Why I sabotage my life

My Monday started off rough. This has become a weekly routine. Every morning, I struggle to find the motivation to get out of bed. I tend to make excuses, and my favorite one is, „I don’t feel like getting up” or „I can sleep a bit longer and stay up late; it’s okay.” While the latter reasoning might seem reasonable, it’s just too convincing to abandon my schedule. After all, why can’t I catch up in the evening after sleeping a bit longer? But I believe it’s not just about that; it’s about the fact that I continually sabotage every plan I come up with, making excuses to evade my own commitments.

To be honest, most days, I wake up without any plan or schedule for the day. I don’t set goals, list tasks, or even visualize my future. I mean, sure, I like to dream about running a successful business, but on a daily basis, I operate in a fog of chaos.

I have numerous notebooks with scattered notes all over the place. When I review them, they all seem nearly identical, but the issue is I never follow through on my ideas. And here’s why: I lack belief in myself. I don’t think I’m capable or should pursue my goals. I doubt the worthiness of my ideas, thinking that others are already doing what I aspire to do, and they do it better.

I fear that no one would care about my endeavours. All these beliefs are driven by fear—the fear of being seen, the fear of putting myself out there, and the fear of judgment.

Furthermore, I convinced myself a while ago (repeatedly) that no one really likes me.

I’ve convinced myself that I’m boring, uninteresting, unfriendly, and not the type of person others would want to spend time with. Consequently, I have very few friends. I’ve spent my life trying to make genuine friends, but it never seems to work out, and I end up getting hurt. I’ve started to believe it’s my fault, that I’m not a good friend, and that there’s something about me that causes people to reject me. Or perhaps, it’s me who’s doing the rejecting? When I reflect on it, I recall numerous instances when someone wanted to be friends with me, invited me places, and I wasn’t fully present. It’s as if I had already internalized the belief that I don’t deserve friends or to be liked, so my actions align with that belief. I’m not saying there weren’t people who hurt me or behaved in ways I couldn’t move past; those events likely made me a very distrustful person. Consequently, I would either gravitate towards toxic friends who seemed „off” from the start but whose red flags I chose to ignore, or I would opt for those I knew wouldn’t be long-term companions. But then again, maybe I’m simply afraid of having real friends?

Every time I engage with someone I’d like to be friends with, I’m gripped by fear mingled with desperation. You know the feeling, when you genuinely want to make friends but are afraid they’ll reject or hurt you, like those in the past. Perhaps searching for a friend is akin to going on a date? Maybe to make friends, you need to put yourself out there repeatedly and not take any form of „rejection” personally. Maybe people reject me as a friend for their own reasons. They might see me as a threat or be grappling with their own fears.

It appears that I’m a terrible friend to myself.

I constantly berate myself with negative self-talk. I’m unkind to myself. So here’s the thing: if I don’t view myself as someone worthy of friendship, how can anyone else see me differently? I project onto others my belief that I’m not deserving of their friendship, interest, care, or attention. This pattern applies to every aspect of my life—business (imposter syndrome), love (why would anyone love me?), family (they don’t care about me), and everything else. I constantly see myself as someone undeserving of love, attention, care, interest, money, time, and success. I carry around the fear that once someone discovers I’m not perfect, that I have flaws, bad days, bad moods, struggles, weaknesses, and failures, they will stop loving me, reject me, and abandon me. And if they don’t, I become confused. I can’t fathom why they would want to stay with me, and so I’m the one who wants to leave. I want to slam the door and escape. I sabotage.

I avoid conflicts and confrontations, not because I have nothing to say, but because the discomfort associated with conflicts almost feels physically painful. Besides, I lack experience in resolving conflicts. What I am experienced in, however, is walking away and planning an escape. I’m actually quite adept at it. I’m better at moving on from a breakup and handling emotional pain than sitting down to discuss a problem and finding a resolution.

And that’s how I’ve been living my life—sabotaging it.

At some point in my past, likely during my childhood, I came to believe or was told a story that I’m not worth sticking around for, not worth attention, not worth engaging in discussions or resolving problems with. Instead, I received silent treatments, passive-aggressiveness, and the habit of sweeping uncomfortable truths under the rug. No one seemed to care to listen to me or pay attention to how I felt. There was repeated hurt and rejection. Just when I thought things were going well for a brief moment, my life would descend into chaos once more. Hence, I create chaos myself when things are going well, just in case, to be prepared and not caught off guard, because that would hurt me even more.