The Scripts That Play In Our Heads

Exploring where the mean voices came from and what we do about them

Hello friends! It’s good to be back. Last week was filled to the brim with clients, family stuff, and personal processing, and I just did not have the spoons or the literal time to finish this post! Hopefully it comes to you at the exact right moment you need it. :)

As an EMDR therapist, when I talk with my clients a couple of things I’m listening for are: 1) a specific traumatic incident or string of incidents that are still impacting the person mentally today, and 2) beliefs about themselves or the world that they may cognitively not believe, but can’t help themselves from acting on emotionally.

If that sounds a little murky, let me break it down.

Lots of people, myself included, have beliefs ingrained in us from before we could even talk. (When this is a traumatic thing, it’s called preverbal trauma, and it’s really tricky but also realllly important to get to in therapy!). And a lot of times, we “know” it’s not true, or at least we know we don’t want to believe it… but it’s so ingrained that we keep on acting out the same patterns, over and over.

Take the analogies of the Conestoga wagon heading West (Oregon Trail style), or a record player. There are grooves that have been set, and the easiest thing to do is keep following the tracks. Even if we know this might not be the direction we want to go, we keep falling into those well-worn grooves.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

EMDR therapy is not the only way of doing this, but what EMDR helps do is trace back where those grooves came from in the first place, and helps fill in those sunken tracks and set your Conestoga wagon on a new path. (not literally. Literal version¹: EMDR helps create new neural network connections in your brain so that the old “neurons that fire together, wire together²” connections become obsolete because you’re not reacting out of the pain of the original event, but have a fresh, healed place to make healthy choices from).

So let’s talk about these beliefs. I find it helpful to call them scripts: it externalizes the problem (i.e., helps me realize it’s not about ME but about the scripts, or old beliefs, running through my mind). Plus, when I call it a script, it lets me reflect on the “play” in my head and when it came into existence, who the characters are, who is the director, and what role I’m playing …. and whether this is a role I want to keep playing³.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Since the best example I know is myself, I’ll go through some of the automatic beliefs that I hold. I’m guessing you probably have some of the same ones, especially if we have a shared religious trauma / neurodivergent history!

When I do something that feels “bad,” or when I’m less than perfect in a relational way, I’m amazed how fast I jump to the old scripts: “I’m a horrible person. No one would want to be friends with me. I think people hate me.”

It sounds so melodramatic, but I can hear those lines clear as day running through my head when I feel triggered by something. I know they’re not true (ermm… I think so, at least!), yet some little part of me still believes it wholeheartedly.

So let’s drill down into what’s going on. Who wrote this script, and when? What characters existed when this script was being written? And is this a script that is serving me in any way?

I bet I could attribute some of it to religious trauma. (I’ve lately been realizing how much that shame — an essential component of evangelicalism — is deeply ingrained in me). Oh, of course I might jump to conclusions that doing something bad automatically meant I was horrible person, because once upon a time I internalized that message! But in reality, my Self (Internal Family Systems) or my Higher Self (spirituality) knows better. That part knows that even if I did do something wrong, it doesn’t mean that I’m a horrible person, because every single person makes mistakes.

And perhaps part of it could be attributed to being a little undiagnosed neurodivergent kid who never ever felt like she fit in. Too tall, too shy, too different. I know at bare minimum I was an anxious child from the get-go, sensorily sensitive, and confused/intimidated as hell by the social interactions that everyone else seemed to engage in with such ease.

Man! Viewing my child part from that lens makes the belief that “no one wants to be friends with me and everyone hates me,” make a lot more sense. My reality back then was that I had one actual friend at best and was a shy kid who mostly lived in my own head.

But my reality now is different! I am for sure not everyone’s cup of tea, but most people aren’t mine, either. But now I know the joy of feeling really seen by another and having the joy of deep, long-lasting friendships (just a few, but it’s enough!) that fill up my soul. My child part didn’t have that, and she was lonely. But that doesn’t mean I was destined to be friendless, or that anyone hated me. I just hadn’t found my people yet.

Once I can isolate the source of the script and offer a little compassion for why that script might have appeared, it creates more space to create a new narrative in my head. It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay if people are upset, including when they’re upset at you. You’re still a person worthy of existing, and even of being loved. You are still lovable!”

It’s not always as easy as 1-2-3, which is when I find that EMDR can come in very handy. Sometimes our brains need an extra boost from some bilateral stimulation and quietness in our mindspace to do the unconscious healing work our thinking minds can’t do alone. And maybe I’m just a particularly EMDR-influenceable person, but I’ve noticed some big shifts open up in my life after my sessions. It’s at least worth a shot!

I know this is a pretty personal / vulnerable area to talk about, but maybe we can normalize the fact that most of us have some pretty negative scripts that run through our heads in our worst moments. I only shared a snippet of mine! So if you feel comfortable sharing: what scripts do you recognize from your head and would like to be done with? What are some of the sources of your scripts? And what would happen if you could really believe something new about yourself?

This community has never shown itself to be anything but safe and supportive, so I hope you experience that in the comments! I look forward to our conversation!

1. KC Davis in her book “How to Keep House While Drowning” is sensitive to the needs of her readers, including the phrase “Literal version: ___” after she uses a metaphor to meet the needs of many of her autistic readers! I love that, so I’m borrowing it.

2. “Neurons that fire together, wire together” is a common saying in the neuro/psychology world. It just means that our brain makes patterns and schemas for things and it’s hard to break out of them once they’re hard-core established.

3. Literal version: These beliefs came from a certain place in our personal histories. Who was the original person or situation that might have made us feel this way? And just because it happened then, it doesn’t mean that this is a situation or belief about myself that needs to apply for all of time.