I read your post and I agree completely with it, I don't know how from my messy post you were able to say all of that unless it is somewhat common. (it must be)

It absolutely is "Who I am" and "Who I think I should be"

Anyway I agree completely, that is what it going on in my head and it makes sense now. Thanks a lot for that response.

There is one problem though, I think what my false self says is right most of the time, and I want to become "Who i think i should be"

For example: "Your fucking pathetic, she smiled at you, you wanted to talk to her, why the fuck didn't you?"
"well I didn't even know her"
"Well thats why you fucking talk to her!"
but I did want to talk to her and that should have been enough of a reason!! I agree with that "false-self"

or: "Your an idiot, what the hell were you thinking about? you didnt pay attention to any of that and you looked like a dumbass."
I should have been paying attention because I did just look like an idiot infront of the class

I even don't want to be a person who talks to myself so I end up saying
"And stop talking to yourself, you sound like a crazy person."
Wow Irony

I guess what makes this complicated is that I don't want to get rid of this false-self, I almost want to become it... I think I do want to become it. At the same time I don't want to talk to myself

But since it is just my ideas of myself and not really me then I can't just become it.

I am not a self-confident person, and I have attention deficit disorder. These things are a part of me.

Thanks, the solution isn't in thinking i should be someone different (Which is where I think this is all coming from)

The solution is probably to learn to accept and work with who I am,
I should learn to get self-confidence from myself or other people rather than thinking i need to be a naturally confident person, and I should try to stay engaged in activities rather than thinking i need to be someone who doesn't lose focus.

I think I need to use that mindset for the things i mentioned and all the other things this "false-self" has to say, and then I will be able to follow your advice... Thanks

Yeah its self-imposed.... willingly

Its bullshit and i don't enjoy doing it, but i also feel somewhat of a fulfillment doing it.

I feel like im making a sacrifice to give atheism a better image.

If you had a son, would you talk to your son that way when he made a mistake? Would you call him "fucking pathetic"? I hope you answer no. That would be abusive parenting. Now think about how you talk to yourself. You (actually, your ego) are being abusive to yourself.

You do not need to insult or denigrate yourself in order to learn from your mistakes.

Replace that negative self-talk with gentler, forgiving, and motivating self-talk.

I once heard, or read, some advice on how to think about self-talk. Imagine you're going on a walk to the store with a cute little kid, who is innocent but curious. As you're walking, the kid sees a butterfly and strays off the sidewalk. You could say, "Hey you stupid motherfucking dirtbag, get the fuck back on this sidewalk right now or I'll beat the living shit out of you!" All that would do is cause the kid to cry, hate you, cower in submission, all of the above, or possibly something worse. Or... you could say "Wow, that's a neat butterfly. We'll see it again on our way back home. Right now we're going to the store, so come on, let's go together." And you gently guide the kid toward the intended goal.

Either way, you get to the store. But one way you end up with a sad, miserable kid who hates you, and the other way you end up with a happy little kid who trusts you.

Actually, in this story, you are the little kid, and the 'ego' is 'you'. The ego is a tool. It is not really you. It thinks it is you, and it wants you to think you are it. But really, it's just the ego. The job of the ego is to defend yourself. It is always on the lookout for danger, and to correct your behaviour. It is based mainly in fear. If you begin to identify with the ego, you will end up living in a subconscious fear, known as dread.

So, think critically, learn from your mistakes. But there's no reason to do so negatively and without respect for your true self.

And, I guarantee you, you'll attract far more people when you take care of your inner self than when you beat up on yourself. So, it's a win win. You still get to the store, and when you get there, your inner true self is happy and confident, and the girl at the counter says "Hi there" with a big smile.

Okay, I already covered the part about being more forgiving and guiding to yourself. I want to focus on your obsession with how people see you or think about you. You need to let that go too. That's also part of the ego. What does it matter whether you happen to look foolish sometimes? Everybody does. And by the way, you're not perfect and there's nothing wrong with that!!!

If your self-worth comes from how other people see you, I have some very bad news for you: There will always be someone (even many people) who dislike you for one reason or another that you have no control over. You are surrendering your self-worth to people who are not fit to make that decision. You don't even really *know* them, and they are likely not even your *friends*! (And even friends and family are not necessarily good judges of your self-worth.)

