I had a deep conversation in which my choicest inner critic lines came to mind, and I spoke them. I told how anger sometimes comes to consciousness in me through thinking of past events which have made me angry, and my inner critic says, “You should have processed that by now”. Or I show signs of emotion, particularly distress, and my inner critic says, “Stop play-acting”. Or I hear of someone suicidal, think of my own chronic suicidal ideation, and my inner critic says, “Your suicidality was never nearly as bad as hers”. It draws comparison, to make me or my suffering appear less.
“You have a horrific inner critic,” says my friend.
The thing is, though, it does not feel that way now. The words cross my mind, and I can speak them, apparently dispassionately. There’s something of reminiscence in them, as if my inner critic and I were chatting about the past rather than what concerns her now, or it was a well-myelinated path, rapidly demyelinating. The pain is mostly gone. It’s what my inner critic would have screamed, but now says conversationally, without the belief.
This is a blessing. The inner conflict is not nearly as bad as it was. I can begin to process the horror of that inner conflict. My recovery continues.
The inner critic line “Stop play-acting” makes me draw a rigid distinction between feeling and emotion. Feeling is something I feel, without necessary outward manifestation. Emotion is something that moves me, producing a physical reaction- tears, a clenched jaw- without necessarily being conscious. My feelings should be private, I think, information for me, not something others can read.
It depends what they do when they read it. “We will stand against them!” shouts the orator, raising his fist, and the crowd cheer. Or, someone cries, and others rush to console them, and take away the wicked source of misery. Or, I show anger and that is a sign I am a threat, and bad, and to be defended against righteously. Or, I cry, and others feel incomprehension and aversion.
I do not want to show feeling. I tried to suppress it, but that produces an inner conflict: the emotion pushes back and will not be suppressed. Or, I am unconscious of it, and physical signs of anger or grief communicate to my surprised consciousness as well as to other people, trying to pull me out of comforting denial. Or, I am so good at swallowing tears that while my body sobs I am dry eyed, which others conclude is evidence of play-acting. So instead I want to contain it, hold it, as in this beautiful explanation of anger (facebook share) but still not to express signs of it. I see tears as evidence someone is trying to suppress grief, but failing to hold it within.
I want my feeling to be valuable to me: as perception or information, or as energy. I want grief and sadness as a way to recover from traumatic events, as the alternative is being imprisoned in them by rage or resentment. Alongside this I need to keep developing the wisdom to distinguish the things I can or cannot change- or, what is worth my energy to try to.
With my inner critic driving me, I could be very caring of others, wanting to help with their woes, or I might judge them, want to drive them, as I judged and drove myself. Someone crying does not necessarily mean that she is denying her grief so it must fight to show itself. Unselfconscious emotion can be beautiful, as well as dangerous.