What I Don't Like About Myself

I fight with my boyfriend a lot. Okay, maybe not a lot, and maybe it's not really fighting when I just yell and screech at him, but I do it more often than I like. Sometimes it makes me wonder...well, it often makes me wonder...are we really compatible if I'm always yelling? Am I just too set in my ways to welcome another person into my life? Am I protecting myself from getting too close? Am I just a bitch? Is he just a ___ ? Why does my voice do that when I'm angry? Why do I always cry when I'm really angry? Am I really a mean person?

Last night, I got mad. A met me at my house after work and was ready to take me out for dinner, a movie and some early Halloween shopping. It does make sense to be Halloween shopping right now because we're leaving for the next two weeks. However, even though it makes sense, I don't feel any urgency about it whatsoever. Until he starts talking about it and then I feel like I'm going to have a crappy costume, I'm not going to fit in, but I'm not going to stand out, I'm probably not going to have any fun at all and so on. So there was already the start of some tension - mostly due to my own weird, unhealthy and unconsciously driven thoughts.

Then I started having this weird anxiety. I called E since we were in the neighborhood and she decided to come shopping with us. I don't know why this added to my tailspin, but then A said something to me along the lines of: I just didn't want to spend another night at your house watching movies, I wanted to get you out, see some people, have some fun. I was mortified. Did that guy at the next rack (who I don't know and don't even care about) hear that? Did the cute girl with the funky bracelets he admired hear? Does he think she's more fun? Does he want to date her now? I was so pissed at him, after he basically said he just wanted to show me a good time, that I couldn't speak, we had to leave the store and I fought back tears for the next 30 minutes.

What I don't like about myself is how my internal dialogue is this panic driven, full throttle anxiety bomb. That A and E both have a fair bit of emotion to them sometimes doesn't help and let's not even start on my mother. But really, it's my dialogue. Any influence they have is based only on my permitting them to do so. How do we change our internal dialogue? Fake it until we make it? I like that method for changing other things, but I'm not sure it would work with myself. Would it go a little something like this:

Self: Wow, A admired her bracelets.
Self: She's a bitch.
Self: No, she's probably not a bitch. They're cute bracelets.
Self: You're a bitch.

Guess I'll have to work on some healthy self talk. In the meantime, I'm keeping my mouth shut a little more in the moment and that helps. Instead of screeching, A and I end up talking about my feelings which is a lot more effective and also helps me realize which ones are real and which ones are just me spinning my own wheels.