Cope with your BPD symptoms using my BPD Card Deck: The BPD Card Deck: 50 Ways to Balance Emotions and Live Well with Borderline Personality Disorder. Available at: www.shorturl.at/jBHJV

Complex Borderline Personality Disorder: How Coexisting Conditions Affect Your BPD and How You Can Gain Emotional Balance. Available at:
shorturl.at/bxB05

In this video we are going to explore your inner critic and I’ll give you some suggestions on how to lessen its impact and how to control it. The inner critic is that voice inside, sometimes little and sometimes huge (like in many of my clients). The voice is not psychotic, it is not part of a derealization, but an internal running dialogue of your failures, faults, problems, weaknesses, and supposed inherent defects. Unchecked your inner critic grows in power over years, but checked it can be lessened and controlled.

Your inner critic is fed by errors and mistakes, which we all make, but the comments, judgment, and criticism you received is what fed it. Your inner critic became this delivery system to self-punishment and a proving ground that your negative core content and all of you is all wrong. As you grew older, and your inner critic grew louder and more powerful, you internalized it. You made itself a part of how you see yourself, your actions, your abilities, and your worth. When you do this, you start to engage in behaviors that play our and justify your inner critic. It got fat with all you fed it, all those hurtful self-criticisms, self-judgments, self-hatred, self-neglect, and in some cases, you give up and give in to your inner critic and it becomes your ruler. This inner critic becomes a big part of your core content that encourages your surface structure behaviors that we call BPD – relationship disruptions, self-harm, unsure who you are, see yourself as a failure, unlovable, fear of being alone and abandoned, impulsive, and depressed.

You need to recognize that your inner critic lies. It gaslights you, it tricks you so it can survive. It feels real and feels like it keeps you safe from harm, and that part of the trick, but does it really? Remember, it distorts how you see yourself, your world, and your abilities to impact your future. Inner critic comments tend to be extreme, global, and deep cutting but most instances of mistakes are not life ending, major disruptions, and they’re certainly not proof of you as a failed human being. We’re going to talk about how to challenge it next, but it’s important to know that your inner critic does not want you to hear it, it doesn’t want to be challenged and it defends itself by using fear, doubt, anxiety, depression, and all those internal contradictions to you mastering your beliefs, self-statements, and all aspects of your life.

We challenge your inner critic with reality. Reality says we all make mistakes, we all want love, acceptance, reparations, understanding, patience, and all those things that help you feel full and human.

Challenge it by looking at actual facts in your life that show the opposite: What are your successes, what good have you done, and what gives you a sense of worth? Resist the urge to say “I’ve done nothing” here. What real facts do you have that show your inner critic is a liar? Lastly, remember that you don’t have to let your inner critic determine your behavior. It knows how to push your buttons but you don’t have to let it push them. Know your core content and know your surface structure behaviors and know that you determine how you respond, not your inner critic.

Daniel J. Fox, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in Texas, international speaker, and award winning author. He has been specializing in the treatment and assessment of individuals with personality disorders for over 15 years.

He has published several articles in these areas and is the author of:

The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook: An Integrative Program to Understand and Manage Your BPD. Available May 1, 2019, but you can pre-order it now at: https://goo.gl/LQEgy1

Antisocial, Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Workbook: Treatment Strategies for Cluster B Personality Disorders (IPBA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award Winner): https://goo.gl/BLRkFy

Narcissistic Personality Disorder Toolbox: 55 Practical Treatment Techniques for Clients, Their Parents & Their Children: https://goo.gl/sZYhym
The Clinician’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders: https://goo.gl/ZAVe9v

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