Many of Us Spend Years Believing There's Something Wrong With Us
I don't think we're born feeling like pieces of shit.
Or believing we're too much.
Too needy.
Too emotional.
Too sensitive.
Too different.
Too gay.
Or not enough.
Or unlovable.
Or broken.
Somewhere along the way, those beliefs became part of who we thought we were.
Somewhere along the way, we bought into the shame.
Nobody Has to Tell a Child They're Wrong
I don't think most people are deliberately taught shame. In fact, I think most parents are doing the best they can with what they were given.
Children are asking questions they don't even know they're asking:
“Am I safe?”
“Am I loved?”
“Do I belong here?”
If being loud is met with criticism, they become quieter. If expressing big feelings is met with discomfort or shut down, they learn to keep those feelings to themselves. If they sense that certain parts of them make the adults around them uncomfortable, they begin hiding those parts.
They don't conclude, “The adults around me find this difficult.”
They conclude, “There must be something wrong with me.”
Children are incredibly good at working out what helps them belong. They notice what gets approval, what gets ignored and what gets criticised. Little by little, they adapt and become who they think they need to be.
Not because they're pretending, but because at the time it feels like survival.
Belonging matters.
The difficulty is that we often carry those adaptations into adulthood, long after we need them. We stop expressing our needs, keep parts of ourselves hidden and apologise for taking up space. We find it difficult to believe compliments and assume other people are judging us in the same way we've learned to judge ourselves.
Not because those beliefs are true, but because they've become so familiar that they feel like reality.
The Lessons We Never Realise We're Learning
I was a sensitive, fun-loving and playful little boy. But I was met with:
“Stop being such a fairy!”
Mum loved me—to the moon and back. She was scared for me and wanted to toughen me up, because the world didn’t, and perhaps still doesn’t, welcome sensitive little fairy boys.
But her attempts didn’t work. I didn’t toughen up. Instead, I learnt that there was something wrong with me.
As children, we don't always hear the intention. We hear the message, and we are far more likely to question ourselves than the adults we depend on. That message can become something we carry for decades.
The details are different for all of us. You may have learned that crying wasn't acceptable, that anger was dangerous, or that you had to achieve to be noticed. Perhaps being sensitive made you weak, or your sexuality, gender, body or simply the way you experienced the world wasn't quite okay. Sometimes nobody says any of this directly. Children are very good at filling in the gaps.
Once shame becomes part of how we see ourselves, it can affect everything that follows. We second-guess ourselves, become hyper-aware of what other people might think and edit ourselves before we've even opened our mouths. We stop asking, “What do I need?” and start asking, “What do they need me to be?”
Many boys grow up believing that vulnerability is weakness, asking for help is failure and independence is strength. For many LGBTQ+ people, it can mean growing up with the sense that some part of who they are needs to be hidden, explained or apologised for.
The experiences may be different, but the underlying question is often the same:
“Will people still accept me if they see the real me?”
That's a heavy question for anyone to carry, especially when they've been carrying it since childhood.
How We Learn To Live With Shame
Shame is incredibly painful, so it’s hardly surprising that we spend so much of our lives trying not to feel it. Most of us don’t consciously think, “I’m trying to avoid shame.” Instead, we find ways of coping with what we’re carrying.
Some of us become people-pleasers, hoping that if everyone else is happy, we’ll finally feel like we’re enough. Some become perfectionists, believing that if we can get everything right, nobody will notice how flawed we feel inside. Others become fiercely independent because relying on people has never felt particularly safe.
We might become the funny one. Humour can be a wonderful way of connecting with other people, but it can also help us avoid showing them what is really going on. We may throw ourselves into work, achievement or looking after everybody else. Or we may turn to alcohol, drugs, chemsex, sex, pornography or other compulsive behaviours—anything that helps us avoid feeling what we’re carrying.
The strategy matters less than the reason behind it. Underneath, we may be trying to escape the same painful belief:
“There’s something wrong with me.”
None of these coping strategies makes someone weak. Many of them are remarkably creative. But over time, they can stop feeling like strategies and become what we think of as our personality. We become so used to surviving in these ways that we simply think:
“This is just who I am.”
The difficulty comes when the strategies that once protected us begin costing us our relationships, our health, our peace of mind, our sense of who we are, or our ability to let ourselves be fully known.
Eventually, what once helped us feel safe can begin limiting the life we’re able to live.
Maybe There Was Never Anything Wrong With You
I don't think the child we were before shame ever really disappears. We simply become better at protecting them—by never needing anyone, keeping everybody happy, making ourselves small or impossible to hurt, or disappearing into addiction.
Those strategies once made perfect sense. They protected a child who was trying to belong. But we're not children anymore, and yet many of us still live as though rejection or criticism could come at any moment. We still believe we have to earn love, while trying to protect the child who first learned there was something wrong with them.
Therapy isn't about getting rid of that child. It's about becoming the adult they always needed: the adult who can say, “You don't have to hide anymore. You don't have to earn your place. You were never too much. There was never anything wrong with you. You are enough.”
That doesn't happen overnight, and shame rarely changes simply because we understand where it came from. It changes through the experience of being known without being rejected, and of discovering that we no longer have to protect ourselves in all the ways we once did.
Healing isn't about becoming somebody new. Maybe your survival personality isn't all of who you are. Maybe it's simply the person you had to become.
And maybe, underneath all of that...
There was never anything wrong with you in the first place.
Written by Dan Lee
Therapist working with men and LGBTQ+ clients around addiction, shame, codependency and identity.
About Dan