Why Am I Like This? | Anxiety Therapy Phoenix for the Inner Critic
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Imagine that I’m sitting beside you. Not across from you. Not assessing, analyzing, or waiting for you to say the “right” thing. Just here.
You ask the question that’s been quietly circling your brain for a long time:
“What’s wrong with me?”
And instead of answering with reassurance, advice, or a list of coping skills, I say something much simpler:
“Nothing. Considering what you’ve been through, this makes sense.”
You might have a couple of responses to this. Your body might tighten with annoyance, or you might feel a rush of shock or even relief.
None of these responses mean you’re doing it wrong. This also makes sense—and I’ll explain why.
When anxiety and an inner critic have been part of your internal landscape for the better part of your life, gentleness can feel unfamiliar. Sometimes it even feels unsafe. That reaction alone tells us something important about how your nervous system learned to survive.
This post isn’t about fixing you. It isn’t about urgency or forcing insight. It’s about softening shame, understanding where anxiety and self-criticism come from, and gently showing you what support anxiety therapy Phoenix can offer, without pressure to change before you’re ready.
When Anxiety Becomes an Inner Critic
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Many people seeking Anxiety Therapy Phoenix don’t just feel anxious. They feel at odds with themselves, like a constant internal tug of war. The distress isn’t only fear or worry, it’s the voice inside that never seems satisfied, that’s become the narrative for way too long.
It’s the voice that questions your reactions, critiques your effort, and insists you should be doing better by now. It often sounds logical, even motivating on the surface, but underneath, it carries a sharp edge of threat. The message isn’t just “do better.” It’s “stay alert, or something bad will happen.”
From a trauma-informed perspective, that voice isn’t evidence that something is wrong with you. It’s often anxiety that develops as a survival mechanism in efforts to keep you safe.
At some point (often early and without conscious awareness), your nervous system learned that staying “on” all the time reduced risk. Being self-critical may have helped you avoid mistakes, conflict, or emotional harm. Monitoring yourself closely may have been the price of staying connected, successful, or unseen in an environment that didn’t feel reliably safe.
If this is you, it’s understandable that your system feels depleted, on edge, and worn down from working this hard for so long.
Anxiety and Perfectionism Often Grow From the Same Roots
For many people, anxiety and perfectionism are inseparable. Perfectionism isn’t just about standards or achievement—it’s often about safety.
When your nervous system has learned that mistakes carry consequences, striving can feel more stabilizing than rest. Thinking, planning, improving, and refining become ways to manage uncertainty. Stillness, on the other hand, can feel exposing, vulnerable, and sometimes even perceived as weak.
This is why people are often confused by their own success. On the outside, things may look fine, great even. Inside, they feel like they’re juggling 10 fragile plates and their hair is on fire. In other words, the system never settles or relaxes. The mind continues to scan, adjust, and prepare, even when there’s no immediate threat.
If you want to explore this overlap more deeply, you may want to read Why Perfectionism Can Feel Safer Than Stillness, which unpacks how effort and striving can become substitutes for nervous system safety.
Why Insight and Logic Don’t Quiet the Inner Critic
Many anxious, self-critical people are already deeply self-aware. You may understand that logically your thoughts don’t make sense while still feeling unable to stop them. You can recognize that you’re being hard on yourself and still feel trapped in the loop, saying “Ugh, I wish I wasn’t so mean to myself,” or “Why do I have to feel this way?”
That’s because anxiety doesn’t live only in cognition. It lives in the nervous system.
When the body is holding a sense of threat, the mind takes on the job of protection. It replays conversations, anticipates outcomes, and scans for what could go wrong—not because it’s irrational, but because it doesn’t yet feel safe enough to relax.
This is often where people feel discouraged in therapy. They’re learning, reflecting, applying tools, and yet the inner critic persists. That doesn’t mean therapy is failing. It usually means the work hasn’t yet reached the level where the body can register that felt sense of safety.
Overthinking and self-criticism are not signs of resistance or flaws. They’re signs of a system still doing its job to maintain a sense of safety.
A Nervous-System Understanding of the Inner Critic
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From a nervous-system lens, the inner critic is not random or excessive (although it can feel really frustrating having that inner monologue running with so much criticism). The inner critic operates out of a purpose. And it developed because it worked.
If we think about it from this frame of reference, it makes sense that if our environment was critical and harsh, if we are first critical and harsh to ourselves, it is less likely someone else’s words will hurt us. And thus, the role of the inner critic is born and continues to perpetuate.
