Self-Sabotage in Mental and Relational Health

Many people, including those who were successful, such as Abraham Lincoln and Michelangelo, have committed the crime of self-sabotage. Chronic self-sabotage leads to destructive outcomes in our personal lives and at work. Those who have complex post-traumatic stress disorder often find themselves self-sabotaging.

This series and this piece focus on self-sabotaging behavior and ways to defeat it.

What is self-sabotage?

Believing in yourself is one of the hardest things for people who have experienced childhood trauma. Believing in oneself requires secure and constructive choices.

Self-sabotage occurs when someone makes a choice that directly contradicts or sabotages a goal or a relationship. Too often, being insecure manifests with trust issues, and we create self-fulling prophecies. Survivors often feel insecure, have problems taking constructive criticism, and have trust issues with their partner or boss.

Feeling insecure and having trust issues can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies where subconsciously and sometimes consciously, survivors’ beliefs influence their behavior. For instance, if one predicts they will fail, the survivor will almost always fail.

Another example of a mixture of self-fulfilling prophecy and self-sabotage might be that you don’t believe you will ever find a partner, so you stay home and don’t try to go anywhere where you might meet someone. Also, if you find someone, you will not believe the relationship will work, so you act in a fashion where your partner believes you are cheating on them or ignoring their needs. Thus, the relationship fails.

One can see that such patterns of self-sabotage as those mentioned above often cause the survivor to both feel relief that their partner is gone and a need for companionship all at once.

“What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage.”― Nathaniel Branden

Identifying Self-Sabotage Patterns

Often, people are unaware that they are sabotaging their lives. Self-sabotaging is further explained as problems created in your daily life that interfere with your goals in life.

The most common self-sabotaging behaviors are procrastination, self-medicating with drugs or alcohol, self-injury such as cutting or burning, and comfort eating. Other types of self-sabotaging may involve procrastination, involving oneself in bad financial decisions, and resisting change.

One might think that recognizing self-sabotaging behavior would be easy, but most people are blissfully unaware that the failures they are experiencing in their lives are directly related to self-sabotaging behavior.

What is Negative Self-Talk

Negative self-talk is a part of self-sabotaging behaviors and will cause people to fail even before they start. One form of negative self-talk is when you talk to yourself in a mean or negative fashion. Negative self-talk can sound like a pessimistic critic living inside you and focused only on the bad things that can happen.

Examples of negative self-talk might be telling yourself, “My hair looks awful,” or “I’ll never find someone who will stay.”

Negative self-talk erodes your self-confidence and stops you from reaching your potential. Also, negative self-talk is a stressful and involuntary form of self-criticism. This form of self-talk can contribute to or be a cause for the formation of mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, and OCD.

Negative self-talk is a form of self-sabotage that no one wants to have and is caused by fears you hold and what you do to mitigate those beliefs.

What are Avoidance Behaviors?

Another form of self-sabotage involves avoidance behaviors. Avoidance is part of being human, as there are times when we all avoid places, things, or people because we believe the situation will turn out negatively.

Certain avoidance behaviors hurt your personal growth by blocking you from experiencing good things out of fear that you will fail.

Some avoidance behaviors are what people will do to avoid or escape complex thoughts, situations, or feelings. Some avoidance may include:

• Avoiding relationships
• Distracting yourself so you fail
• Avoiding new job opportunities
• Minimizing or denying a problem
• Avoiding returning to school
• Avoiding family reunions or dinners

Avoiding uncomfortable situations like those above might seem helpful, but you may never address the problem or opportunity.

Avoidance behavior is a way to cope with trauma by making survivors feel safe, but it also enhances their loneliness and sense of failure.

What is Emotional Isolation

Another way to self-sabotage is to isolate yourself from others. Understandably, survivors of childhood trauma would feel they cannot get hurt if they let anyone in.

However, being alone causes survivors to make decisions they would never make otherwise. Because you are alone and have no one to help you, you may isolate yourself so you can make huge mistakes in your home, relationships, and work lives.

