[xenos]

Hi everyone,

I'm re-reading Pete Walker's book; Complex Ptsd. I'm trying to fully understand the development of the outer critic. The following paragraph is from Pete Walker's book.

" The outer critic developed in reaction to parents who were too dangerous to trust. The outer critic helped us to be hyperaware of the subtlest signal that our parents were deteriorating into their most dangerous behaviors. Over time the outer critic grew to believe that anyone and everyone would inevitably turn out to be as untrustworthy as our parents"

So how does our hyperaware posture toward our parents formed in us the outer critic? The way I understand it, the more the individual is toxic toward you, the more you-as a kid- blame your self for their bad behavior, mood, etc.. You can't verbally attack, criticize protest the unfairness of your parents because you were powerless. I just don't understand how our toxic parents developed the outer critic in us, aka, as an adult we tend to criticize and attack others for any small unfairness we receive from them. The instilled inner critic makes an absolute sense to me when our parents were toxic in their relationship with us, the outer critic not so much!!

Thanks a lot.

[WWPWD]

I think what Pete Walker was saying is that it develops as a sort of hyper vigilance of your surroundings (in my experience, for example, something like guessing/keeping tally of all the things ourselves and others are doing wrong, much like the inner critic) that if your 4F response is Fight, will come out as outer critic. Otherwise it comes out more passive aggressively. But in my opinion it develops from a sense of hypervigilance (what could go wrong/what others are doing wrong) to self protect or deflect judgement (ie., My sibling did this thing so if I point it out the critical/unsafe eye is off of me for a time, etc.).

[Fuzzybear]

[may24]

Originally Posted by xenos

Hi everyone,
So how does our hyperaware posture toward our parents formed in us the outer critic? The way I understand it, the more the individual is toxic toward you, the more you-as a kid- blame your self for their bad behavior, mood, etc.. You can't verbally attack, criticize protest the unfairness of your parents because you were powerless. I just don't understand how our toxic parents developed the outer critic in us, aka, as an adult we tend to criticize and attack others for any small unfairness we receive from them. The instilled inner critic makes an absolute sense to me when our parents were toxic in their relationship with us, the outer critic not so much!!

I understand what you're saying. In my case, I tend to generally blame myself too when something goes wrong or if someone is being unfair to me.
However, I realized that I also tend to be hypervigilant about other people's behaviors. It's almost as if I were unconsciously waiting for "the next attack"to happen. Even when no one's trying to attack me.
Like, I automatically belive that people will try to hurt, sabotage or humiliate me.

This often leads me to behave in a hyper-reactive way and give responses that are out of proportion sometimes.
For example, if someone makes a joke or a random comment (that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with me), I tend to take it personally and immediatly get defensive.
Sometimes I even end up being the one who hurts the others by having such a strong reaction... when in reality all I was only trying to do was to protect myself from getting hurt.

I don't know, at least that's the way I relate to it... I can't really explain as I'd like to because Esnglish isn't my first language, but I hope it helps a little.

I'm still reading Pete Walker's book but I'm finding it extremely helpful.

*hugs*