Benjamin Otu EffiwattWas your childhood filled with abuse, criticism, manipulation, or instability? You’re not alone. There are wounds that can’t leave scars. Not on your skin. But maybe up here — on your heart. Or in this beautiful mind that lets you question the world, your past, and how you fit into both of them.
Trauma messes you up. Growing up with people who didn’t know how to love you the way you needed to be loved can make you feel confused about pretty much everything — starting with why nothing feels like it fits quite right.
If you’re wondering how to build confidence after a toxic childhood, know this: you’re not stuck where you are. I was there too. We all were, in one way or another. Learning how to believe in yourself after years of being told (between explicit statements and general behavior) that you weren’t good enough is hard. Really freaking hard. But I believe you can do it. I believe in you.
What a Toxic Childhood Actually Does to You
Here’s the thing about growing up with abuse, neglect, dysfunction, or chaos in your home: it warps how you feel about yourself. When you’re constantly told you’re inadequate in some way (or given the obvious alternative message that you’re SUCH A PROBLEM), that message becomes ingrained in you.
Children are small sponges who look to the adults in their lives to teach them how to feel about themselves. When no one teaches you that you’re enough, wonderful, fascinating, liked, or loved just for being you — you don’t learn it.
Admittedly, that’s an oversimplification. Humans are complex and weird, especially when it comes to the effects of childhood trauma. Trauma can make you anxious, isolated, bitter, and numb. Trauma can make you fight anything that resembles intimacy. Trauma can stick with you in a hundred different ways, even if you had great parents.
My focus here is internalized worth — that feeling of knowing that no matter what you do, you’re actually OK as you are. You’re deserving of good things. You’re worthy of love, happiness, and success.
If no one taught you that growing up, it’s going to take some serious digging (and healing) to rewire how you feel about yourself.
The Difference Between Healing and Fixing
Healing from a toxic childhood isn’t about fixing yourself. You aren’t broken and don’t need to be fixed. You are a human who was given the unfortunate opportunity to grow up learning destructive messages about self-worth.
Learning new, positive things about yourself doesn’t mean the old stuff was true. It just means that you were taught untrue things as a child and, with time and work, you’re learning to unlearn them.
Be honest with yourself about what you believe about yourself. Start to notice your automatic thoughts about your own value or worthiness. These are the things you’ll focus on changing — not by burying them or ignoring them, but by challenging them when they crop up so you can retrain your thinking.
Practical Ways to Build Confidence
Stop Waiting to Feel Ready
A common trap that people from toxic homes fall into is waiting until they feel READY before doing things that require confidence. NEWSFLASH: by the time you feel READY, you’ll already be doing it.
Most confidence is about acting like you believe in yourself, even when you don’t. That’s because confidence is a skill you practice, not an overwhelming feeling that comes over you.
Try tiny things first. Say something in a meeting you typically wouldn’t. Turn down something that makes you feel drained this week. Meet that new person at work for coffee. These are the little actions you would typically skip because you doubt whether you should bother. They matter because they’re practice. And your brain likes evidence.
Catch and Challenge Your Inner Critic
You know that voice in your head that criticizes everything you do? The voice that jerks you back whenever you start to feel proud of yourself, or lets you know that someone else would have finished the project faster, raked those leaves without complaining, or done yoga like a real yogi? That’s not your voice.
Your inner critic is essentially the voice you absorbed from parents, mentors, caregivers, classmates, and teachers. It sounds like yours because you’ve heard it call itself that for years. But when it automatically pops into your head and says you’re never good enough, or that you’ll fail before you even try —
Ask yourself: would I say this to my best friend? To my mother? To someone I loved unconditionally?
If the answer is no… then why are you saying it to yourself?
Challenge your inner critic. Face those automatic assumptions about yourself and give yourself another way of looking at the situation. You don’t have to stop believing what your inner critic says overnight. But you can start calling it out.
