(This is an experiment I'm trying. I don't know how long this series will last or even where I'm trying to take it, but I have a problem I'd like to work out and you can come with me, if you choose to.)
When I was little, my parents sent me to swimming lessons at our local pool. I quite liked the water, but swimming wasn't particularly intuitive to me, and I wasn't really getting it. I don't remember much at all about those lessons, until a few weeks in when the teacher then ordered all but three of us out of the pool and lined them up along the edge.
"Now," he said, pointing to the three of us still in the water, "you watch them swimming, and tell them what they're doing wrong."
They started with me. I don't think they ever got to the other two kids. The teacher called on various children to shout out what I was doing wrong, and since I still couldn't swim at all, there were a lot of things. My four-year-old brain became very quickly overloaded, at which point they all, teacher included, triumphantly chorused that I was putting my feet on the bottom of the pool.
"That's right! You can't swim like that, can you?"
This is still a fairly accurate description of the way the world looks to me sometimes. I'm trying to do something and the whole world is lined up on the edge of the swimming pool, waiting and encouraged to spot what I'm doing wrong and point it out to everyone. An unidentified someone is that swimming teacher, directing everyone's attention to me, telling them I'm probably the one that will screw up the most (I've forgiven most of the people who were callous to me as a child, but if I ever knowingly meet that swimming teacher, I will actually shout at him. Who the fuck thinks that's a good way to get a four-year-old to be a confident swimmer? I didn't learn to swim for another ten years, long after people had stopped trying to teach me). I thought for a long while that seeing the world as that swimming pool was the reason I am so stupidly, unreasonably self-critical, and it's only recently I've started to realise that's not the root of the problem.
A week or so ago, I typed "dealing with the critical voice" into a search engine, hoping to find something a bit more helpful than my therapist's exhortations to "be a bit nicer to yourself". There were a lot of descriptions of the critical voice, all way more nuanced than "kid at the side of the swimming pool". They described a critical voice positioning itself as supportive and encouraging, often saying nice things, recommending rewards, and generally sounding as much like a force for good as anything can.
My critical voice thinks I'm a great person. An embarrassingly great person. My critical voice tells me, with absolute sincerity, that I am incredibly smart and talented and there's nothing I can't do. My critical voice believes in my writing more than almost anyone I've ever met. It's convinced that I have it in me to be exceptional, and often when I read books that voice will be there, saying get a load of this crap. Can you believe this got published? You're so much better than this, when you get your novel written it's going to blow everyone away.
Sometimes I try something and I can't do it. My critical voice, which has already crafted several images of me doing that thing perfectly, says, Hmmm. That was bad. Try again. So I do, and I fail, and the voice says, That's strange. It really doesn't look that hard. I fail again, and it says Really? I mean, really? That's three times. Look how easy it is for other people to do this. You're definitely better than some of these people, but you can't even do this simple thing? Wow.
Eventually, I get upset and frustrated and discouraged, and the voice says, There, there. I'm sure it's an off-day. Let's get you something you like. How about sitting on your own and eating cake? You like those things.
I've written a few things that my critical voice is absolutely 100% happy with. Yes, it says. This, right here, this is the writer that you are. This is amazing. I knew you could do it. Problem is, that thing is usually a few pages of a novel. When I try to add more to it, the voice is sitting there saying no, no, this isn't right. Look at that awesome stuff you wrote. You're letting that writing down with this stuff. No, it's alright, I understand it might take a little while to get into the flow, I'll wait. Hmmm, I thought you'd have it by now. This is still all wrong. If anything it's getting worse. Maybe you should stop, you're obviously not in the right place tonight. Maybe have some cake, replenish a bit, reward yourself for trying.
I hate this bastard voice. It makes me feel like a massive egotist and a complete failure at the same time. This the first time I've tried to define it this way; I've been aware of it for a long time, but I always thought of it as two voices, one trying to be encouraging and the other beating me down. It makes sense that's it's the same voice, the same incredibly reasonable, logical voice, making a case for me to be the very greatest or the most useless, which is it going to be?
Writing my way through a problem has historically helped me solve it at least 90% of the time. But this isn't "we had this fight" or "do I choose this thing or the other thing?", this is a long-standing part of my psyche and I don't think one post is going to do it, unless it were four hundred years long (not including musical interludes). So I'm going to try and write my way through my critical voice over the course of a few weeks or months or however long it takes and see if I can find myself any answers.
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