why did we become our biggest bully?

No one is born hating themselves.

Self-hatred, harsh inner critics, and perfectionist tendencies are not personality traits—they are adaptations. Learned protections. Responses to environments that made us feel unsafe, unworthy, or “too much.”

Let’s unpack some of the most common roots:

1. Misunderstanding Human Emotions

One of the most overlooked reasons we become unsafe to ourselves is that we were never taught how to understand or healthily relate to emotions. Instead, many of us grew up with a binary lens:

Joy = good
Anger = bad
Sadness = weakness
Fear = irrational
Numbness = something to snap out of

We weren’t told that emotions are intelligent messengers, or that each one carries vital information about our needs, boundaries, and unmet longings. So we learned to suppress them, fight them, or pathologize them.

“I shouldn’t be feeling this.”
“I need to get over it.”
“Something’s wrong with me.”

This disconnection creates an internal environment of emotional rejection, where entire parts of ourselves are silenced because they don’t fit the “positive vibes only” narrative.

But here’s the truth: you can’t selectively numb.

If you shut down anger, you lose access to self-protection.
If you dismiss sadness, you lose access to depth and tenderness.
If you fear fear itself, you lose access to intuitive caution.

When these parts aren’t welcomed, your system interprets you as the threat, and your inner world becomes unsafe, not because of what you feel, but because of the shame around feeling it.

2. Childhood Trauma & Emotional Neglect

When our caregivers couldn't meet our emotional needs or, worse, were sources of harm, we learned early on that parts of us were unwelcome. Maybe our tears were punished, our joy was too loud, or our anger made people withdraw their love. So we internalized:

“I have to suppress my feelings to be loved.”
“My needs are a burden.”
“It’s safer to disconnect from myself.”

We became the critics before others could criticize us. We became hyper-vigilant, self-blaming, and disconnected. Not because we wanted to, but because it felt like the only way to survive.

3. Religious Conditioning & Moral Perfectionism

Some of us were taught that we were born flawed. That our desires were sinful. That being “good” meant being self-sacrificial, obedient, and never angry.

Even if we’ve since left those systems, their messages can linger in the nervous system:

“I must suffer to be worthy.”
“If I mess up, I’ll be punished.”
“My body and desires are unclean.”

This can lead to self-flagellation masked as discipline. Chronic guilt. A rejection of pleasure, softness, or autonomy. The inner bully thrives in the shadow of unreachable purity.

4. Cultural Pressure & Internalized Capitalism

From a young age, we’re praised for productivity and punished for rest. Worth becomes entangled with output, beauty, success, and compliance. So when we fall short?

“I’m lazy. I’m useless. I need to try harder.”

Instead of asking “What do I need?”, we ask “What’s wrong with me?”

We become unsafe by ignoring exhaustion, denying burnout, and forcing ourselves to perform roles we’ve outgrown.

5. Unprocessed Shame & Internalized Oppression

Many of us carry shame that isn’t even ours. Racial, body-based, gendered, neurodivergent, or class-based shame passed down through systems that told us we were “less than” in some way.

When we internalize this, we may start attacking ourselves with the very voices that once hurt us:

“No one will ever love me like this.”
“I have to be more [palatable/thin/pleasing/‘normal’] to be enough.”

This creates chronic self-surveillance, mistrust of intuition, and a deep belief that who we are is a problem.

6. Trauma Bonds with Chaos and Criticism

If you were raised in unpredictability, you might unconsciously recreate it in your inner world. Calm may feel foreign. Safety may feel boring. You might feel more “yourself” when in crisis.

Or, if love and criticism came hand in hand growing up, your brain might confuse self-abandonment as a form of self-control.

“If I criticize myself first, maybe I won’t get hurt again.”

But inner war is not protection—it’s repetition.

7. Lack of Role Models for Self-Safety

Most of us were never shown what it looks like to hold ourselves gently through a mistake, a meltdown, or a moment of vulnerability. We weren’t taught how to speak to ourselves kindly, or even that we could.

So we inherited what we saw: withdrawal, ridicule, punishment, or avoidance.

Learning to become safe to ourselves isn’t about blame—it’s about awareness. Because once we recognize these origins, we no longer have to unconsciously repeat them.

If you find it hard to trust yourself, be kind to yourself, or stop self-sabotaging, please know: you make sense.

Your patterns were once protection.
Your self-criticism was once a survival skill.
Your inner bully was trying to help you stay safe in an unsafe world.

But now? You’re allowed to evolve.
You’re allowed to relate to yourself with softness.
You’re allowed to become a home, not a battlefield, for your becoming.

How Spinal Energetics Supports Rewiring Safety:

Becoming unsafe to ourselves often began in environments where we weren’t seen, held, or emotionally understood. Spinal Energetics meets those silent imprints not just with talk, but through presence, attunement, energy, breath, and body-led movement.

In each session, we:

• Access and unwind stored trauma responses (fight/flight/freeze/collapse) that live in the spine and nervous system.

• Help your body complete stress cycles that were interrupted.

• Create space for new internal experiences, where your body feels what it’s like to be honored instead of policed.

This work gently interrupts the internalized harshness and opens the door for you to re-pattern your relationship with self, from inner war to inner sanctuary.

You are not broken. You adapted. And your body can learn safety again—one session, one sensation, one sigh at a time.



Segue into the following posts to learn more:
https://www.soulshine.sg/blog/are-you-a-safe-person-to-yourself
https://www.soulshine.sg/blog/how-being-unsafe-to-ourselves-affects-our-nervous-system-physiology-amp-healing