The Inner Critics Speak - Just Jack
Queer Shadow Work, Shame, and the Voices We Love to Hate
If you’ve lived long enough in a queer body, you’ve likely met them.
The voices.
The critics.
The ones who mock, undermine, whisper doubts in your ear like it’s their full-time job.
“That’s too much.”
“You’ll embarrass yourself.”
“Who do you think you are?”
These aren’t just personal insecurities. They’re echoes—of queerphobia, misogyny, religious trauma, playground taunts, broken family systems. We internalized them because we had to. Survival demanded it. But now, many of us are learning to meet these voices not with fear or shame, but with curiosity, creativity, and compassion.
That’s what I’m practicing here.
In my inner world, these voices have names and faces. They’ve become characters—part cautionary tale, part comedic relief, part trauma echo. I call them the Council of Shadows, and each one represents a different survival strategy I internalized to make it through.
Lately, they’ve been louder than usual.
Probably because I’ve been doing something that terrifies them: sharing my mythic, queer inner world with you. Letting you see what I normally keep hidden. Speaking sacred names out loud. Writing stories I once feared would be used against me.
And so the Council assembles.
Not because I’m weak or broken,
but because I’m growing.
And growth always stirs the shadows.
Today, I’d like you to meet Just Jack—one of my oldest inner critics.
He’s gruff, guilt-tripping, burdened by expectations he never agreed to carry. He’s the self-righteous mutter in the back of my head when I dare to rest or speak too brightly. He’s also, in his own twisted way, trying to protect me.
What follows is a transcript from our most recent encounter.
The Inner Critics Speak, Vol. 1 – Just Jack
Interview + Encounter
“If you’re going to tell them I’m cruel, at least get my name right.”
— Just Jack
Author’s Note
This post is the first in a short series called The Inner Critics Speak.
Each installment includes two parts:
Day 1: A Council Interview – where I invite the inner critic to speak openly to my Inner Council.
Day 2: A Personification Encounter – where the critic appears in the mythic world of Lumierichor, revealing their form, flavor, and history.
For longtime readers of Dragons & Disco Socks, you may recognize echoes here.
The Voice has become Martha Marie—still folding towels.
The Still Small Voice has become Just Jack—a bitter artificer buried in the swamps of Sheol.
Prey, an unnamed evolution of my stepmother’s voice in D&DS, now is an inward projection of her who has grown teeth and silk, and guards the Southern Gate of Sheol.
But today, we begin with Just Jack.
Day 1 – The Council Interviews Just Jack
Yesterday I came up against a familiar shame—one I sometimes call imposter syndrome, but which runs deeper than that. It wasn't just a fear of being unqualified. It was a bone-deep ache that accused: “You’re doing this to make yourself important. You’re twisting us into villains to prop up your myth.”
This wasn’t just an ordinary overwhelm. This was a murmuring from the shadows.
Instead of tuning them out that morning, I invited those voices forward, to speak instead of letting them fester. Although I made space for three familiar critics: Just Jack, Martha Marie, and Prey, Just Jack was the loudest that day.
So, with Jesse’s help, I sent the littles off to the SafeTree. (Bandit even showed up to help Scarab feel safe.) Jesse reassured Scarab that “being in trouble” sometimes just means “needing help.” And that was enough for the room to shift.
Then Just Jack stepped forward.
To begin, I engaged in bilateral stimulation to keep one foot in the present while I ventured inward. And this is what he said.
“If I have to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, then I have to believe my children are bound for damnation. I don’t want to think that. But I’ve been made to believe that love is dangerous. Every time I feel anything close to love, it tears me open. It’s not that I hate the Inner Council—I just don’t trust your stories. They’re all from a child’s view. You say I’m cruel, but you only saw what the boy could see. And that story gets told again and again. And then you write it down and share it with others and I’m still the Frankensteined Fuck-Up bound to Geppetto like a his trained marionette.”
He said more. About his dreams. About his pain. About how the greener pastures he traded for his ancestral homeland became a bowl of thin soup that cost him his name, his inheritance, his place in the world.
He lives now in a garage at the edge of Semerad with his father Geppetto. Not a lush valley like he once had, but a dried out side yard. A place to fish at the edge of where he landed when he chose to abdicate his role.
He is bitter. But he is no longer hidden.
Who is your Just Jack?
Maybe your inner critic is an invisible voice, or a gut-wrenching feeling, or something that refuses to let you get out of bed. Chances are you have your own inner critic… at least one.
What are they saying/doing to you? Take back some of your power by simply naming their impact. If not sharing it with us, or anyone, acknowledge it to your conscious self. “I’ve let ___________________ take/keep my _______________.”
Reclaim that which was stolen. When you’re ready, set an intention to begin renewing your confidence in your right to show up for your
life. “I’m preparing to reclaim _______________, and my right to exist and take up space.”
or
I’d love to hear from you!