I received another phone call from my grandma. She had to use a neighbor’s phone because she couldn’t understand how to use her new phone – again. After talking to her and telling her I would come over after work, I hung up and just sat at my desk for a moment. I don’t have time to go over after work; my house is a mess, and I need to work extra hours each night this week to make up time for a day I have to take off next week for my own medical procedure. This is the third new cell phone that she hasn’t been able to understand.

“Can’t you do anything right? Look at you, your house is a mess, you’re behind on work. You get annoyed with your grandma. You are worthless, you know. Just pointless.”

I have heard this voice and similar words countless times for as long as I can remember. It was less harsh when I was a child, but I guess as I’ve grown older, so has the voice, and it has become much harsher over the years. Because this has plagued me for so long, after yet another night of crying to my husband about how horrible I am (which he vehemently disagrees with, of course), I decided that maybe I should return to writing like I did when I was younger. I often kept journals to work through my emotions and thoughts, but somewhere along the way, I left that practice behind. Which brings me here, now.

Mildred’s voice has changed over the years, but has always been clearly older and theoretically wiser about life and how things should be. The last several years she has taken on the voice of a boss I had a long time ago, someone who always treated me with disdain. It makes sense that she’d take on that voice, because I don’t believe anyone else ever actively made me feel worse about myself on a daily basis. Ugh, I am so glad I at least don’t have to hear from that person and the inner voice. One is bad enough.

It occurred to me one day, as I was preparing to begin this blog and working my way through the different topics I wanted to write about and how personal I wanted to get, that I had to get into the inner voice. But, I also knew that digging into this particular topic would be difficult because it covers so much self-loathing. I thought, what if I think about this voice not as a part of myself, but as a separate entity? Couldn’t I argue with it more efficiently and even just tell it to just shut up? And Mildred was born.

Naming the inner voice, Mildred, has helped. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but when she begins to yap at me with her negative comments, I can apply logical arguments to them. So far, it feels better this way. I know that the voice is still me and that Mildred’s comments come from my own self-doubt, but I am very optimistic that this is going to lead to positive change. I will share with you both the ups and downs as I work through this experiment.

So, what about you? Do you have an inner voice that you’ve named? If you haven’t, would you? Why or why not?