the critical voice, part three

This morning I sat down opposite my therapist and said, “How do I stop trying to fix things?”
“What things are you trying to fix?” he asked, in his quiet Irish therapist voice.
“ALL the things,” I said. “Literally everything that crosses my mind; personal, local, global, minor, major, implausible, imaginary. Anything that’s a problem, I want to fix immediately, and my brain gets very upset with me if I can’t.”

He wanted examples. Therapists like examples.

I told him I was upset with the election result and worried about what might happen under a majority Conservative government. I was worried about the NHS, about my friends on disability benefits, and especially about the Human Rights Act. My brain responded to these entirely rational concerns with how can we fix this? I told it that I was in no position to personally fix it. I could not convince the Conservative party that they held horrible, damaging views, nor change the views of an increasingly right-wing nation, nor completely overhaul the political system to fairer and more compassionate ends. I could, of course, sign petitions and attend protests and, if I wanted to screw up my mental health entirely, return to political blogging. But this wasn’t what my brain wanted. My brain wanted me to fix it, personally. If not entirely by myself, then at least as the Leader of People Fixing Things. And it wanted results immediately, before the Tories actually managed to do any damage.

I told my brain that, see, this was exactly what I’d been telling it. It had proved that its expectations of me were way, way too high and completely unrealistic. Personally fixing the politics of an entire country? That’s ridiculous, brain. Surely you can see that. My brain sighed and said that’s a lame excuse and you know it. Everyone is sitting around like you, saying they can’t do anything, and that’s why it never gets done. Overhauling a country probably isn’t that hard if you know the right things to say. I asked my brain if it remembered what attempting to get involved in activism did to the state of my mental health last time. My brain said I can’t imagine why you’d think your personal mental health is so much more important than the fate of an entire country.

My therapist handed me a sheet entitled “Unhelpful Thinking Patterns” that he thought I might recognise some of. My brain scanned it and immediately scolded me for being so rubbish as to have all of them. I suggested that perhaps this might be its own fault, and it pointed at the sheet and said see that bit about shifting blame for things that are your fault?

I explained that for about six months now I’d been identifying problems in my life and trying to come up with ways to fix them. I’d come up with genuine problems, identify good and sensible ways to start turning things around, and then my brain would be pleased and start imagining wildly unrealistic consequences to my tiny starter actions.

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED: Unhappy with weight gain
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES: Feel sad and gross all the time
SOLUTION: Start small by replacing chocolate with fruit at lunchtime
EXPECTED RESULT: Somehow lose half a stone in a week; happiness to follow immediately thereafter

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED: Job dissatisfaction
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES: Boredom, more unoccupied time to exacerbate anxiety problems
SOLUTION: Begin thinking about different career fields
EXPECTED RESULT: Get ideal job immediately by stumbling over it in the street or some such, all problems suddenly fixed

If the expected unrealistic consequence was not instantly achieved, my brain got upset and discouraged and gave me unpleasant thoughts. It got to the point where this happened:

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED: Trying to fix everything
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES: Frustration, exhaustion, reduced ability to actually do anything
SOLUTION: Stop trying to fix things
EXPECTED RESULT: Attempting to fix things turns out to be root cause of all problems; everything stops being difficult within the next three days

When I told him the last one my therapist did that very, very slightly surprised face that therapists who think they know what’s coming make when they hear something they really weren’t expecting. I’ve seen him do it once before, when we did an instant visualisation exercise:

Therapist: What did you see when I said ‘Roses’?
Me: I saw an illustrated rose garden in the style of an Alice in Wonderland book I used to have, except instead of actual roses it was my friend Rose, hundreds of her, on stems.
Therapist: ...you have a busy mind.

He might not have heard, “Hey, I could stop trying to fix things! That’ll fix things!” before, but he assured me that the urge to fix things was common, as was having a critical voice with completely unrealistic expectations. Be kind to yourself, he said. The primitive part of your brain sends up a fear signal, then your conscious mind starts working overtime to make it stop. It’s completely normal human behaviour. But we can work on it.

Good, I thought.

PROBLEM IDENTIFIED: Completely unrealistic expectations
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES: Small achievements overlooked, progress stalled
SOLUTION: Place some distance in front of the thought that throws up the problem, say thank you and tell it you’ll get back to it later, this is not the time to be crafting solutions
EXPECTED RESULT: Perfectly calm and ordered brain within the hour

ARGH.

the critical voice, part two

The other day I sat down at my computer and Googled, "How to have fewer thoughts."

