There is nothing worse than a treacherous, backstabbing double-talker running you down. It is hard to believe it when we have been treated with such disloyalty. Betrayal by those we trust can send us boiling into a panic of anxiety and pain. Just imagine a close friend or relative talking behind your back and whispering about your failures; prognosticating your doom and undermining your best efforts to lift yourself up. This bully is well informed and knows all of your past mistakes, and knows how to use those mistakes against you — a two-faced bully with a tongue like a switch-blade knife. Even worse, what do you do when the traitor is a very close relative; so closely related, that in fact, the betrayer — is you? That's right, you; the voice in your head that's whispering, "you aren't good enough; you don't deserve it and you can't!" Maybe the self-inflicted battering is a more subtle, "what will people think?" Or perhaps it's a whisper of procrastination to just, "try later, there's always tomorrow." Then there is the foulest pummeling; a total beat-down of, "You're fat. You're stupid. You're a loser. I hate myself! I wish I were dead!"
