The other day my girlfriend and I got to talking about our strategies for self talk especially re: hobbies and sports.
She was talking about how she has read study after study about the effects of positive talk. if you have a group engaging in negative self talk, one engaging in neutral or solutions-focused ralk, and one engaging in flatly positive self talk, and set them to complete a challenging task -- say, a climbing problem -- the positive talkers will come out leaps and bounds ahead. As a result she has adapted the Bob the Builder theme song into her rock climbing anthem, and she softly sings it to herself on difficult or frightening problems.
Meanwhile, I've been getting into fantasy lit again. As you might know, fantasy heroes occasionally encounter awful mind-warping psychic baddies, who always have some brain attack in their arsenal that tells the hero to give up! you're worthless! you could never win anyway! with the motivation behind the psychic attack being that actually, the heroes are a HUGE threat to the bad guys and will probably thwart all their plans, and that if they could shrug off the mind assault they would absolutely body the bad guy in a fair, non-psychic fight. So whenever I start to beat myself up I internally pretend I'm a Force for Good or like, an anime protagonist so I grit my teeth and go "No... you will not Corrupt me, Demon! I am destined to become the one to defeat you!!" and imagine the unkind words burning away and shrieking like, AIEEEE NOOO.
Anyway, all this to say that the end result of us both having Succeeded at Therapy is that when we run into a really difficult climbing problem she ends up breathy-singing Bob the Builder while I sit broodily on the mat with my brow furrowed doing my best impression of an anime protagonist with beads of sweat dripping down his temples from the psychic exhaustion. Yes, it works. No, we haven't made many friends at the climbing gym.
Hayley Williams performs Negative Self Talk at the first show of the Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party Tour at The Tabernacle (night one) (2026) via paramore_tour
Sylus tries to deepen your relationship by confirming if you two are dating and you rebuff him.
Warnings: Hurt/comfort, angst, crying, insecure & anxious reader, lots of internal negative self hatred talk on reader’s part
A/N: felt sad and bad about myself and wrote this.
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“I’m sorry Sylus, I can’t.”
You have never seen him look as dismayed and distressed as he does right now. He isn’t even trying to hide it.
“I’m sorry. I can’t date you.”
He takes a careful step back from you, clearly trying to put some distance between the two of you, “I…apologize if I overstepped.” His voice isn’t shaky but only just. “I misread the situation. I’m deeply sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says, uncharacteristically awkward.
You bite your lower lip, flustered, “…No, no. It’s fine. It’s not- You didn’t- I’m sorry… You didn’t make me…uncomfortable. I- I just can’t. I’m sorry.” A cowardly answer, you think.
Sylus was always braver than you though. More willing to show you his vulnerable belly than you ever were to show him yours. He visibly swallows, gathering that bravery, before starting up, “If I… If you don’t mind my asking, is there someone else? Did I misread the situation? Us? How you feel about me?” He pauses briefly, “I thought that we were on our way to a…more intimate relationship of sorts.”
You turn red, “No, there’s no one else… I…I just. I apologize if I gave you the wrong idea, but I just want to be friends.” You fidget. Coward, you think again.
You swallow. You know Sylus would never press an issue that you were obviously distressed by. But, you think, he deserves more than this. He had been so good to you. Made you feel…special, for a while. Looked at you and saw you. Allowed you to play pretend that maybe you could have something nice with someone nice. Sometimes he even made you forget your own self-loathing. He deserves to know, at least a bit of it, to not be left in a foggy muddle of where things stood, and where they had been.
You try to be brave too, “It’s not you, I know that we were…flirting with something like that. Well I guess just flirting too, in general.” You try a joke to lighten the mood. It doesn’t really work.
You can’t look at him so you look to the side. Your voice comes out soft, barely a whisper, “I liked it. I…I do like you. I just. I can’t date anyone, that’s all.”
He frowns, “I’m afraid I… I don’t understand? I don’t…” He stops. You look like you’re about to cry. You are about to cry.
“Oh kitten, I… It. It’s fine. Don’t feel pressured to explain. I understand that you have your own reasons and I respect that.”
You do start to cry. Messily, snot and all. You’re embarrassed to do this in front of him, ashamed of your own weakness, “I’m really sorry, Sylus,” you choke out between tears.
His fingers twitch, unsure of what to do at first. You reach up to try and wipe at your eyes sloppily. You go to wipe your nose against your arm and his mind is made up.
He pulls you into a hug, and holds you protectively. Your tears and runny nose are undoubtedly making a disgusting mess against his fancy designer shirt. “Shh…it’s okay. It’s okay. You are always allowed to say no. You don’t owe me or anyone else an explanation. Your reasons are your own and that’s more than enough.”
His breathing is steady and you can feel his warmth against you. It feels nice. It always does. “Shh…I’m here. I’ll always be here for you if you need someone. If you need me. We don’t have to do anything or be anything you don’t want. We can just be here like this.”
And it feels so good to be comforted, to let him hold you.
Sylus deserves better than you and your non-answers. You want to tell him that. You want to tell him that you’re scared he won’t like you anymore the more he gets to know you. That you’re scared he’ll avoid you and reject you if he sees deeper into all the disgusting and terrible and ugly parts of you. You want to tell him that you hope he finds someone better than you, someone more worthy of being loved. That you hate yourself. That you don’t deserve to be cared for. You don’t deserve to be held like this. That you are so flawed and so ugly and so awful and so pathetic in so many ways that he cannot even imagine.
But you know him well enough by now to know that saying those things would only upset him. Infinitely patient with you as he is, there is nothing he would hate more than hearing you tear yourself down. Even if it’s all the truth.
So you choke the words down and say nothing instead. Just stand there and allow yourself to be soothed and held. Even though you don’t deserve it.
