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inner critical voice

” Nobody really talks about the 30s crisis, but I see it EVERYWHERE “

It’s a week since my birthday, and I suddenly felt compelled to write this blog. It’s no coincidence that the celebration of my birthday has made me reflect on life; my life and turning 40 in 2 years.  

When I was a teenager, 40 felt ancient, and scary. Old people were 40! The irony is, I feel more alive, and the youngest I’ve felt in a long time. I am happier, more content, and I know who I am, and what I want to be. However, it’s taken me a long time to get here, and that’s because I’ve battled with something I like to call, ‘the 30’s life crisis.’

Nobody really talks about the 30s crisis, but I see it EVERYWHERE: the media, family, friends, people who attend therapy, and it played a huge part in my own. Let me explain…

From being tiny little humans, we are socialised and told how to live a ‘normal’ life. It goes something like this:

…do well at school, go to college, go to university, travel or get a job, get a girlfriend/boyfriend – not a serious one to start with – then move onto ‘the one’, get a house together, get married, have kids, do well at work, go on a cruise, die…       

Please hear me loud and clear; I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this trajectory of life. My point is, what if this just isn’t for you? Or, what if this dream doesn’t exist? Or what if you follow this trajectory and it ends up not being what you expected? Then what? I tell you what happens, you have a 30s crisis! This goes something like this:

  • I’m turning 30/ in my 30’s and I’m nowhere near settled down… PANIC!
  • All my friends are getting engaged and I’m still single… I don’t even want a partner…. But does that matter?  What’s wrong with me? PANIC!
  • All my friends have good jobs and I still don’t know what career I want… What’s wrong with me? PANIC.
  • All my friends are having babies and mortgages and I don’t… Do I even want children or a loan for the next 30 years? I don’t know…, Should I know? Arragggghhhhhhhh PANIC, PANIC, PANIC!

And this is not just an issue that affects women; men struggle too.  It saddens me that in today’s modern world, people feel their self-worth is measured on whether they have ticked off these milestones, in a certain order, by a certain age.  

And, if like me you choose a different path, you must deal with another person’s confusion. Oh goodness, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked why I don’t want children. Now, these days I can confidently decline to respond or engage in the conversation if I want to. However, this was not always the case, especially around the ages of 27-34. In fact, it affected me so much I embarked on two years of intense psychoanalysis to find out why I did not want children. And guess what? Yes, that’s right, I felt the same at the end of therapy.

Sometimes, we just don’t all want the same things, we don’t always value the same milestones in the same way, we don’t always have the same perspectives on life. And that’s okay. But it can feel like a lonely place. And because we feel judged, and because we feel like we are alone, we try and deal with our feelings of perceived failure in silence, putting on a pretence, pretending that everything’s fine. But in doing this, we can have a profound impact on our emotional and mental health. I see this too often in my work.

My goal in writing this blog is to create discussion around this crisis; which is happening everywhere and affecting mental health. We need to talk about these issues and challenge the shame and stigma that people like I felt; and the clients I have seen over the years have experienced too. And if we do talk about it, we will probably find that more people are having similar thoughts and feelings to us.

I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to be a counsellor and psychotherapist. But this blog is not about me. A client of mine wishes to share their experience of depression. I wont review it; I think their writing speaks for itself…

To the depths of despair, and back again

I cannot begin with the statement “it all started when” because I do not know when it all started. I cannot identify a moment where ‘it all started to go wrong’. I can however highlight moments; experiences that have contributed to a narrative. A narrative that both consciously and subconsciously shaped a large fragment of me. Of who I was. I cannot over emphasise the word was. As that is the most positive reflection of progression. A continuation of me. Which will always be the case. Health is a continuation. You continuously exercise and eat well to try and maintain physical well-being. The same should be said for mental well-being. There is no permanence. It is a journey of continuousness.

Struggling with anxiety has always being my biggest demon. It has dictated every facet of my life. The worst thing about my anxiety is how it manifested itself; how little I understood that it controlled a variation traits that I would not have assumed have any correlation otherwise. Anxiety led to compulsion, compulsion led to obsession and inevitably, depression followed. A cocktail of despair with little understanding of how or what I could do to manage my life, or pull myself out of these darkest of moments. Moments that were continuously exacerbated when life was anything other than mundane. The biggest challenge to overcome was that these difficulties had become the norm. So invariably when my life reached moments where continuity or normality rained, I was not able to deal with it. So the cycle reared its head once more. Anxiety, compulsive obsession, depression and self-destruction, with the latter being particularly prevalent in my relationships with friends, family and more prominently, relationships with a significant other.

