This is How Toxic Family Relationships Affect Our Self-esteem

Self-esteem is one of the psychological elements that define our identity. However, this does not mean that self-esteem arises within us being disconnected from everything around us; On the contrary, it is always connected to the way we experience relationships with others. And the more important those relationships are to us, the more it is influenced by them.

Of course, this means that our families have great power in outlining what our self-esteem looks like. Our parents may not have the power to directly control how we value ourselves, but there is no doubt that the way they treat us has an impact, regardless of their intentions. From this it follows that Toxic family relationships are capable of leaving important consequences on everything related to one’s own self-esteem ; Let’s see what happens in these cases.

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What is self-esteem and why is it influenced by the family?

There cannot be self-esteem if we have not had previous experiences relating to others. It may be counterintuitive, but we never value ourselves without taking into account everything we know and have seen about how other members of society treat us. In other words, when we look at our own identity and way of being, we do so by paying attention to how they talk to us, how much interest they show in being with us, what expectations they have about what we can achieve, etc.

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So that, Self-esteem arises, in large part, from how we interpret the way we are treated

And it is in this aspect where the family gains great importance: it constitutes the first social circle with which we interact, and the one that offers us a lifestyle that allows us to learn and explore both the world and human relationships from our first months. of life. Of course, it also creates a context in which we learn to link emotions to those spontaneous learning that we carry out during childhood; That is why research in Psychology based on attachment theory suggests that our way of emotionally bonding with our fathers and mothers shapes our way of approaching other human relationships during adolescence and adulthood.

Well then; in the same way that the family predisposes us to maintain a certain philosophy when considering establishing relationships with other people, also predisposes us to prioritize certain ways of interpreting reality by focusing on what shapes our self-esteem. Depending on how we have been raised and what we are used to seeing in our home, the same satisfactory experience can be seen as our merit and the result of our effort or, on the contrary, as a stroke of luck. And that is why the family context is key when determining whether we will show a tendency to be more pessimistic, more optimistic, or more equanimous and balanced as we build our self-esteem.

The effects of toxic family relationships on our self-esteem

As the concept of “toxic relationships” is very broad and heterogeneous as it contains a wide variety of problematic dynamics, it cannot be said that they always influence self-esteem in the same way. Having been raised by overprotective and very controlling fathers and mothers is not the same as having suffered disinterest and negligent treatment from parents.

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Even so, there are a series of general trends in the way in which people who have suffered from this type of family experience their self-esteem; common problems that, although they do not have to occur all at the same time in the same individual, are more common among those who have gone through these emotionally painful experiences

So, let’s see what are these forms of discomfort that arise when we value ourselves after years of living immersed in harmful family relationships.

1. Feelings of guilt for being the disruptive element in families

Some people who have suffered a lot in their family context assume the idea that almost all of these problems were triggered by their birth, since having to raise a baby could push their parents to the limit. This is an experience in which, at the same time as one blames oneself for something that was not under one’s control (being born), This form of guilt is linked to what is considered to be one’s own essence, one’s own identity from the first minutes after giving birth. This paradox makes it very difficult to get rid of this harmful belief if you do not go to psychotherapy.

2. Tendency to blame yourself for what happened during your childhood and adolescence

People who have spent years in toxic family relationships have had greater exposure to complicated situations that raise ethical dilemmas, given that in their daily lives they had to take a stand in the face of conflicts, mental health problems of family members, etc. In this sense, it is common for those who have gone through this to constantly blame themselves by remembering those experiences, without giving importance to the fact that for a good part of those years they did not have the resources to address these problems in a mature and responsible way, due to their short age.

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3. Tendency to assume one’s own emotional instability

Many people believe that, because they have been raised in family environments marked by constant arguments and avoidable conflicts, they have internalized this emotional instability and will reproduce it in their own relationships with others, causing other people to distance themselves. . Even if this is not true in practice, maintain a hyper-vigilant attitude and a constant concern not to lose their manners, something that makes them, in many cases, adopt a submissive role in order not to make the health of those relationships depend on their way of behaving, “just in case.”

4. Fear of being the target of ridicule and attacks from others

The experience of almost constant fear is another of the forms of discomfort that most limit the correct development of self-esteem; the person who adopts an avoidant attitude In addition, because of what he has seen in his family, he pays more attention to what he should not do to prevent others from coming into his life, than to what he can do and has done previously to improve his situation. This causes people to whom this happens to pass up opportunities for years, something that in turn impoverishes their capacity for personal development and self-realization.