Inner critics
Following a trail of posts back from Gobino's inner critic to grace for everyone but me by Krikket and Naithin's the standards we heap upon ourselves...
Why are we so much harsher on ourselves than we are on other people? Or, often, than other people are on us. (In the opposite, there's also an effect where we see our own motives as pure and reasonable, and other people as malicious or incompetent.)
This all felt very close to home - I wrote about my brain being unhelpful about these things. I've also been thinking about my dungeon mastering recently and how I don't feel like a 'proper' DM even though when other people tell me they are a DM I would never dream of demanding a list of credentials.
In counselling theory I guess this is us internalising every negative or perceived-to-be negative thing said about us, especially when little and from our caregivers. Conditions of worth. External locus of evaluation. Becoming negative self talk.
'Grace for everyone but me' is a wonderful way to describe it. Captures the issue and its inherent contradiction and manages to sound gently mocking at the same time. You are being ridiculous. (This not as an example of negative self talk but bolstering.) It's more fun than "we're our own worst critic" - which doesn't encapsulate the other side. A good reminder of how contradictory and unhelpful this all is.