There is some kind of psychological mechanism which springs into action every time someone answers one of my questions or points. That is, I immediately think or assume that he or she is right! This is precisely what happens every single time. Surely this can’t be true. Do I just think I am in the wrong because of my low self-esteem, etc?

My mind goes blank. That is a fact. The question is: Why? Well, I certainly panic when someone offers a counter-argument to my augment or point. So why do I panic? I feel humiliated that I haven’t thought of the counter-argument myself. It’s a pride thing, perhaps. In other words, I’m thinking that he or she must be thinking that I must be ‘thick’ not to have realised the obvious refutation of my position. But is the refutation obvious and is it in fact correct? I always thinks that other people’s refutations are correct and I always think that the refutation is pretty obvious and that I must have been thick not to have realised this. And it is the thought that I have been convincingly refuted that sends me into a panic. The end of this panic is a blank mind. So even if the other person’s refutation is not true, it becomes effectively true because I don’t have the means to come back and confront it.

It’s not that I want to win the argument. It’s just that I don’t what to be humiliated or thought of as thick. I really care what others think! I try to impress them. I’m old enough not to care!

The panic factor is the reality. I panic and then my mind goes blank. This is literally what happens. And of course once my mind has gone blank then I am in no fit state to come back against the ‘refutation’. Again, why do I panic and why does my mind go blank? (The panic obviously comes first.) Do I panic because of the power of the refutation? Or is it just the putative power of the refutation? Is it just the case of my assuming, every time, that the other person’s refutations are powerful? But are they? I must be putting them on pedestals to think that every time. But I do think this! I think it every time.

Why is it that few of these refutations stand up when I’m not face-to-face with the refuters? I can’t think of many refutations of other people which have remained as refutations.

So why the feelings? For a start, they are automatic or even instinctive. This means that they are either physiological or psychological – or both. Now, if the fear doesn’t come from the facts, as it were, where does it come from? If it is has a ‘subconscious’ or physiological root, then I cannot expect a rational cause. Something is going on ‘deep down inside’ my body and mind which is not being articulated at the conscious level. But what? There must be unconscious or physiological ‘reasons’ for my fear. That is, such reasons have not been explained away by my conscious mind. There is no other way to look at the problem. What are these unconscious/physiological ‘reasons’ for my fear? Why would I be fearful and nervous in such situations? Firstly, I am unconsciously/physiologically sure that he doesn’t like me. There is no evidence for this belief. So it must subsist at the subconscious/physiological level. But why would I ‘think’ such things at the subconscious/physiological level? Experience must have taught me that people, on the whole, do not like me. For ‘experience’ I must read childhood experience.

Who are the most important persons that must like and love us as a child? The answer is one’s parents and one’s friends. My dad never willingly gave me a hint that he liked or loved me unless I proved myself. Likewise, with my friends. With my dad, I had to prove that I had academic abilities (e.g., he forced me to play the piano, etc.) My friends demanded that I proved that I was ‘hard’. Two mutually incompatible ways of being. No wonder I got mentally mixed up and opted for the ‘loner’ option.

I still feel that I need to prove myself because I don’t feel that I’m enough. My dad and my friends demanded proof. My dad was indeed a monomaniac – obsessed only by academic abilities. And my friend were only interested in my being tough and hard. However, the only person I could safely be was myself. My dad and my friends were the exceptions. They demanded conformity from me to be what they were. This meant that I had to sacrifice what I was in myself. We cannot do such things unless we put on an ‘act’ – an act which others will see through. Most people do not demand conformity. They liked me for what I was.

I must simply be myself. And myself alone. There’s nothing else I can do. Go for it! Be!

If I feel distanced or alienated I must realise and accept that this is not always or completely to do with the Other’s culpability in any way. It is just the brute impact of difference on me and my inability to make sense of the Other – in whatever form the Other takes. This, of course, applies to almost everyone else as well. The point is that I must not assume the culpability of the Other and therefore not easily succumb to feelings of negativity. I must realise that Difference does alienate and disturb me, not only culpable Difference. Most other people fall victim to this conflation of Difference and culpability, as I have often noted. For example, a Mongolian tribesman will be different to us in a big way. But to automatically assume his culpability is both arrogant and unjustified. But, again, this is the prime moral failing of so many individuals and cultures, as Levinas makes very clear in his work. Perhaps I should even suspect my alienation from a chav’s Otherness. This should never stop me from justifiably being critical of negative and culpable Otherness, which may in fact be applicable to the crack-chav.

In a sense it’s not the event that I pre-empt, but the feelings I am going to have. I therefore become nervous and anxious about the prospect of becoming anxious and nervous. The emotions are the real intentional objects of my fear and anxiety. Fear can act as a warning. However, the event is going to occur anyway. So why add extra fear and anxiety? “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” … is hardly life-threatening. So it’s not physical hurt that I fear. The only thing left to fear is mental hurt. What could that possibly be? That they will think badly of me? Or, alternatively, that I’ll be … I’ll tackle them thinking badly of me first.

