Unreliable Narrators and the Importance of Updating Negative Stories About Yourself
A shock discovery reminded me that whether it's your own or other people's stories about you, check in with and update your personal narrative, especially when the one you have hurts.
Our childhoods shape so much of how we see ourselves (our identity) along with our beliefs and values about life and relationships. We rarely consider how our innocence, naivety, and child-like perspectives can make us unreliable narrators later in life.
Authors use unreliable narrators as plot devices that throw us off as readers with the plot twists. Like that time I fell off my sun lounger in shock at Amy Dunne in Gone Girl—you know I’m obsessed with that book!
“An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view. The unreliable narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided, forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller.” - Masterclass
If you don’t feel too good about yourself; if the stories you tell about yourself, life and others wind up making you this inferior person that Jedi mind tricks people into being shady or rejecting you or whatever, you’re the unreliable narrator in your life. That might be because you’ve relied on reasoning habits that judge and blame you. It could also be because you’ve internalised other people’s dodgy narratives. Sometimes you have no idea you’re living a lie about something because you don’t know that an authority figure lied to you. More on the latter later!
We’ve all done a spot (or a lot) of unreliable narration in our lives. It’s called being human. While we didn’t have a choice about how we were socialised and conditioned, though, it is our responsibility to take care of ourselves. That means that when we find ourselves stuck in painful and frustrating patterns, at some point, we need to examine the narratives that drive them.
How often, if ever, do you stop and question, examine, the stories you tell (or repeat) about who you are and the life you’ve lived?
Let’s say, for instance, a parent said you were “too sensitive” when you were little. A few decades later, you might not only still believe this but use it as a basis to gaslight and dismiss yourself. You might think there’s something “wrong” with you. Next thing, you’ve got low-empathy folks tap-dancing all over your boundaries.
Are you “too sensitive” though?
Now, I’m not saying that your parent said you were “too sensitive” to deliberately mess with your head and make you dislike yourself. Still, nonetheless, that parent is and has been an unreliable narrator of past events in your life. If you don’t stop to consider not only whether it’s fair and reasonable to judge yourself as being “too sensitive” but also what other reasons might exist for your parent saying it, that old story will drive your life.
That parent might see very normal, human things like, say, expressing feelings, being disappointed, crying, expressing needs, not being entirely self-sufficient by aged two 🤷🏽♀️ as being “too sensitive”. Their attitude to these is their emotional baggage, not who you are.
In fact, calling you “too sensitive” is their way of not having to connect with their own feelings and acknowledge where they aren’t showing up for you.
It’s like, and I know so many of you get this, when parents and caregivers praise you for being “mature for your age”. They say how you’re “an old soul”, able to hold your own with grown-ups and “get on with things”. Um, no. That’s a straight-up duck and dive where they get to hide out from their responsibilities. Sure, maybe you were bright or self-motivated or liked your own company or whatever. And it’s possible you learned to be [the things you’re praised for] because you had no flippin’ choice but to be due to neglect, emotional unavailability, etc.
Not every story you’ve told yourself or heard from others is true. I’ve relearned this in a big way recently.