Removing yourself from isolation will significantly affect your life’s outcomes. If you surround yourself with positive and uplifting people, you will begin to ape them and feel optimistic about yourself.

Emotional isolation is a defense mechanism that makes people close themselves off from other people. Some emotional isolation techniques are below.

• Keeping your feelings to yourself.
• Avoid having close relationships.
• Having a reluctance to communicate with other people.
• Feeling numb.
• Not having any emotional support from others.

If you always avoid other people, you will find it becomes a burden as you self-sabotage any chances of forming a loving and lasting friendship or romantic relationship.

Trust Issues

Trust issues are beliefs about the reliability and truth of other people. We measure the integrity and honesty of others through the lens of our definition of trust. Our life experiences often taint how we trust others and ourselves.

Trust issues include fear of betrayal, manipulation, and abandonment. These fears are triggered by betrayal and abandonment early in survivor’s lives. Manipulation includes some being dishonest or gaslighting you.

Indeed, trust issues are a major self-sabotaging force.

The most common situations that can lead to trust issues are listed below.

Infidelity. Infidelity is a betrayal that causes trust issues. Repairing a relationship after infidelity may be possible, but often, the relationship ends, leaving the survivor full of trust issues. Trust issues cause problems in future relationships.

Childhood trauma. Surviving adverse childhood experiences is likely to cause a person not to trust. Some examples of childhood trauma that cause trust issues might be abuse or abandonment.

Mistreatment from intimate partners. People with a past love interest who manipulated or mistreated them increase the risk for trust issues. Examples of maltreatment include gaslighting, keeping you isolated, dishonesty, and aggressive behavior toward you.

Trauma experienced in childhood. Trauma in later life might cause trust issues, such as being gaslighted by a doctor or misdiagnosed because they don’t believe you are ill.

Often, someone who experiences betrayal has trust issues that impact their ability to trust. Betrayal impacts a person’s belief in themselves, causing them to feel undeserving of good treatment and constantly on guard instead of reaching out for healthy relationships.

You Can Change Your Mindset

Because self-sabotage is rooted in having a counterproductive mindset, such as disorganization and negative self-talk, it is critical to heal from self-sabotaging behaviors.

It is critical to identify your triggers and your self-sabotaging behaviors. Practicing mindfulness and self-compassion helps to mitigate the past hurts that have you trapped in self-isolation and having a poor attitude toward yourself.

Setting realistic goals for yourself and accepting them if you fail is essential. Failure is a great way to learn and to do better next time, not the end of the world. Stop comparing yourself to others and concentrate on who you are and what you want from life. No one knows what you need better than you.

Reconsider your relationships with people who self-sabotage, hurt you, or gaslight you. Instead, have more respect for yourself and carefully choose uplifting relationships and a two-way street.

It is also critical to quiet the negative words of your inner critic. Remember that most negative messages you receive about yourself are not valid. Those thoughts are disastrous to success in life, and you can choose not to think about them.

Ending Our Time Together

Self-sabotage behavior has in the past held me down. I thought no one would ever love me because I was an ugly woman who was mentally ill. The moment I changed my opinion of myself, I began to heal.

I am imperfect today, as I still isolate and avoid relationships. However, I no longer hate who I am. I can look in the mirror and honestly say that I love all aspects of me.

How is overcoming self-sabotage done? It’s done by looking honestly at yourself and understanding why you would self-sabotage and how many times you have done it.

Self-sabotaging behavior does not make you bad; it makes you someone who has survived some pretty terrible things and lived to tell about it.

“Sometimes we self-sabotage just when things seem to be going smoothly. Perhaps this is a way to express our fear about whether it is okay for us to have a better life. We are bound to feel anxious as we leave behind old notions of our unworthiness. The challenge is not to be fearless, but to develop strategies of acknowledging our fears and finding out how we can allay them.”
― Maureen Brady,