When life gets you down, who shows up for you emotionally? Can you give yourself kindness when you are hurt or in pain? Can you encourage yourself when stuck in doubt? Do the voices inside of you treat your emotions with respect or disdain?
For those with a history of childhood abandonment, neglect, or abuse, who shows up during a crisis are the critics: the inner critic and the outer critic. The critic is launched when we are triggered into an emotional flashback. In that flashback, we re-inhabit our much younger self and re-experience with frightening intensity the toxic litany of parental criticisms/hostility/judgements. In an inner critic attack, the focus of the toxic take down is the self. Often the exact phrases that were used to condemn us are repeated in the inner critic’s litany (worthless, stupid, selfish, lazy, etc.…). The outer critic’s focus is on the dangerousness, treacherousness, or worthlessness of others. The outer critic defends against vulnerability with a laser focus on the imagined and exaggerated faults of others that make them too dangerous to be near.
The inner critic is the saboteur of a loving relationship with the self, while the outer critic sabotages loving relationships with others. Most adults with complex PTSD have challenges with both inner and outer critics. They rule our relationships by perfectionist, judgmental inner chatter that is emotionally toxic and 100% untrue. This is how childhood trauma continues to rule our adult lives, many decades after the facts.
When we are triggered by someone or something in our environment, a rush of adrenal neurotransmitters produces an energetic spike (to fight or flee) that launches an emotional flashback. (Remember, being triggered is not a choice—it is a physiologic reaction to a (mis)perception of threat). The term flashback is a little misleading, because there is no visual ‘flash’ of a memory. There are just incredibly powerful emotions that hijack our brain centers. Emotional flashback refers to being caught in the unresolved emotional trauma states of childhood. In that moment we are trapped in our limbic brain—our perceptions of the present become imbued with the dangerousness of our childhood. That (misperceived) danger then keeps us in a triggered limbic state, unable to solve problems from our adult experience. From those triggered states the critic holds forth—reducing whatever triggered us to the simplistic reality of our childhoods: we (or they) are the problem. “Perfectionism attacks, fueled by toxic shame, create chronic self-hate and self-flagellation. Endangerment attacks, fueled by fear, create chronic hypervigilance and anxiety.” (Walker, 2013, pg. 317).
The critic always skews reality, cherry picking the data points it gathers to prove its point: either you are unworthy and undeserving of love or care or understanding (inner critic) or the person you are focusing on (a partner) is unworthy and undeserving of love or care or understanding or compassion.
The critics are entitled parts of the personality—there is no gratitude or appreciation in their toxic world view. They believe their (mis)perception is the only truth, and their hold on our ability to feel compassion or care for the self and for others can be a little terrifying. Not until we have resolved the critic attack can we see how mistaken we were, by that time the critic is back in the bushes of our psyche, hiding out until the next time we are triggered.
One helpful thing to do if you are in a critic attack is to tell yourself, out loud: “I am having a critic attack. What my critic is telling me is not true.” Whatever the critic is saying will feel subjectively true, because you are –in that moment–emotionally trapped in the dysregulated, disempowered feeling states of childhood. From there the critic will spew a toxic amalgam of what your parents or caregivers said about you. When you say ‘that’s not true!” you are answering the critic. That will slow down the critic attack.
The critic’s whole purpose is to make sure we do not take risks. As children, we heard awful things about ourselves (“you’re selfish, stupid, lazy…”). Those verbal attacks were, in fact, a projection of parental trauma. We internalized this faulty data about ourselves because we had to believe our parents. Those accusations become our triggers: in that state everything is a threat, everything is personal, and everything must be tightly controlled, shut down, or stopped. We can’t be vulnerable, or mistaken, therefore we can’t take any risks. This is the convoluted logic of the critic.
When people are stuck in these child states, they often fight with reality. “I don’t WANT to do that” about something that is important, or necessary, or helpful. The critic is the energetic equivalent of a bully, overpowering our fragile child states with its terrifying perceptual skews. Critic attacks can put us into deeply frozen states of fear or shame—if we make decisions from those places, we can hurt ourselves or the people we care about. This is how we carry our trauma with us; this is how it affects the relationships we have with ourselves and with significant others. This is how our childhoods continue to heavily impact our ability to form loving, kind, compassionate relationships with ourselves and with others.
We can learn how to recognize that we are, in a way, not in our ‘right minds’ when experiencing a critic attack. Awareness is a critical first step. Here are a list of things to do if you feel you are in a critic attack.
- Tell yourself out loud “I’m having a critic attack. This means my perception is skewed”
- Answer the critic with strong force “NO, I’m not going to feel shame”
- Write down what the critic is saying. Just by picking up a pen and writing, you are moving into a different internal state, where you have a little more access to higher cognitive functions. Read it out loud. It may sound or feel so untrue that it gets you out of the attack.
- Deep pressure touch and EFT tapping (see both videos this website).
- Practice self-compassion. The critic has NO compassion for anyone, therefore listening to a self compassion meditation (www.selfcompassion.org) can be helpful because it is the opposite (think antidote) to the critic’s toxic judgement.
- Whatever you do to resolve the attack, you may eventually feel deep sadness/grief and you may cry. THIS IS GOOD! Crying will further resolve the attack and help balance your nervous system (which has either been in ‘fight or flight” or in shut down mode since you’ve been triggered).
* Walker, Pete (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote, Lafayette, CA.