Self-attack – When we turn against ourselves
We say something during a conversation and afterwards think, “How could I have been so stupid?” We feel sad when someone does not get in touch, but soon dismiss our reaction: “I’m far too sensitive.” After a long day at work, we cannot manage what we had planned and reproach ourselves: “I could have planned better.” The fact that we are tired carries no weight in our judgement. We should have managed it anyway.
The shift from an event to a severe judgement of ourselves can happen quickly. Sometimes so quickly that we barely notice what happened in between. What remains is a sense of being somehow wrong or inadequate, together with the thought that we should pull ourselves together.
This article explores self-attack – how we can condemn, belittle and reject ourselves, and how this affects our ability to understand what we feel and experience. It also affects our freedom to be spontaneous, express what we wish for and contribute to the world around us.
When self-criticism becomes self-condemnation
Being able to pay attention to our own actions is valuable. We need to be able to recognise mistakes, reconsider our views and see how we affect others. It can be painful to realise that we have hurt someone or acted in a way that goes against what we stand for.
But there is a difference between looking more closely at something we have done and condemning ourselves as people.
“I interrupted her several times and didn’t let her finish” describes an action that can be understood and changed.
“I’m a hopeless person who ruins every relationship” makes the whole person the problem. It becomes harder to distinguish what actually happened and what could be different.
Here, self-attack means treating ourselves with judgemental severity, contempt or rejection. It can take the form of explicit thoughts and stern words directed at ourselves, but also a quieter, habitual way of relating to ourselves. We dismiss our feelings, question our needs or discount what we have done. Sometimes we mainly notice the result: we feel somehow wrong or inadequate without quite recognising how we arrived there.
The words we use about ourselves do not have to be particularly strong. A quiet “That was nothing, really” can have a considerable impact if it repeatedly strips our efforts of their value. “How could I have done that again?” can be a question that helps us understand a recurring pattern of behaviour. But it can also become a repeated reproach to which no answer seems to matter.
It is therefore not only the words that matter, but also the tone and what happens within us when we direct them at ourselves.
What happens just before
Even our wishes and needs can trigger self-attacks. We may feel a longing for closeness and mutuality and begin to express what we wish for in a relationship.
At the same time, however, feelings associated with earlier experiences of rejection or disappointment may arise. Before we know how our wish will be received, we have already begun to doubt ourselves: “I get everything wrong. I don’t know how to get it right.”
Our attention then shifts from what we wish for and need to how we ought to be in order to avoid rejection. The longing itself can begin to feel like a mistake. It becomes harder to discern both what we ourselves want and how the other person actually responds – whether there is a response to our longing, some hesitation or a limit to what the relationship can accommodate.
Earlier experiences
Earlier experiences can shape how we perceive the situation, while there may also be actual rejection or a lack of mutuality in the relationship here and now. Both possibilities need room to be recognised.
Someone speaks to us condescendingly, and at first we feel a stirring of anger. Shortly afterwards comes the thought: “I shouldn’t react like this. I’m being difficult. It always turns out this way.”
We long for closeness and feel disappointed when the other person does not seem to want the same thing. But instead of staying with the disappointment, we begin to accuse ourselves of being demanding. Or sensitive.
In such moments, what draws our attention changes. What happened between us and the other person recedes into the background. Our own reaction becomes what needs to be scrutinised and corrected.
Being disappointed in ourselves
“I should have understood. I should have said something. Why did I do that again?”
When we are disappointed in ourselves, we compare what we did with what we wish we had done. We may have hurt someone, avoided an important conversation or passed up something we longed for. Disappointment can also concern our abilities: we thought we would have more energy, do better or have come further by now.
Here, disappointment, guilt, shame and regret can be closely intertwined. Regret often centres on a choice we made and the thought that a different decision might have produced a different outcome. Disappointment can be broader, concerning both the outcome and our understanding of ourselves.
Sometimes there is something specific to take responsibility for. But self-criticism can also become sweeping. A particular action turns into a judgement of the whole person:
“I’m a coward.”“I always ruin things.”
“I’ll never be able to do this.”
It then becomes harder to distinguish what actually happened, what responsibility we had and what limitations were present.
With hindsight, we also know things we did not know at the time. We see the consequences of our decision, but may find it harder to remember the uncertainty, fear or tiredness we felt when we made it. We judge our earlier selves with a clarity that only came later. The expectation that we should always be able to understand, anticipate and manage may itself be part of what makes the disappointment so harsh.