In other words, for many people, self-criticism functions as a form of hypervigilance. It helps anticipate mistakes, prevent rejection, and maintain a sense of control when things feel uncertain internally. The mind becomes the most dependable tool available when the body hasn’t yet learned that it’s safe to rest.
This is why being told to “just give yourself some grace” can feel impossible (if not a little irritating). To the nervous system, that suggestion can sound like abandoning a strategy that once kept things manageable. Without a felt sense of safety, the mind keeps working in overdrive because it doesn’t yet trust that it’s allowed to stop.
Change tends to happen not when the inner critic is argued with, but when the body begins to experience safety, support, and a stress response cycle completion.
How EMDR Therapy Approaches Anxiety and the Inner Critic
EMDR therapy works differently from approaches that focus primarily on thought correction. Rather than asking you to reason your way out of anxiety, EMDR works with how the brain and nervous system naturally process experiences.
In trauma-informed EMDR therapy, overthinking and self-criticism aren’t treated as problems to eliminate. They’re understood as signals about how your system learned to survive. Through a structured, phased process, EMDR helps the nervous system digest experiences that are still held as “unfinished.” Importantly, this work is paced and collaborative—nothing is forced before your system is ready.
As those experiences resolve, many people notice that the inner critic softens organically. Thoughts become quieter or more accurate, not because they were forced to change, but because the body no longer needs to stay on high alert.
If you’re newer to this approach, you may want to start with my EMDR Therapy Guide , which explains how EMDR works and what trauma-informed EMDR therapy in Phoenix actually looks like.
Anxiety Therapy Phoenix Without Urgency or Fixing
Effective Anxiety Therapy Phoenix work isn’t about pushing yourself to calm down or silencing parts of you that learned to protect. It’s about helping your nervous system recognize that it’s safe enough to shift.
Trauma-informed anxiety therapy prioritizes pacing, consent, and stability. There’s no requirement to relive trauma in graphic detail. There’s no expectation that you “let go” before your system is ready. EMDR is never self-guided and is always facilitated by a trained professional who understands how to work with anxiety, perfectionism, and internal threat responses carefully.
If your anxiety includes a harsh inner voice that pressures or criticizes, you may also want to explore Taming the Inner Critic with EMDR Therapy in Phoenix, which looks more specifically at how internalized threat patterns can soften with support.
Nothing Is Wrong With You
If you’ve been asking yourself, “Why am I like this?” I want to gently offer a different question:
“What was happening in my life that my nervous system needed to learn this way of being to survive?
That question doesn’t assign blame. It invites understanding and curiosity.
Therapy doesn’t have to be a place where you fix yourself. It can be a place where you finally understand yourself, where the parts of you that worked so hard to survive are met with curiosity and kindness instead of judgment.
If you’re exploring anxiety therapy or EMDR therapy in Phoenix, support can meet you without urgency, without pressure, and without asking your nervous system to become someone else first.
About Kandace Ledergerber, LPC/LMHC
Photo Description: Kandace Ledergerber, trauma therapist in Phoenix offering EMDR Therapy - smiling in a sunflower field, representing growth and healing.
Kandace Ledergerber (she/her) is a trauma therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist serving Phoenix, Tempe, and all of Arizona and Florida virtually. She specializes in helping adults heal from childhood trauma, relationship wounds, anxiety, and nervous system dysregulation through EMDR therapy, trauma-informed care, and compassionate, collaborative treatment. Kandace offers weekly EMDR therapy in Phoenix as well as EMDR Intensives for clients seeking more focused support.
🌻 Take the Next Step
If you’re curious about starting healing in a way that works with your brain and body, I’d love to support you. Book a Free 15-Minute Consultation and see if EMDR therapy in Phoenix is the right fit for your healing journey.
TL;DR
Anxiety and a harsh inner critic aren’t personal failures. They’re nervous system strategies that once helped you stay safe.
Insight alone doesn’t calm anxiety when the body doesn’t yet feel safe.
Trauma-informed anxiety therapy and EMDR therapy in Phoenix work bottom-up, supporting the nervous system rather than fighting thoughts.
You don’t need fixing—you deserve understanding.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not therapy or a substitute for therapy. EMDR should always be facilitated by a trained clinician. If you’re in crisis, please contact local emergency services or call/text 988 in the U.S.
