Jill is a 33-year-old openly transgender ICU Nurse. She said In These Rooms this morning “…Negative Self-Talk is the voice in my head that tells me to do fucked up shit like drinking and using. My partner calls me schizophrenic. I am not schizophrenic. I’ve never had a DWI or allowed my drinking to keep me from doing my job. Yes, I have tried taking my life three times. But like other weird mother fuckers In These Rooms, I just hear a weird voice in my head who’s trying to kill me…”
Negative Self-Talk is the talk in my head that had me chasing bad to good and sick to well and believing that changing the so-called character defects in my behavior and actions was the true nature of transformation. Negative Self-Talk sounds different to different people and can take on different forms. Various forms of Negative Self-Talk have in common that they put us down instead of lifting us up.
“…I am less than and inferior to others because I’m not like them and don’t have what they have. I need people’s approval and things to feel whole and feel good about myself. I feel I have degraded myself to fit in and have friends. I don’t believe the people I hang with are really my friends. How could they be true friends? They don’t know me; they don’t care about me. They use me for what I have and what I’m willing to give them to be my friends…”
Doug
“…I am nothing without the acceptance and approval of others. I’m nothing without my shit. I have to have shit to be somebody and that’s what the fuck I am going to do; that’s me doing what I do. I need to succeed by any means necessary and I will. I can. If I don’t succeed, it’s on me. I believe “…If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying…” This is the way life is when I get real about how things and this fucking world works. I can’t let people and the world know this is how I think and what I’m really about. Keeping this shit to myself is how I’m gonna make it. I’m gonna make it or fucking die trying…”
Kirk
“…If people really knew who I am, they wouldn’t like me. I must keep up this pretense of being somebody I’m not. It’s working. I’m getting the things I want and I’m doing well academically and this is my ticket. As long as I continue to do well academically, I’m going to keep rolling like this. I must keep rolling like this. I’m better than good at pretending; I’m the master at it. I’m nothing if I’m not who I’m pretending to be…”
Stephen
“…People would look down on me if they knew what I’ve done. If they knew I had a gay relationship for 14 years so I could get ahead, they would despise me. Look what this has gotten me! I’m dishonest to the core because I’m not honest with myself. I’m a sellout. That’s who I am; that’s all I am. I’m to blame for being molested. It’s what I was willing to do to make it. It’s what I was willing to do to get ahead. My life is the embodiment of the race to the bottom and I fucking lost a longtime ago. Nobody can help me because nobody knows how wounded and broken, I was and still am…”
Yalie
“…Overcoming our Negative Self-Talk is fundamental to seeing ourselves as God sees us, knowing how God created us and living into the lives God has purposed for us…”
The Professor
I have struggled all my life with Negative Self-Talk. I know the Negative Self-Talk Jill shared about only too well. This talk drove me to do things I never thought I would do. This Negative Self-Talk caused me to become somebody I didn’t want to be and never thought I would become. Like Jill, Negative Self-Talk once had me wanting to take my broken and seemingly worthless life. That’s where this fucking Negative Self-Talk had me. It had me filled with shame and unworthiness. It had me regretting my past and pessimistic to point of wanting to die when I too contemplated the future.
Today, I am in a much better place when it comes to Negative Self-Talk. I have given Negative Self-Talk the names you’ll find In These Rooms Blogs: Stevie Wonders, Douglas (Doug), Kirk, Stephen, Yalie, The Professor, X, Fr. Esteban and Hunter. Today, I own this Negative Self-Talk is a part of who I am. Negative Self-Talk ain’t goin any fucking where. I’ve given it the names listed above because I’ve got to deal with this shit until they put my black ass in the ground. Today, I don’t bitch and moan about Negative Self-Talk. I use it for my good. I use it to help me make sense of this fucking life and get where the fuck I’m going. Unlike my doubting and hating family who turned their backs on me as they watched Negative Self-Talk apparently take me out as my life spiraled downward, the characters of my Negative Self-Talk, those named above, have become the inner characters of my life and my best friends. Negative Self-Talk has manifested in my life as voices in my head and people, places and things. Today, the Negative Self-Talk I once thought only meant me evil I now know meant and means for me fucking good. Negative Self-Talk is how by the grace of God I am a badass becoming more fully human and beautiful. Today, I thank God for the fucking redemptive power I have found and can be found in Negative Self-Talk.
Read more about Doug, Kirk, Stephen and Yalie and tell your story. Listen to Hunter’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #SelfTalkMatters
The Struggle Continues….
