Yesterday evening, Kel and I were having a conversation about married life. Kel was talking about the adjustments he had to make after we got married and one of the main aspects was doing household chores. Eventually, he went on to talk about how he had to wash turtle tub when I was pregnant. He said he was still very bitter over the fact that he had to clear the sand area in the turtle tub. There were times when he had to remove small worms in the sand. These were painful moments for him as he hated sand and the worms were disgusting. And when he told me about using something to replace sand, I insisted things not to be changed. When I heard what he had said, I felt really bad and terrible. And I could feel a wave of negative thoughts zooming towards me. It was very scary and overwhelming. I apologised to Kel and I explained to him that at that point of time, I didn't know of a better way to make the turtle dry area better so I just told him to keep it that way.
"Why didn't you try to help at that time? What's wrong with you? Why did you treat your husband like that? Why didn't you try to understand him? You should have worked out a solution with him. You shouldn't have pushed him away like this. You are a terrible person. You're really terrible." My self critic was suddenly awakened and it went on and on; putting myself down. I could feel my tears welling up in my eyes. I FELT LIKE AN AWFUL WIFE. The inner self critic was so LOUD that the voices seemed to be exploding in my head.
At that moment, it seemed that Kel knew what I was facing. He left me alone to deal with the inner monsters. I have told him before how it would be like when my inner self critic comes for a visit and when it happens, he did not have to do anything but just leave me alone to have some time to deal with it. No need to ask me anything.
As the self critic went on and on, I took a deep breath and started to keep in touch with those feelings.
"I am feeling awful now. I feel like a bad person. The self critic is getting hyped up again and putting you down."
I mustered up courage and started to use soothing techniques to soothe myself; and to keep the self critic voices down.
"It's all over right now. You are going to be okay. It's alright to feel bad. You will be able to manage such incidents better the next time. You have apologised and it's over now. You will be able to move forward."
Eventually, the inner self critic stopped talking. It was such a relief and surprise. I DID IT. And it was within a span of less than 10 minutes. It was the shortest time I have taken to shut the inner critic up. It still takes a lot a lot of effort to get it done. But I feel that it comes a bit more naturally now, which means this coping strategy has gradually become a part of my emotional coping system.
I gave myself a pat on the back. It took me like 3 years to be able to get to this stage of my psychological healing. How long it had been. 3 YEARS!! Maybe I was able to do it because just that day, I shared with Kel one of my most painful periods of my life; it was actually the first time I shared about what had happened and how I felt. But I will write about that next time. I can't wait to visit my psychologist in January to tell her about the progress I have made.
