A Lesson From Junior High Exile

Source: Psychology Today

There were several long stretches in junior high and high school when I had very few friends. It was a combination of shyness and relocation—or so I tell myself today! At any rate, I ate lunch by myself in the library almost every day.

I now have a nostalgic view of those hours, but at the time it was a stressful gambit, as students were not supposed to eat outside the cafeteria. I had to constantly convince myself that I wasn’t about to be ejected from the library. “It’s OK,” I’d say to myself, as the librarian circled the magazine alcove. “She won’t kick you out. But if she does, you can just go to the girls’ bathroom.” (I’d love to start an alumni group for those who “Spent Junior High in the Bathroom—Not Doing Drugs”). Using this inner dialogue, I kept calm and, as it happens, was never challenged about my lunchtime routine (maybe the librarian herself was an alum). Using a technique for which I did not then have a name, I was able to dispel my angst. In fact those afternoons may have set me on the path to this very post, as I fell in love with the world of magazines in those 50-minute periods.

Self-talk is both a term and a technique, but it’s no homunculus whispering put-downs or praise in your ear. It’s more like the mind’s wallpaper: recessive but pervasive. And, like wallpaper, it subtly frames every point with which it comes into contact.

In our June issue, "The Voice of Reason” explores how simple pronouns, wisely deployed, can have a huge impact. The way people talk to themselves about a romantic break-up has real implications for moving on (“It’s Over”). In both cases, a self-focused, I-intensive style may be problematic. The use of "I" may even track with self-absorption in the culture generally (“Who Cares About Character?") The inner voice is both symptom and salve, partly indicating what you believe about yourself and partly indoctrinating you into a way of thinking, as I discovered years ago in that library, where it really was OK to be alone.

I hope you'll enjoy the just-published PT stories referenced above, and consider obtaining the print edition from which this note is adapted. ~KP