#never first

She’s my favourite notification

My lack of any positive feedback growing up, coupled with the constant abusive, negative feedback I was getting from my mother, turned into me speaking to myself in the second person (”You should do this”, “You don’t deserve this,” “Nobody will ever really love you or care about you”, etc). Over the years this then turned into me trying to encourage myself in the way that I wasn’t getting (”You deserve to be happy” “You should treat yourself to things you enjoy because it’ll make you happy.” “You should heal yourself.”). But the constant process of othering/distancing these words--speaking in second person--makes both the positive encouragement not stick, and makes the negative feedback only reinforce the bad things I was already told.

If that makes sense?

So my therapist said I might benefit from changing every positive “you” statement into an “I.” “I deserve to be happy.” “I should treat myself to these things I enjoy because it can only help me.” “I want to heal.”

The attending psychiatrist (who always comes in at the end of each session) said that he’s glad I’m writing and editing, because editing is a process of executive functioning. I already have the tools necessary to complete a task (the finished story), and now I should put the tools to use (editing, restructuring). It’s a cognitive processing that allows me to control my behavior and moods, filtered through the creative process. Him wording it that way made me feel so much better about the whole process--and, honestly?, it made me think of Jacob. 🙊