I'll even admit that I'm not worthy to be the judge of your own self-worth. See? Only you can make that judgment. In fact, you are the one who's turning over that judgment to others. You are the only one who can take it back. You never gave up your own judgment of your self-worth in the first place! You just mistakenly decided to use your *imagined* ideas about what other people think of you to take the place of what *you* think of yourself.

And, I've got another piece of bad news: Your imagined ideas about what others think of you are probably way wrong anyway!

So, this whole business of obsessing about what other people think of you just doesn't make any sense, any way you slice it.

What it all really is is the ego coming up with more and more imagined reasons to criticize you. Just let that stuff go.

You are who you are, and there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing! In fact, this whole ego business I'm talking about... there's nothing wrong with that either. It's painful, it's annoying, it's self-defeating, but it's a natural part of you. You came with the machinery to conjure up a self-critical ego when you were born. There's no point blaming yourself for how you came to be.

So, you fear what others think of you. Okay. That's fine. So you fear it. No big deal. Fear is normal. But you don't need it, so just... let it go.

Trust me, I know this is not so easy to do what I'm suggesting. I am still plagued by fear, and still working at letting it go. I'm much much better at it, now that I've got some practice, but the initial act of acknowledging and letting go of my attachment to my ego was very difficult.

I even did a YouTube video on fear. Maybe it'll help you. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYsu7WIZWDw

Talking to yourself is not bad. Everyone does it. Most people do it silently in their thoughts. That's self-talk. Some people do it so subconsciously they are not even aware of it most of the time. But it's happening to most people most of the time.

Some people like to think out loud. Nothing wrong with that. Some people like to write it down. Nothing wrong with that either. In fact, writing can really help to clarify ideas, just by putting it down on paper or computer.

What's bad is when your self-talk causes you suffering, such as relentless negative self-criticism.

It's an illusion, my friend. The ego feels good for a while. It feels powerful. It's like a drug. But then you get trapped in it and it all goes downhill from there. Life starts to become empty and you start to feel an endless need, like a hole you can never fill. I wouldn't be surprised if you've experienced this empty feeling already. For me it started when I was about 11 or 12, with signs of it at around 8. But I really bought into it around 11 or 12. It was a coping strategy for me. One day I was feeling sad and out of control, and I found a way to just shut off my emotions and let my 'shell' take over. It felt really good for a while. I was no longer ruled by that pesky sadness. Little did I realize that that 'pesky sadness' was my true self, which I had been trying to hide from everyone. I was too ashamed. I thought if anyone really knew the real me, they'd hate me. So I just locked the real me up in a box and shoved him into the basement. I didn't really let him out until about 3 or 4 years ago when my mental illness (anxiety and depression) finally made it impossible for me to work.

Don't worry so much about that. Take up reciting poetry or singing or storytelling, or something. Clearly your mind works better when you are vocalizing. Nothing wrong with that either.

That last part is right, especially the word 'accept'. It doesn't mean 'resign yourself with' or 'be complacent about', it means that you are who you are and there's nothing really wrong with that.

I just want to warn you on one last thing. It is possible to go the opposite extreme from relentless self-criticism to complacent fatalism. Both are manifestations of the ego. The latter is when you say, "Well, I'm never going to be good at anything anyway, so why bother?" Instead of trying to force yourself to improve with self-criticism, you just 'give up' and stop caring.

When you say things like "I am not a self-confident person, and I have attention deficit disorder. These things are a part of me." it reminds me a little bit of fatalism. "Well, I've got ADD, so I'll never learn anyway, so why bother?" "My problems are a part of me, so I can never fix them."

Stick with that word 'acceptance'. You are who you are, and that's okay. You can always improve in whatever ways you like, but whether you improve or not, you're still okay. You cannot change the past, and the future doesn't exist yet. The only sane thing to do is accept the present moment, which includes accepting yourself.

I always talk to myself. I mean, I have full conversations and arguements with myself outloud. Of course only when I am alone. There is nothing unusual about it. And the feeling confused is normal too. The fact is that noone knows for sure what llies beyond this world as we know it.

