Self-Sabotage Isn’t What You Think: A Trauma Therapist’s Perspective
If you have ever felt like you are standing in your own way, especially right when things start going well, you are not alone.
And you are not broken.
After years of working as a trauma therapist, here is the truth that is often missing from conversations about self-sabotage:
Self-sabotage is rarely about fear of success, laziness, or lack of willpower.
It is almost always about protection.
Self-Sabotage Is Loyalty to an Old Survival Strategy
Most behaviors we label as self-sabotage once served an important purpose.
At some point in your life, your nervous system learned strategies that helped you survive:
People-pleasing to avoid conflict or abandonment
Shutting down emotionally to reduce pain
Staying in chaos because predictability felt unsafe
Procrastinating to avoid shame or failure
Spending money to regulate stress or emotions
These patterns did not appear randomly.
They were adaptive responses to the environment you were in at the time.
So when those behaviors resurface, even years later, it is not because you are trying to ruin your life.
It is because your nervous system is being loyal to what once kept you safe.
From a trauma-informed perspective, self-sabotage is not self-destruction.
It is self-protection running on outdated information.
Why Progress Can Feel So Uncomfortable
Another thing I have learned as a trauma therapist is that progress threatens identity.
Growth is not just about doing better.
It quietly asks deeper questions:
Who am I if I am not the one who is struggling?
Who am I without crisis, urgency, or chaos?
Who am I if I no longer need fixing, proving, or rescuing?
For many people, especially those with trauma histories or neurodivergent nervous systems, identity becomes intertwined with survival roles. When healing begins, those roles loosen, and the system can panic.
Even positive change can feel destabilizing when it disrupts the story you have lived inside for years.
Why Safety Can Feel Scarier Than Chaos
This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of healing:
For many nervous systems, safety feels more threatening than chaos.
Chaos is familiar.
Chaos has momentum.
Chaos keeps you busy and distracted.
Safety, on the other hand, is quiet.
And in that quiet:
Old grief can surface
Unprocessed emotions emerge
Questions about meaning, desire, and identity appear
When the nervous system has learned that calm precedes danger, peace can feel unsafe. Chaos, even when painful, feels predictable.
This is why people often self-sabotage right when things stabilize, when relationships improve, finances steady, or life finally slows down.
What Healing Self-Sabotage Actually Requires
Healing self-sabotage is not about:
Trying harder
Being more disciplined
Forcing positive thinking
Shaming yourself into change
Those approaches usually backfire.
Real healing starts with:
Understanding the protective role of your behaviors
Building nervous system safety, not just insight
Honoring what kept you alive before asking it to let go
Creating change that feels tolerable rather than overwhelming
When self-sabotage is met with curiosity instead of judgment, the nervous system no longer needs to fight back as intensely.
You Are Not Broken. You Are Adapted.
If you find yourself pulling back when things get good, losing momentum, numbing out, overspending, avoiding opportunities, or creating unnecessary conflict, pause before labeling it as failure.
Ask instead:
What is this part of me trying to protect?
Your system is not malfunctioning.
It is responding exactly as it learned to.
And with the right support, safety can slowly become more familiar than chaos.