Have they got the right to judge me? They … It follows, therefore, that they have no right to think badly of me. But even if they did, who cares! Who are they? Little ..! I must value and trust their judgements about me even though I don’t know them. They … So how can they judge me? Why does it matter what they think anyway? I don’t know them. They don’t know me. I don’t like them (he’s unctuous). And yet I value and respect their possible judgements of me. I must have very little self-respect. After all, this is one of my only vices (if it is a vice!). What is ‘bad’ anyway? 

So fear and anxiety is completely unjustifiable and irrational. Nothing is going to happen to me. What could happen?

Say I do chat-up a girl and she rejects me. Rejects me! Poor little boy. It confirms to me that I’m a shit. I will think that she’s justified in her rejecting me. That is, whatever the Other thinks about me, she or he is right. I am always wrong. There’s no question about it. I’m wrong because they are superior. A K girlie is superior to me! Think about it. What low self-esteem I must have to think that. How terribly low!

So, girlie, reject me! What will that do to me? Hurt me? Why will it hurt me? Because I will simply assume that she’s in the right for rejecting me. Why will I think that? Because I was conditioned to think myself a piece of shit. Many long years of daddy aggro. I’m still a child vis-à-vis Tracies – and everyone else!

Being hurt by strangers – bizarre! Irrational! Silly! Reasonless! There must be some deep reason why this is so. Because they know the truth about me. How the corbett could this be the case? Do they know me? And even if they do know me, am I bad? No! I have faults just like everybody else. I don’t harm anyone. And let I shrink. .. But it’s coming to an end. I am not inferior.  But I was ill. Yes, ill. Well ill.

So, as the writer says, what I must do is simply say, Stop it! every time I hear its poisonous voice and begin to heed what it is saying. Such an ejaculation, if repeated many times, will help me to counteract its pernicious influence, at least in the long run.

The writer says that what Inner Critic tells me ‘are lies’. I myself have acknowledged this vital truth. They are lies essentially because they don’t come from me. If they don’t come from me, then it is likely that they could be wrong – perhaps very wrong. If that voice is essentially a proxy for dad, or my dad as he was when I was young, then clearly it is very likely that it will say things that are wrong about me. In other words, yes, it does indeed tell me ‘lies’ about me because it is essentially an outsider, with an outsider’s take on my mind. Only my rational self knows the truth about me. Even if that truth is indeed sometimes negative. But I will know when these negative thoughts are my own and when they are those of Inner Critic.

Then the writer makes a statement that corresponds with what I believe with incredible power and force because I now know that I am not the only one in such a situation. The writer’s stark statement is this:

 These are the lies my father told me.

More accurately, they are lies dad told me about myself. Of course they needn’t have been direct assertions about my nature from dad. Instead, they were criticisms, putdowns, rejections and dismissals of my abilities and talents, the sneering rejections of my own views and assertions about me that portrayed me as very culpable

Very hurt by criticism! By the slightest criticism. By unjustified criticism. By things which I take for criticism but which may not be. By criticisms I also see as justified for the simple reason that they are directed at me by others. By criticisms I take to be valid and true. That I always take to be both valid and true.

I am hurt by all rejections because there is not much left of my ego to sustain any criticism, even if that criticism is merely imagined. My ego is weak; therefore I am automatically hurt by criticism.

2) I don’t feel as good as others.

I don’t feel as good as others by definition – by my own definition! I don’t feel as good as any other person. Again, by definition. I see all others as better than myself simply because they are others. That’s all it takes. I simply assume that others’ beliefs are better than my own. Truer and more justified. I assume that others dress better than me. Talk better than me. Have a better sense of humour than me. Have better musical tastes than me. Are more ‘real’ than me. Are more ‘street’ than me. Are less culpable than me. Are better looking than me. Have better attitudes to life than me. Say better things than me. Are more working class than me. Are more middle class than me. Are more class-less than me. Have a better attitude to jobs, politics, dress, etc. than me. Are better than me in every way. Everyone is better than me in every way.

 3) I do not recognise my own good qualities.

I do not do so because outside my flat I do not believe that I have any good qualities. Accepting my good qualities would be tantamount to egoism or even narcissism. And this is because of dad’s conditioning of me. I always assume that my good qualities are insignificant vis-à-vis the good qualities of all other people. No matter what good qualities I may have, I simply explain them away:

ix)                  I am bad company because I am too middle class.

x)                    I am bad company because I am not middle class enough.

xi)                  I am bad company because I am not working class enough.

xii)                 I am bad company because I am too working class.

xiii)               I am bad company because I am too intelligent and therefore intimidating.

xiv)               I am bad company because I am not intelligent enough.

xv)                I can never be good company because of my continuous low self-esteem. Therefore if that is the case, then i) to xv) are bound to be the case. They will all cases to be the case when I have high self-esteem.