Day 9 - overly critical

[Deleted member 8261]

I don't know if anyone struggles with this, but I am overly critical of myself. I have always been. Delving into the emotional exercises I hold a lot of guilt as I was a baby really wanted by my parents. They tried 6 years to have me. I have always felt like I have to be a 'good human being' to live up to their expectations of trying to hard to bring me into their life.

I know that is unrealistic.

So part of the TMS journey, is unraveling how critical I am of myself. Before TMS I would be critical about everything:
- body weight
- acne
- my hair

Very superficial things. I don't think of these things much since my TMS developed 6 months ago.

Now I am critical of myself for having TMS. This journey is going to help me with these aspects of myself. More self love, less criticism.

 

[Free of Fear]

Hi keenie. Thank you for being so candid. I too have moments when I'm critical of myself for having TMS. It helps me to remind myself that TMS is the strategy my mind chose to try to protect itself. It is not a good strategy, but it's preferable (in my opinion, and in my situation) to developing a drug addiction or completely shutting down emotionally. No matter how self-defeating TMS is, it's something we've used because we care about our lives and our survival.

Also, we live in a culture that encourages us to be a) critical of ourselves, and b) over-attentive to something being wrong with our bodies medically or structurally. So we haven't exactly been helped in that way!

Wishing you well