Self-talk

Sandy had crappy self-talk. Her default comments to herself were demoralizing. Sometimes they bled into joint activities, as when we'd make a goof together and she'd say something like "Smarter girls would have thus-and-such" or "Better people would have blah blah blah." I'd push back, rejecting the implication that a simple error made us bad or stupid. But I didn't get to hear all the things she said to herself internally.

It still saddens me that she ever doubted her worth or how
much she was loved. You'd never know it from her smile.

She was chronically clinically depressed, and no antidepressants ever really did the trick. I don't know whether her self-criticism was a cause or product of the depression, but I was pretty certain that it wasn't helping. So I was thrilled when she came home from therapy one day and said, "Martha says we're going to work on my self-talk." (Though I've never met her, I adore Martha. She got through to Sandy in ways that I couldn't.)

My own self-talk isn't always supportive. In fact, it's often pretty dark. When I first realized that a couple of decades ago, I started talking back to myself. For example, if I heard myself say (out loud or just in my head), "I should die," I'd respond immediately, "No, I shouldn't." Eventually I learned to head the negative sentiments off at the pass. When I was ashamed about something, felt awkward or incompetent, or even royally screwed something up, I'd say, "It's okay, little Brie." I'd get pissed off if anyone else called me "little Brie," but somehow the words reminded me that I wasn't infallible and that that was okay. I told Sandy about it several years ago, thinking she'd find it foolish. Instead, she tried to adopt it, telling herself, "It's okay, little Sandy." She said it helped.

I don't know how much progress Sandy and Martha made on self-talk in the last months of Sandy's life. I know that it did wonders for her to see how much her life had meant to so many people, though. I think that overwhelming evidence quieted the negative self-talk in her final weeks.

I hadn't realized how grim my own self-talk had gotten again until last night. I'd picked up Spirited, a book by a woman who says she's a medium. I really like her, especially because her goal is to get others to listen to their own intuition and to find comfort and guidance from the spirits that surround them. She honestly doesn't seem to be trying to grab everyone's money.

Early in the book, she talks about her first experience with a spirit. Her grandmother suddenly appeared, through automatic writing, when she was going through psychological turmoil. The story is fascinating and not unlike some of my experiences with Sandy. But a couple of more typical things she wrote really made me stop and think: she said her grandmother helped her see that she needed to love herself unconditionally, and she said she found comfort in repeating to herself, "I'm not alone."

"I'm not alone." That's pretty powerful. And it's the opposite of what I've been saying over and over again to myself and sometimes to other people. My words have been along these lines: "I'm all alone. No one understands me. No one but Sandy ever understood me. Now that Sandy's gone, I can't ever hope to truly be known again."

I've always been very suggestible. Repeating that I'm alone and not understood can only be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides, if anyone understands that a loved one's consciousness is still nearby, it's got to be me. I have no excuse for rejecting the comfort offered by Sandy's presence. So I resolved to interrupt my despair, if only with the words "I'm not alone."

The unconditional love stuff is a little harder for me to handle. I know and accept that other people love me, but some part of me has always assumed that if they truly knew me, they wouldn't. (Except Sandy. See above.) So, since I know how flawed I am, how could I possibly love me? Yeah, I thought I was a little more advanced than that. So that's something to work toward. If I can love me unconditionally, I'll know that I can be known and loved even after Sandy died. And that's got to be a good thing.