Build a Body of Evidence
One of the scariest things about growing up with no one rooting for you is that you don’t have a body of evidence that you’re actually good at… well, anything. So you have to build it yourself.
Keep a journal of wins. Did you cook dinner without messing up? Add that. Had a tough conversation with your boss and didn’t completely lose your cool? You earned it. Showed up to your therapy appointment after mentally skipping it a million times? TAKE. THE. STREAK.
These don’t have to be big victories. They just have to be things that disprove your inner critic, so you can remember them when it starts shouting at you that you’ve got nothing figured out.
Set Boundaries (Without Guilt!)
Did you grow up in a house with boundaries? With limits? With rules for how people should treat each other? Mine didn’t either. And I bet yours didn’t either.
Instead of healthy boundaries, we learned that “good” people don’t say “no,” or that we keep everything bottled up because speaking up means getting punished.
Setting boundaries is hard. Especially when you’re someone who never had them modeled as a kid. Start small. Tell your partner you can’t browse social media when you’re trying to finish work. Turn your notifications off when you’re catching up on chores. Ask your mom to repeat herself instead of nodding along and pretending you heard something you didn’t.
Boundaries will feel weird at first. They’re uncomfortable. But each time you make one, stand by it, and the world doesn’t end — you’re rebuilding your confidence one forgotten “what will people think?” at a time.
Surround Yourself with People Who Lift You Up
The people you surround yourself with say a lot about how you view yourself. If you spend time with a lot of negative people who judge you or complain constantly — guess what? You’ll find yourself doing the same.
Try to spend time with people who build you up, not tear you down. Yes, this includes friends. It also includes romantic partners, coworkers, and family members. If they drain you or talk about you behind your back — they don’t deserve your time. Full stop.
Need some positive people in your life? Join a class about something you’ve always wanted to try. Ask your church if they offer any volunteer opportunities. We all deserve people who care about us. Be one to others.
Look into Therapy
OK, hi — my name is Liz, and I’m a therapy addict. I love my job because every day I get to sit with people who are wrestling with their inner demons and help them find a path forward. I know therapy isn’t accessible to everyone, and you shouldn’t feel like you NEED therapy to heal from your childhood. BUT.
If you grew up in a toxic household, therapy can be a wonderful resource to have on your healing journey — particularly if you work with someone who specializes in trauma.
There are several therapeutic modalities that focus on healing trauma, including EMDR, somatic therapy, and Internal Family Systems. These are just a few examples that have helped me work through painful childhood experiences that talk therapy couldn’t quite reach.
If traditional therapy isn’t an option for you, look into support groups for childhood trauma, workbooks, or even informational Reddit communities. A little research can go a long way.
Be Patient With Yourself (& Celebrate the Wins)
I know I started this post by saying that asking how to build confidence after a toxic childhood was already brave. But that’s only the BEGINNING of bravery.
This process takes time. Especially if you’ve spent decades building up beliefs about yourself that might not even be true. Some days will feel like leaps and bounds. Other days will feel like setbacks. And that’s OK.
Try to remember that today is different from yesterday. No matter how bad things got for you growing up, you’re doing better by showing up today and trying — even on the days you don’t want to. Healing is hard. But you’re worthy of it.
YOU ARE WORTH BELIEVING IN
There’s a lot that nobody tells you about healing from childhood trauma. How lonely it can feel at times. How it will upset every relationship you have (or at least feel like it will).
But what they don’t tell you is that healing actually WORKS. That there are other people out there who have fought (and are fighting) these same battles inside their heads. And that YOU are strong enough to do this, too.
Yes, you.
Final Thoughts
You’re awesome. You’re worthy of love, happiness, and success. You’re doing the hard work of learning how to love yourself after a toxic childhood. Celebrate every victory, no matter how small. And be patient with the process.
Recovering from a traumatic childhood takes time. But you’re worth it. Every single step you take toward loving and trusting yourself again is rocket fuel for your confidence. Keep going.
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