Self-criticism is so common. “I am so hard on myself” is one of the most common things my clients want to work on in therapy.

It is so common that some of us are not even aware of our own self-critical voice, where it comes from, or how much it really affects us. Interestingly, being highly self-critical can even activate the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response in your brain because it interprets your self-criticism as an emotional attack on yourself.

The inner critic tends to affect all of us in some way - with some people having a more harsh inner voice than others.

The first step, as with many things, is to raise awareness around your experience with it. What does self-criticism look like for you?

Here are some common traits of self-criticism:

You judge yourself harshly
You fear rejection and failure
You experience low self-worth
Your self-talk often includes words like “I should, I could, I should/n’t have done, I will never”
You are very task and achievement oriented
You often set unrealistic expectations for yourself
You feel undeserving of basic respect and understanding from yourself or others
You have very low (or non-existent) tolerance for making mistakes
You may experience perfectionistic or people pleasing tendencies
You have a hard time developing close relationships and opening up to people

Can you relate to any of these traits? Are there any you experience that aren’t listed here?

Now that you have begun increasing your awareness, you may be wondering where this self-criticism comes from? It is not always necessary but can be helpful to understand potential root causes.

3 Reasons Behind Self-Criticism

Early caregiver / peer relationships

If an early caregiver was very critical of themselves, there is a chance that self-critical traits and resulting behaviors were projected onto you. This may have looked like a caregiver being highly critical of you or others, hard to please, controlling, comparing you to others, or lacking affection. It could have been verbally “Your sister is smarter than you” or non-verbally with disapproving looks, silent treatment, or eye rolls.
There is a way that teasing can be healthy, such as playful teasing between loved ones. However, when teasing among peers or family members becomes unhealthy and may turn into bullying, this can lead to a harsh inner voice. Children are impressionable and are much more likely to internalize negative comments. These negative comments from others begin to form our own beliefs about ourselves, our identities, and our self-esteem. As a young age, it is hard for us to differentiate between comments we should and shouldn’t take to heart, especially when these comments are coming from people who are close to us.
Self-criticism can be viewed as a learned behavior. If your caregiver or another person whom you were close to was dealing with their own self-criticism, you may have picked up on that and began treating yourself in the same, critical way.

Cultural Beliefs

Within some cultures, it is believed that self-criticism is an effective motivator. This includes within your family culture.
Caregivers who were raised with this type of parenting may have parented you in the same way. They were most likely well-meaning and not entirely wrong. Self-criticism does motivate in the short-term. There are a few problems with this type of motivation. Self-criticism motivates from the basis of fear and judgment, which leads to many problems that far outweigh the benefits of using this type of motivation.

Abuse

Any kind of abuse - physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, psychological - can contribute to self-criticism. Whether it was recurring or happened one time, it can still have an impact on how you view and treat yourself.

You’ve began building awareness and may have gained some insight about where it came from, but what can you do about it? Read my next blog post to find out a number of practical ways you can unlearn self-critical behaviors and learn new, healthy ones to replace them.

*This information is not meant to place blame on anyone. It is meant for educational purposes to help you gain a better understanding of yourself and your experience.