To give the voice in my head a name

[Home77]

DH thinks it's weird.

I told him about how our thoughts are not really us and i have started giving this inner critic a name. (it is called Madge)

He looked at me strangely and he said but of course it is you...he has not thought of regarding it any other way.

It's kind of helpful to have some distance from this grumpy nag at times and AIBU not to want to be associated with her in such a way?

Okay...it's definitely female so... Doris. Doris is mean. But only about me. Nothing I do is good enough for her! She tells me an A should have been an A+, the 4lbs I put on is evidence I'm a fat failure, and everyone else is better than me.

I need to listen to me. A good achiever, healthy size 12 who is no better or worse than anyone else. Shove that in your fucking pipe, Doris!!

I think I mentally bully myself. It's like having an abusive relationship with myself

Yes!

I feel like I've finally found others from the same planet as me

Honestly, I wouldn't ever judge anyone the way I judge myself. Or rather, how Doris judges. Doris delights in constant bullying and berating. Nothing can dare be positive for a moment.

Hand me a wet fish.

Thanks @Home77 for trying to explain it to me. I genuinely do find this really interesting. I honestly don’t have any internal monologue though. My thoughts aren’t like that - I suppose they’re more abstract if I were to describe how I think but certainly no voice as it were. The only time I feel I can ‘hear’ speech is when I read ow as I write words but this doesn’t happen at any other time.

I’m now trying to sit here and think something bad about myself but it feels alien and a strange thing to do. Yet I would definitely say that one of my parents could be critical growing up.

The mind is super interesting and I’m only now learning that my thought patterns are not like many peoples. Should I be worried lol.

I did exactly this! I called him Mr Tom, he was a fastidious old man In a brown work coat, like a lab coat.
it was much easier to ignore him when I could picture him tying himself in knots with all his impotent rules and regulations.
I eventually had a dream where I bid him goodbye and he sailed off over a lake. We were both relieved.

I was just thinking how I don’t give myself a hard time like I used to.

Oh yes I love this! I’m naming mine after my childhood ‘best friend’ who was a horrible horrendous bully and made my life a misery into my teens. I shall delight in telling her to go boil her head