The most distressing and debilitating symptom I have to deal with is compulsive obsession. This form of compulsion I have learnt to deal with is very much insular. Obsessive thoughts. The most debilitating, intrusive and difficult to control aspect of my mental health journey. These intrusions have driven me to breaking point. Why do I think this? Am I a monster? These questions along with the intrusive thoughts are a continuum that could last anything from a morning to weeks, months and sometimes even years. Just to make sure I wasn’t suffering enough. Another very destructive form of these intrusive thoughts manifested itself through the need for repetitive reassurance, especially from my significant others. This is what I like to think of as my other main challenge. The symptom that led to so many self-destructive and insecure tendencies, culminating in partners not being partners, but almost becoming carers. Relationships deteriorating into battles to ease my illness. The illness that allows for the flaring of insecurities. How little I thought of myself. I don’t deserve them – I do deserve to suffer. Why do I deserve to suffer? I could never answer that question – I didn’t need to. I just knew that I should suffer. I should continuously be unhappy. Unfulfilled. Insecure. Because? Just because.

Depression in my case seemed to be the cherry on top of the delicious ice-cream sundae of fuckery. Anxiety? Why not. Obsessive Compulsion? Go on then. Depression? Oh well I just can’t say no. Yum. Tasty. Fuck. Off. Depression seeped into due to my continuous despair. The despair that I had previously alluded to that was a causality of anxieties and obsessions. Depression was the affect. The consequence. Not that I want to detract any credibility from depression. Oh no. It still has its place in my life as a powerful and controlling entity that has almost gotten the better than me on two occasions. And you need not be a professor to understand what I meant by ‘it getting the better of me’. Two shining moments of despair so strong that there seemed no other avenue. A cul-de-sac in my life. Why did I choose to continue? I am not sure. I don’t think I could identify a specific reason. If I were to assign evidence, I would suggest it may have been a culmination of learned experiences that subconsciously told me that I could get through. As I had done with many other experiences throughout my life. I will survive. I will learn to cope. I will prosper. Because I have before.

My life leading to this point is and has been a journey. A series of choices. An education. I am continuously evolving and learning about me. This is what I identify as the most important aspect of learning. Because you have to learn. There is no other way to it. Just as you have learnt to walk, to laugh, to love – you have to learn to cope, and to evolve. I have found my own unique group of techniques; coping mechanisms. Ways that I can manage my symptoms better. So that I can prosper. I can learn to enjoy my life. To give myself a break. To learn to love the most important person in my life. Me. It has not been easy, and it will be a continuous journey. But. BUT. I can, will and have learnt. Learnt to cope. Learnt to manage and learnt that I can be happy. I will be sad. It is inevitable. But I have learnt to accept. Acceptance of the unknown – to ease my symptoms and to most importantly – live a little.

I have now served the hors d’oeuvres to my experiences. If these anecdotal hors d’oeuvres provide solace to one person, I would be happy to think that I have contributed to their journey in a positive way – just like so many people have done with me.”

‘You stupid woman’, ‘you idiot’, ‘you always get it wrong’, ‘you loser…’

Sound familiar? That’s because you probably talk to yourself in a very similar way. This is called our inner critical voice, and boy, can it be LOUD. Sometimes it feels like someone is stomping around in our brains pointing out all the things we have done wrong. Anything that has been achieved is quickly brushed to the side or minimised- ‘okay, so you did a good thing then but to be fair it was really easy…’ Anything we can berate ourselves with becomes the preoccupation of our negative thoughts and feelings.

Is it any wonder we can feel so down, angry, anxious, and stressed so often.
Why do we do it? It is possible that we have internalised these thoughts from our childhood, experiences at school, jobs and relationships. However, even if you’ve managed to go through life relatively unscathed by these experiences, it is unlikely that you’ve not been sucked in by social media. It’s not easy scrolling through airbrushed celebrities without comparing, even when we know they are airbrushed- ‘why can’t I look like….?’ ‘no wonder you can’t lose weight, Gweneth Paltrow wouldn’t eat chocolate!’

This critical chatter needs taming; but to do this, you need to realise you are doing it. Becoming conscious of our inner critical voice is not always easy. If you’ve achieved a gold star in self-criticism, chances are, you don’t even notice you are doing it.

Try to pay attention to any negative feelings you have, so for example, if you suddenly feel annoyed or find yourself in a bad mood, notice it. Then, try to think what has contributed to the mood shift, and see if you can spot any of those critical thoughts. I bet you can. Once you’ve got to grips with this, try and take note of how many times you do it. You’ll be surprised just how horrible we can be to ourselves.

Then what? Well, this is where you have a choice. Continue to talk to yourself in this way; a way that you would never treat anyone you love. Or, try to act with love and kindness. You see, most of us are compassionate when it comes to our friends, family and loved ones, but we struggle to apply the same compassion to ourselves. It’s almost like there is a rule where everyone else can be human, and can make mistakes, and we forgive them, but when it comes to ourselves we have our own set of rules – we must be perfect.

Up for a challenge? Great! Next time you start beating yourself up for beating yourself up sakes, remember to treat yourself like you would treat someone you love. Would you really be so harsh? I don’t think so.