“Why do I keep doing this?”
“How does this keep happening to me?”
You might ask yourself these questions when you feel trapped in patterns that create problems in your life and keep you from achieving your goals.
Self-sabotage occurs when we destroy ourselves physically, mentally, or emotionally or deliberately hinder our success and wellbeing by undermining personal goals and values (Brenner, 2019).
Self-sabotage happens when you do certain things that were adaptive in one context but are no longer necessary. In other words, these behaviors helped you adapt to a previous situation, like a traumatic childhood or toxic relationship, and survive the challenges you faced there. They may have soothed you or defended you. But these methods of coping can cause difficulties when your situation changes.
What does it look like?