Struggling with a constant inner critic

I have a constant inner critic and it's always so hard on me. I am very hard on myself and have been a lot lately.

My narcissistic dad was overly critical of me, and this is the result. I constantly berate myself whenever I feel I've screwed up. My emotions and words are always the wrong ones, and I am constantly screwing up, in my mind. I feel and think that everything I do is wrong. My ex husband who is a narcissist also made me feel this way.

It's been especially bad ever since my boss's boss gave me a laundry list of things to improve and work on, without any positives. I had to even ask her, do you have any positive feedback?

I have been really down on myself ever since then.

I don't know how to undo this. How do you change something that you're so conditioned by?

I been there myself try writing down what is in your control and what isn’t in your control then write down the negative thoughts are and change the thoughts into positive.

Thank you @Buffy01! I did just that yesterday morning before work. In my journal, I created a list of all my positive qualities. I am going to read this list every morning from now on.

The key is to stop my negative self talk that can occur throughout the day, and that can amount to many different negative thoughts. It's exhausting to think about stopping every time I have a negative thought and replacing it with a more positive one throughout the day. That's where I am having a lot of trouble too.

I know EXACTLY what you're going through. I had a father that would belittle me in front of my sister (his favorite child) and make comments about my complexion (I had acne when I was a teenager), call me names and whatever else. It scarred me emotionally, shook my confidence, and made me feel like a worthless individual. I'll never forgive him for that.

I "overcame" it on my own I suppose. I got a good job, got a married and had a family. In a weird way I thank my father because when my kids were born I knew exactly how to NOT treat them. You might need a different approach. Not sure. Just remember that you're a human being and ALWAYS worth something to somebody. Don't let the negative people get you and keep you down.

Your it takes lots of practice and lots of time

Thank you for being able to relate to me.

It's wonderful that you were able to overcome this issue. That seems miraculous to me. I've had great things happen to me too, but I've had a lot of really crappy things happen as well that make me get incredibly down on myself. I always think it's all my own fault.

Yes, I can see that it would. TY.

Right now, I am struggling with issues at work, and I am down on myself as a result. I blame myself for these problems that arose, and I am berating myself for it. I am only three months into my job, and it's become very difficult.

In a nutshell, I work with an external digital marketing agency within my role at work. They provide recommendations that I then review and approve and move internally to get implemented on the website.

Well, internally certain wording was found that had been implemented that they say is "off-brand". Now, as a result, ALL my work is being critiqued, and a whole slew of recommendations from the external agency are not approved to be implemented on the website for the same exact reason, ie, the wording and language used is "off-brand". I blame myself for all of it, and I am coming down hard on myself as a result.

I had coached the external agency on how to write these page descriptions. Granted, the agency took my guidance and created marketing copy that is not what I would have written personally, but because I had already sent the work back to the agency to redo, I felt I couldn't send it back again nor could I rewrite all these descriptions myself because there's an enormous backlog of work dating back to April that needs to get implemented on the website.

So, all these page descriptions - at least 100+ of them - need to be rewritten with brand voice in mind. And now I am required to attend several internal meetings to find out how to write these in a way that the brand will approve.

I am berating myself for not having been aware of the fact that these page descriptions need to also match the brand's voice, or rather, I didn't communicate this to the external agency, and I neglected to consider this as a factor myself.

I've never in my career had an issue with these page descriptions with any company, and I've been working in my industry for 12 years. No company has stopped me to say, "oh, that wording is off-brand and I don't approve of those two sentences being published". These page descriptions literally ARE just two sentences of marketing copy that is only visible in search engines to consumers. It's not even visible on the website. But my company is so uptight that they won't approve two sentences worth of copy.

The irony is that they have marketing copy on many pages of the website that WAS somehow approved that is also very off-brand, and that happened BEFORE my arrival at this company. So how in the world did that copy get approved????? And now they want to critique every little change I make because they don't trust me yet to do what they like and will approve of.

So not only do I suffer from a negative inner critic, but now I am beating myself up endlessly over this work issue, which is something I also do.

Every day lately has been a headache at work, and I loathe going to work for this reason.

I am not in a good frame of mind.

My sense is that you're struggling to "undo this" because that's what your "inner critic" demands.

The only way out of that spiral that I can see, is to just keep noticing and acknowledging whatever your inner critic says -- as in, "Thank you. You're absolutely right, of course. "

This approach tends to work best if you then don't actually do whatever your inner critic is telling you you have to.

You mean using reverse psychology on my inner critic? LOL. I had to read your post twice to actually get it. Thank you.

In addition to my father's constant berating and criticism, my mother is the freaking same way. I did something really stupid the other night, and her first words when I told her were "you idiot!!!". No wonder I've struggled with an inner critic and self esteem issues all of my life! Right now, I am seething with anger towards my mother. And she has to drive me somewhere this morning because my car is out of commission. I hate that I need her help right now.

Try writing down the negative thoughts and change the thoughts into a positive thought

Thank you, @Buffy01. I will try it.

your