Funny I'm going to bring this up here but I got it watching a Ray Comfort video. He made a good point. Imagine that we, or you as a human know exactly 1% of everything about the universe. Even that is high but just assume you know 1% of everything there is to know about everything. What about the 99% that you don't know.

It leaves alot to be confused about. That is why I do not call myself an athiest. Just because I renouced my faith does not mean I absolutly think there cannot be a god. I just no longer believe in the god that is from the bible as I have been taught all my life. I do have a hard time imagining that my conscience stops once I am medically dead.

Also alot of the christians who appear happy all the time are fake. That is something that deep down got on my nerves whenever I would go to church. They act like they are sooooooo glad to see you and all of that. But does that happiness carry on outside the church. Of course noone is going to go to church and act like a dick. Like I said in my first post, when I was a christian I felt the most miserable. I would always worry about if what I was doing was a sin. I would constantly wonder if the music I was listening to was christian of me. I would feel bad because I didn't talk to someone about god. Just constantly making myself feel bad. Now I don't believe in all of that stuff. I am much more stress free.

You are normal dude, don't sweet it.

Thingy 1 (might as well do as everyone else )

It's been said before, it's not a healthy thing to do. If your angry or sad don't try to hide it, try to fix it. Your rational thought will aid you.

Thingy 2

I do that all the time, just not out loud. It's how we work out problems. I would think a lot of people have the whole inner monologue going. You just happen to vocalize yours and I don't see a problem with that. It's the people that don't think about things from multiple sides that you have to worry about.

Yes, I can relate.

There is nothing wrong with facing reality, sometimes reality is depressing. It isn't that you are wrong in having these feelings. And they are lieing to you if they say they don't have doubts or troubles.

Their god, or any for that matter, is not needed to feel the full range, good or bad, of emotions that we naturally evolved with.

At work I constantly get criticised for my "negitivity"(their words), when I see it as postive pragmatism in thinking about what what can and does, often in life, go wrong.

My close friend, frequently smokes pot and drives, or drinks and drives. I love the guy, he has a huge heart. BUT, every time I explain that it will catch up to him, he treats me like I am a pesimist, or that I am going to "jinx" him.

It is ok to have down times. It is ok to have sad emotions. It is ok to think about things that might go wrong in life.

But the downside to that is that you can spiral into deep depression which is unhealthy. Christians, dispite what they tell you, are just as human as you are, and have as many joys and sadness as you do.

I would suggest in your more sad times, to seek like minded people. I know that when I have been too worried about my mom or my pets, getting on line with a fellow atheist and venting about life in general, helps me face the next day.

DO NOT let anyone fool you that they are "UP" all the time. Rich or poor, Christian, Muslim, Jew, or atheist, we all have the same emotions and incur the same joys and strife in life.

You are not alone, and they, nor we, or anyone, is perfect. Don't let their baggage about what they think you should be, consume you. Don't dwell on emotions, express them with someone you like, then get over them and move on.

You are not a clone of them, or me. Just be yourself.

Now you're happy. That makes me happy. So we're happy. That'll make everyone else happy. Now let's all go get wasted! Yeah!

Thing #2: though I cant be sure of your case, I do talk to myself quite a lot..(few times it will concern me insulting/correcting myself on something i did wrong. Mostly in social situations but sometimes when I cant figure out a challenge left by the Math professor ).

But most times, like others said, I do that when I cant keep track of my thoughts.

wow I must be crazy lol, I actually divide stuff I have to remember into categories and then say them out loud every 15-20 minutes so I dont forget them.. :/ and Im not sure what this affliction would be(if it is any) but I tend to make sure of stuff a lot, like if I close my bookbag i actually put my finger on the zipper thingies about 5-6 times to make sure that they are ALL the way closed <....(not exaggerating)

But I wouldnt consider myself crazy xD

I KNEW it was that lol. I was never really sure what exactly OCD was, but I suspected I had a small case of it.

EDIT: I think it might actually be OCPD. OCPD individuals will make lists of things to do.

but... ill...for..ge..t.