You Were Never the Problem: When Childhood Wounds Become Adult Shame
If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fit in, like you’re too much or not enough, or like you’re always on the outside looking in, you’re not alone. That feeling of being different or undeserving isn’t a flaw in you; it’s often the result of early relationship patterns that taught you how to see yourself in the first place.
The adults who raised you—parents, caregivers, teachers, religious leaders, or community figures—showed you how to relate to yourself by how they related to you. If love was conditional, you learned to perform. If conflict led to isolation, you learned to disappear. If your needs were punished, you learned to silence them. If your identity was denied, invalidated, or shamed, you learned to hide it.
Many of us carry wounds from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): emotional neglect, physical punishment, exposure to addiction, or chronic invalidation. And for those who are part of oppressed or marginalized communities, such as LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals, those experiences are often compounded. Being punished or rejected for who you are adds another layer to the injury. You learn that safety means invisibility. That authenticity is dangerous. That being yourself is a risk.
These early messages shape how safe or unsafe it felt to be fully yourself. They shape your nervous system, sense of worth, and expectations in relationships and create deep patterns in adulthood:
Over-apologizing simply for existing
Feeling undeserving of care or connection
Accepting disrespect and dismissiveness by others
Constantly proving your value at work or in relationships
Silencing your own needs or identity to avoid rejection
Relentlessly giving to others at the expense of yourself
Striving for perfection as a way to earn approval or avoid harm
This is not weakness. It’s survival. But survival strategies built in unsafe environments do not always serve us in safe ones. You might still be carrying self-doubt and shame that were never yours to begin with.
If this sounds familiar, the problem isn’t that you don’t belong. The problem is that no one has taught you what it means to feel safe enough to belong and to be yourself without performing, hiding, or fixing.
Healing means learning to reestablish safety in your own body and story. It means naming the messages you were given and replacing them with truths grounded in self-respect. It means asking not “What’s wrong with me?” but “Who taught me to believe that?”
Want support in unlearning patterns of shame, disconnection, and oppression? Schedule a free 15-minute counseling consultation at Indigo Path Collective and begin reconnecting with the parts of you that were always worthy of love.
