I'm scared I'm turning into my mother

[Sophie Cecile]

My mother has always been very critical and self-unaware, (Does that make sense?) and I'm scared that one day that will be me.
We argue about everything, and I've started to do that with other people, and I'm becoming unconsciously critical of places I go and my friends, and it hurts me so much to think that I'm treating them the way my mother treats me.

I've tried asking my friends to tell me when I start being critical so I know to stop myself, but they don't for whatever reason, and then they get angry at me, because I always end up saying something to hurt them.

Where I live, criticism is ubiquitous, how can I break the cycle?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

First, you probably do have some of your mother's characteristics - and some of your father's - and some that are just uniquely you.

Second, we do tend to model the behaviors of those close to us when we're growing up, so ye, you probably do have a tendency to model the behaviors you see in your parents and/or siblings, as qwell as your close friends.

But that doesn't mean you're doomed to become like any of them. The major defense you have against this happening is awareness of what you dislike in other people to help you become more aware of those traits in yourself, and to identify when you are behaving in similar ways.

Jung conceptualized the defense of projection this way: our negative reactions to certain traits we perceive in other people are actually a defense against acknolwedging those same traits in ourselves. I'm not a Jungian psychologist but there is some truth to that observation.