Google: Umm. I can do, "How to have fewer negative thoughts", if you want?
Me: I appreciate the sentiment, but that's not really what I want.
Google: Sure it is. That's what everyone wants.
Me: Fewer negative thoughts would be great, but what I want is to think less in general.
Google: I don't get it.
Me: There's too much stuff in my brain and I want to get some of it out. I don't want to turn negative thoughts in positive thoughts, I want to turn thoughts into lack of thoughts.
Google: If you don't want inspirational blogs on the power of positive thinking and some pictures of trees at sunset, I can't help you.
Me: Well, thanks anyway.
Google: I AM WATCHING YOU.

There have certainly been times in my life when "fewer negative thoughts" would have been the best thing for my quality of life, but right now that's not exactly my problem. My critical voice likes to morph and change with me, to make sure it's always at optimum levels of unhelpfulness. When I'm depressed, it sighs and tells me there's just no point, no point to going out or standing up or opening the curtains or operating on a normal human sleep schedule because it's not like I'd accomplish anything by doing so, is it? When I'm anxious, it lists all the things that could go wrong because I don't do things properly or understand human beings, or just because I have rotten luck and so why wouldn't my entire family die in a car accident on their way down to see me? When I'm happy, it doesn't have much to say so it just spins round and round really fast like an excitable kid to make me feel a bit dizzy if I stop doing things. Right now, when I am anxious but in the throes of getting a grip, it wants to fix everything. EVERYTHING.

Hey there, money issues? Let's make a complicated spreadsheet! Concerned about weight? Let's make a diet plan! Not feeling great about living arrangements? Detailed rental accommodation home improvements! Feeling sluggish? Sign up for every single exercise class you can find! Hate your job? Get a new one! Bored? Learn everything! Confused? Sit down and try and untangle that boxful of matted chain necklaces you call a mind while I throw new ones into the mix every 40 seconds because necklaces are shiny and fun!

Most of this stuff, in an of itself, is constructive and useful and a good idea. I don't think any of the things I've done or tried to do in the name of fixing myself are bad ideas. Sorting out my snacking at work and researching job opportunities and making a budget plan and signing up for kickboxing and acrobatics classes and seeking therapy and seeing an osteopath and making a commitment to write daily and trying to work through my mental blocks are all, individually, good and positive steps.

The problem is that I'm trying to do it all at once, and it's exhausting. My critical voice says that all of these things are just a tiny change and it's just one hour out of my week, just one more thing to remember, come on, what are you complaining about? But it's just a tiny change over and over again, forty or fifty times a day, and every thought I have spawns three or four more thoughts about what I can do to fix that thought I just had. So I'm doing an exhausting amount of stuff, but because it's just a tiny change I can't actually see any difference in any of the problems I'm having. I haven't sorted my finances or lost any weight or made my bedroom pretty or felt any healthier or got a new job or untangled my mind.

What I have done is mostly cleared my overdraft and got a tiny savings account and stopped hoarding snacks in my desk drawer and done a thorough clear-out of my bedroom and sorted out my back and shoulders and made cushions and learned to alter my clothes and started proper exercising multiple times a week and been abroad a bunch of times and seen shows and eaten bastard expensive dinners and laughed with my friends until I cried, but none of that seems to count because it hasn't solved the problems I went in to solve (magically have a bunch of disposable income every month! Be three stone lighter! Acquire an interesting and flexible and well-paid job! BE EXCELLENT AT EVERYTHING!), and also because it hasn't created any space in my mind. Everything is trying to get through the door at once, much like that thing on The Simpsons where Mr Burns has every disease ever.

"So, what you're saying is, I'm indestructible?"
"Oh my, no. In fact, even a slight breeze could..."
"Indestructible."

Except that it's the opposite of that, because I want the things to be able to get through the door, and the fact that everything's squished itself in there at once means I'm not really able to progress with anything. Critical voice response to this is:

OK, good. Spotted a problem. How do we fix this? By picking one thing and REALLY trying to make that happen. While just making one tiny change to everything else. I mean, it's ALL important and you can't just LEAVE it to focus on this one thing, can you?

And this is why I need fewer thoughts.

the critical voice, part one

(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.