Because sometimes I think hopeless thoughts. The whole

“who am I kidding?”

“Who you do think you are?”

“Do you really think you’ll have a chance to do THAT?”

And also
“Bad things are going to happen”

and

“Bad things are not going to stop happening”

Those are bad times. I don’t like thinking those thoughts. I don’t like feeling those feelings. So I will tell myself

You are not reliable right now. Like the voice in a book of fiction, who leads you along and tells you things, and then you discover partway through the story that that person’s voice you’ve been hearing is not telling the truth. The unreliable narrator.

I am an unreliable narrator in my life, when I tell myself depressing things.

And I will be more likely to think those kinds of thoughts when I am tired or not feeling well.

Of course, another part of me will say “Yeah, but why should only BAD things be the unreliable story? Why not call the unrelenting optimism be the unreliable voice?”

And to that voice I say

Shut up. I like the optimism better, even if it is a lie.