So the last seven days have been a bit of a weird week if I’m honest, even by my own standards!. I’ve been up and down like a bloody yoyo, been flat on my arse at points, at others I’ve received such positivity and experienced such happiness and yet The Demon that is my inner detractor still rears his vile noggin and pisses all over things.

It’s like I just cannot seem to let myself be happy or be content without sabotaging everything and completely destroying myself and I’m beginning to bore of it. This has been another of my ‘patterns’ all the way through my life and I think I know why but, as bloody always let me backtrack a bit and explain.

I’ve said before how I recognise that formative experiences have fed (or starved if I’m more accurate) my own sense of self and sense of worth and I have documented how I can understand that even though my idea of me may be….diminished I can absolutely see that others may see me as more than this. Well, that there has been the catalyst for this round of ‘challenges’.

Following last week’s blogpost (read here) I received quite a bit of feedback, all of it very positive and all of it very humbling. Readers were warmly and positively commenting on my writing style, how candid and open I was and how some could immediately identify with my words and initially I was able to accept the comments and all was well in the world.

Then the voice started.

Its like a monologue: “Who the hell do you think you are? Who the hell do THEY think you are? Just cos you can write doesn’t make you Shakespear, idiot. It’s all bullsh*t anyway, just your opinion and no one really cares pal.” And so it would go on. And on….and on…. You get the picture. Doesn’t matter what I do, how I try to change my thought pattern it happens.

Every. Single. Time.

People start to ‘polish me up’, and immediately I tarnish the shine.

So anyways soon after I published the post a letter reached me that detailed how I had helped an ex client and described what I had done for this person. I’ve had a couple of pieces of professional feedback before and as incredibly humbling and affirming they have been this was different. Without going into great detail (confidentiality and all that jazz) this was very specific and incredibly profound and was word for word exactly why I became a Mental Health Practitioner.

Almost immediately after reading the letter (once I’d stopped crying and wiped my chops) I took stock of myself. I took stock of why I was unable to accept praise or allow others to raise me up and I realised something. I realised that my issue was guilt. Guilt I had survived, guilt I hadn’t protected others, guilt I was finally happy, guilt I was moving away from my family and guilt I had the audacity to write about my own past when others’ were so much worse.

Ain’t that one hell of an onion to peel!

See there’s the thing, I’m not exactly sure I have the balls to begin to peel it away. I mean, I know I do it, I know why and I always know when it will happen so is that enough? Do I actually need to try to change this? I often think forewarned is forearmed and if I’m aware of the why’s and the wherefores of some quirks, or of some behaviours and rather than just ignore them, have the balls to talk about them, make folk aware of what’s going on rather than use that bastard word “fine” when I’m asked how I am and maybe, just maybe that’s a darkness I can embrace, a negative side of me I can use for positive conversations. Besides, there is one upside I guess.

There isn’t anyone who can rip me apart or tear me down anymore, I’m too skilled at doing that to myself to pay heed to amateurs.