Interpreting the situation
This does not necessarily mean that our initial interpretation of the situation was accurate or that the other person did something wrong. But when we immediately attack ourselves, we have less opportunity to explore what happened. What was actually said? What affected us? What had we wished for, and what do we know about the other person’s intention?
In this way, self-attack can make us intensely focused on ourselves while taking us further away from our own experiences, feelings and needs.
Being strict with ourselves can feel necessary
For someone who has long been strict with themselves, this strictness can seem entirely natural. “I’m just being realistic.” “Someone might discover my shortcomings – that wouldn’t be good.” “Life isn’t easy.” There may be anxiety about what would happen if the inner scrutiny stopped. Would we become careless, complacent or stop making an effort?
Self-attack can then feel like a way to keep ourselves in check, pull ourselves together and pre-empt criticism from others. If we identify and point out our own shortcomings, perhaps we can avoid making mistakes or being rejected.
We may also recognise ways of speaking to ourselves that are familiar from earlier relationships. Being ridiculed, compared with others or treated as oversensitive can leave its mark on how we relate to ourselves. When we expressed our views, someone may have become irritated and said, “I think you’re exaggerating.” Later, the same tone can remain within us even when no one else is using it.
But the background differs from person to person. This inner strictness needs to be understood in context, alongside the experiences and relationships that have shaped it.
The fact that a way of relating to ourselves is familiar does not mean that it helps us. We may be accustomed to pushing ourselves without having noticed how much energy it takes. Precisely because the strictness feels familiar, it can be difficult to recognise when it is also destructive.
Perfectionism, overthinking and self-esteem
Self-attack can be part of both perfectionism and overthinking. In perfectionism, a mistake can feel as though it says something fundamental about who we are. Simply correcting what went wrong is then not enough. We continue to reproach ourselves for having made the mistake at all.
When we overthink, the same event can return again and again. We mentally revisit what we said, how we looked, how we reacted and what others might have thought. The questions may sound exploratory, but the answer may already be settled: there was something wrong with us.
“Why did I do that?” then becomes less an open question and more an accusation. No explanation seems sufficient. Our need for rest is dismissed as laziness. We reproach ourselves for lacking information we could not have known, or for not managing a situation that was overwhelming. Circumstances that might help us understand are dismissed as excuses.
There is also a connection with self-esteem. When our reactions and actions are constantly used as evidence against us, trust in our own experience can weaken. We think we should have felt, understood or done something different. We become uncertain whether our feelings and needs matter, whether our objection is reasonable or whether we have anything to contribute.
Meanwhile, those around us may see a capable and caring person. What others appreciate about us can be difficult to take in when we constantly discount it from within.
When self-condemnation shapes our reality
The content of our thoughts can occupy much of our attention. “Am I really selfish? Well, I am thinking about myself …” “Should I have understood better? I could have thought it through …” “Am I entitled to feel this way? I’m probably exaggerating …”
Another question concerns how we are affected by the way we speak to ourselves. Perhaps our body becomes tense, our gaze drops or the wish to tell someone disappears.
The inner tone
A condemning inner tone can lead us to withdraw from relationships, interests and other situations where there is a risk of making mistakes. We see ourselves as incapable and inadequate, returning constantly to our perceived shortcomings. We may also feel inferior to others and imagine that they can manage things we find difficult.
We keep pushing ourselves despite being tired, or give up something we had just been looking forward to. From within, it can seem obvious: there is something wrong with us; we must become more capable and avoid being a burden. We may not recognise how our self-condemnation drives us on or holds us back.
Self-attack, then, does more than describe how we see ourselves. It also affects what becomes possible for us to feel, say and do.
Reflection
I think self-attack sometimes arises just when we need to be receptive to our own experience. Something has made us sad, angry or disappointed, but before we have had time to understand what it means, we have begun to reprimand ourselves for reacting. At other times, self-attack may arise when we long for closeness, mutuality and an interest in one another.
This is why it matters to be able to recognise that shift: from being affected by something to making ourselves the problem. What were we feeling before self-condemnation took over?
Keeping this perspective open can make room for a different understanding. Self-condemnation may have obscured both what we feel and what we wish for. A longing for closeness can then become recognisable as a longing, without immediately being turned into evidence that we are demanding or doing something wrong.
We can begin to discern aspects of our experience that we want to listen to and cherish. From there, greater trust in our own experience can begin to grow.
– Maria Sandgren
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