I have an alter-ego. And he's a dickhead: Why you need to ignore *and* appreciate your self-critic.

 

Bruce Wayne has Batman. Peter Parker has Spiderman. Their alter-egos enable them to fight crime, beat the bad guys and have cool adventures. My alter-ego on the other hand, doesn’t have a cool name. He’s just a complete bastard. He shit talks me all the time, puts me down, makes me feel worthless or unhappy or undeserving of love and the nice things in my life. He’s a dick. But he’s also who this blog post is about. This isn’t a character assassination, far from it. I’m going to tell you why you need to stop letting your inner-critic create a distorted version of who you are, but also, I’m going to tell you why even your inner critic deserves compassion.

We’ve all had those experiences in life where we just want the world to swallow you up. Maybe you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of a room of people, a date you really like, or just made a simple error at work that’s just wound you up. I’ll give you one of my stinkers, of which I have many to choose from. I once managed to convince myself that someone I had strong feelings for, also had feelings for me. Hardly uncommon I know, but it was completely imagined in my own head, out of hope, out of want and admiration for them, but also out of miscommunication and a misreading of their signals. When I decided the time was right to confess this, all hell broke loose. I was utterly mortified. Notwithstanding the gutwrenching disappointment and heartache which I felt at the time, I also felt sheer and unparalleled embarrassment. Then, he appeared. Self-Critic Joe. I call him Bad Joe, so that’s how I’ll refer to him.

Bad Joe was apoplectic at me.

“You bloody idiot!!! How could you get it *that* wrong? How could you even let this happen? You’re supposed to be the wiser one, the mature one! That’s what everyone tells you, but this is a schoolboy error! You’re a fraud, everything people say about you isn’t true. Or maybe, they’re telling you one thing and thinking another. That would make sense, after all – there has to be a reason you misread this situation. They must think you’re not good enough, and they are right.”

Can you see how that snowballed? How the negativity builds, how it becomes internalised and personalised? That’s the thought process, the scathing condemnation from Bad Joe, my self-critic. For months, I couldn’t see past that at all. It just hung in my mind; accepted by myself as truth and never questioned. Of course, he was right. That was the only way this would have happened otherwise. The thing about self-critics, is we so deeply internalise what they’re saying to us, that their criticism becomes a part of us. We don’t even acknowledge it. Well, eventually I began to learn about Bad Joe and his existence. Not only did he exist, and I found the awareness to be able to say “woah, Bad Joe is being a bit of a dick here”, but I also found the awareness to dismiss him. Of course, I could get things wrong, get wrapped up in my emotions and my weight of feeling. That was totally normal, a completely human failing and fault. That’s what brings us all together: common humanity. Yes, it’s true. I made myself look like a bit of a berk. I derailed my life a bit and become very depressed as my self-esteem tanked. It was a disaster. But humans do that. Our emotions betray us, but also are our way of expressing ourselves to the outside world, to others. I don’t hate myself for feeling that way then, or even making it publicly known. Bad Joe was berating me for being exactly what I cannot change: my humanity, my vulnerability and my devotion to others.

The situation hurt me a lot. I didn’t treat myself with compassion, but derision. Of course, I was unhappy, and the more I wondered “why am I so unhappy?” the louder and louder Bad Joe would get. But that’s the catch with Bad Joe. He’s not actually a bad dude. He, in his own way, is trying to protect me. Protect me from hurt, emotional distress, pain and suffering. In the same way that overactive anxiety makes anxiety…. well… worse, in that cruel twist of fate, so does an over-active self-critic. We absolutely need that ability to weigh up our decisions, analyse our actions and have the humility to see where we went wrong. But that should never come at the expense of what we all have in common. Even what you and your deepest, darkest critics have in common. Humanity. The mistakes we make, the people we hurt, others and ourselves, are human. Don’t hurt yourself for being what you are. You.