myschyf | (no subject)

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You know how someone will troll a community and the general reaction is either "What a jerk" or arguing with the person, with a bit of what a jerk thrown in?

How come we tend not to do that with the trolls in our heads? How come, when they whisper that we're awful, terrible and stupid to boot, we tend to *believe* them more often than not?

I've got more, but a thunderstorm just started and 1)it's fun to watch and 2) I hate it when the power goes off when I'm in the middle of typing.

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How come we tend not to do that with the trolls in our heads? How come, when they whisper that we're awful, terrible and stupid to boot, we tend to *believe* them more often than not?

Because those aren't trolls. They're more like con men. A con artist knows what you're likely to believe, and tells you that.

Enjoy the thunderstorm.

Interesting question.

My take on it is that although they're trolls, we still think of them as part of us, and parts of us can't be wrong...

Because we don't recognize them as trolls. More often than not, they have familiar (even loved) faces, or are distorted reflections of ourselves.

But damn, that's a good analogy. Now all I need is a Field Guide to Mental Trolls and I'm ready to go a-whacking.

*blink*

What an excellent question.

I think I need to ponder that a bit myself.

We listen because those trolls are US, and we like us because we're smart and insightful and we're only saying this for our own good, right? So, when we say that we're stupid, it's only because we don't want us to embarrass ourselves, and when we say that we look like a buffalo with a thyroid condition, we mean that in the most helpful possible way. Right?

Good observation. Really good.

A troll lives under a bridge. All you can see of him is his lower arm and his hand, as they reach around the edge, groping for someone or something to latch onto. They don't know who or what they are reaching for. They also don't know they've struck anything unless it struggles and squirms, so they continue to grope blindly, waiting for the inevitable squirmer.

The whisperers are a different species. They are the ones with x-ray vision. They can see inside people, and they search out the dark, scary spots. They are perfectly aware of their victims - they ahve to know them to be able to get close enough to look inside. And they don't need a squirmer to know they've hit their target. They aim carefully, with their little barbed arrows, and they strike to the core every time. They feed on the dark spots inside, only they are insidious enough that their victims seldom see the attack, much less where it came from.

And thus you have the difference between the two.

Hah. I think it's because folks have had a hard time accepting that some thoughts/emotions are just 'noise', and need to be looked at with a more skeptical eye. I think Freud might have been the one who caused some damage here... his notions of the unconscious are important, but they've given rise to the idea that there are no "accidents" when it comes to stuff like this.

That's a good, and important, idea you're expressing here.

Did you ever read The Artist's Way? She writes about silencing your inner critic. I turned mine into Krusty the Klown and it's become much easier to think, "What a jerk," when he pipes up.

Those first two sentences are two of the most profoundly intelligent and correct that I have ever seen on LJ. The third I merely agree with wholheartedly.

Weirdly enough...probably because it's coming from us (and who can we trust more than anyone else but ourselves) instead of from an outside source.

Perhaps when those trolls come runnign around, maybe we shouldn't trust ourselves so much either. :)

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