I think it is heavily dependent on if she used a different voice, or not, for the "I love you, too" bit.

I say goodnight to my cat every night. She was feral when I ~~kidnapped~~ adopted her and she still has some of those tendencies. One is not sleeping in my bed. If I sleep on the couch, she'll sleep next to me. If I'm in my bed she'll occasionally jump up to check on me. But she doesn't sleep with me as a rule.

So every night before I turn out the lights I tell her it's bed time and say goodnight.

Right?

Me: forgets pencil in another room. "Way to go you fucking worthless pile of garbage! How could anyone possibly love you, you're so goddamn pathetic it's a wonder you even remember to breathe."

I took mine to her 3 year doctor visit yesterday. I noticed little bruises on her hands and I said, “what happened to your hands. It looks like you’re biting yourself.” She replied, “Sissy bite me.” Which I’ve been putting sissy in timeout for. This looked intentional though. Like she had to be a willing participant.

It hit me that she may be encouraging her sister to bite her until she leaves a mark to get her in trouble, so I decided to watch closer.

Last night I seen her take her sister’s head and move it toward her hand a few times. Finally she latched on hard. “Waaaaa, sissy bite me!”

She wanted her sister’s toy and found a way to get it.

She’s doing evil genius shit lol.

I told her, “She’s not gonna get in trouble if you put your hand in her mouth. You’ll be the one to go to timeout.”

Hopefully that stops it.

Nothing. That is peak performance.

I actually liked that bit. I never got tired of Barry, and Other Barry.

Anecdote; sometimes when my husband mutters and I can't tell if he's muttering or I just didn't hear him, he'll say, "I was talking to myself. I'm the only one who knows the answer to that question," and he says it as if frustrated. I later realized he's usually asking himself where he left something (like his glasses, or a tool) or why he's doing something inefficiently, and I always thought that was actually pretty empowering.

"I know I can solve this question, I'm just asking it out loud to help me focus." He only seems frustrated when someone thinks he's asking them. Which detracts from the focus.

We're both neurospicy so I love that. "I can do this. I have the tools to figure out this tiny problem. I am reinforcing to myself, out loud, that I've got this."

So since I talk to myself all the time I started reinforcing that I can solve it, too. Instead of saying, "You're fucking this up," which is negative self-talk, I say to myself the question of why or where, in a calm, positive tone. "Where did I leave that cat food," becomes, "You know you have trouble remembering those things so let's play detective and find it." It's a lot faster, too, than taking a short break to be mean to myself.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.