Throughout my life, and
especially in my teenage years and through most of my 20s, I have had a
backchat dialogue of negative self-judgments that are constantly going on,
especially when in conversation or interactions with others. These negative self-judgments are, I am:
boring, un-intelligent even “stupid”, “not fun to talk to”, “saying the wrong
thing”. These negative self-judgments
consume my mind / me, distract me, evoke fear within and as me and have
adversely affected my ability to make friends.
These negative self-judgments are self-fulfilling prophesies because, up
until now, I have reacted in fear to these thoughts, as if they are real, and
as a reaction to these fears and to help protect me, I have “frozen-up” in
social interactions where I just would not talk and when I did say something,
it would be off beat because I was not completely here communicating with
others, but lost in my mind sorting through all the potential things that I
could say looking for that that “perfect statement”, of which would ironically
lead me to say something that actually was / is “stupid”, if you will, because
I was not completely here in the first place.
Now, up until now, I
projected these negative self-judgments onto others wherein I was worried that
others were judging me these ways, when in fact it was me judging me and even
tormenting me with these negative self judgments. I never considered that point that these negative self-judgments
were actually my own creations and participations and were not actually coming
from others, but me. So, I would fear
that others would judge me as stupid or boring, for instance, and then react to
that fear as if these judgments were actually really coming from them and then
change my behavior accordingly.
So, as a consequence of
not realizing that I was just fucking with myself by believing that my own
negative self-judgments were actually coming from others, instead them coming
from me as the actual source, I then became withdrawn, quiet, shy, taciturn,
reticent, and socially quiescent; and then also I tried to prove to others (and
really to myself) that I was all those things that I feared that I wasn’t. So, I took extra difficult college courses
and started writing my own music so that I could be that “genius” character
that no one “really understood” just so that I can justify to myself and prove
to myself that I was not these negative self-judgments, or that these negative
self judgments had a valid reason for existing within and as me because they
were just the counterweight to my positive self identity as the “genius”
type. Of course, this idea of the
genius who cannot relate socially was also a just an idea that I was using for
my own self-interest of providing some form of reason why I was “seemingly
stupid, boring, etc” and not necessarily actual reality. Then from here I started projecting that one
day I would be like a business super star or a rock star of sorts of which
would be like my ultimate vindication point of “Yes! See all you assholes! I
really am cool! I really am awesome!” –
when in fact it was me that I was trying to prove myself to the whole time and
it was me that was judging me so negatively in the first place.
Geese, were would I be today
had I not had any negative self-judgments to begin with? Where would I be today if these negative
self-judgment internal dialogue / backchat just did not exist at all? I went through the negative experience
produced by these negative self judgments that I imagined / projected were
coming from others when in fact it was me, then the fear and torment as
reactions to this dialogue, then the social withdrawal, then the positive
identity bullshit, like I am really a genius musician or an esoteric billionaire
to be, all just so that I can feel better about the negative dialogue that I
was constantly tormenting myself with – all of which altered the course of my
life by severely limiting my within my own self expression.
So, today, these negative
self-judgments are far less of a problem, but they still exist nonetheless, I
just don’t react to them like used to.
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