for self-criticism
in our lives?
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
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