The Cost of Sabotaging Yourself to Be Accepted

I sabotaged myself so I would be accepted.

I used to have a friend who loved to bounce ideas off me (and others), and once she received an answer, she would disappear. What happened to the thought then? Was it helpful? Was it useless? How did things develop? I often wonder.

I’m sure we’ve all know someone who’s work we’ve supported and invested into. I supported her work. She didnt ask- I value supporting friends, so I went willingly.

Until I had my own event that might have benefited from her support. Met with an excuse for not attending, future events also came with her vacant space.

Birthdays were acknowledged with late, small gestures. She once said gifts weren’t important to her.

But what if they are someone else’s love language?

I realised, when I announced my daughter’s birth and she sent a polite message without follow-up, nor any prior check-in-that this relationship was, and always had been, one-sided.

So I left.

However, what was the cost?

It wasn’t a friendship lost, as I was depleting my own resources without feeling the balance in return.

The cost was self-betrayal.

And this wasn’t the first time.

How do you sabotage your own growth, development, and rebuilding? By allowing someone else happiness, support, and love while sacrificing your own needs.

I had stepped back to let her go ahead.

She would not have known this.

People often don’t.

They don’t know what someone else has given them that went unsaid, or done out of obligation rather than request.

And how we silently resent that part of ourselves- triggered by what we offer to someone we once believed was important to us.

We sabotage ourselves to be accepted by others.

But this is the important part:

When it comes to major life changes, redirection, or endings, we are vulnerable.

We feel isolated, insecure, or like outsiders.

We crave acceptance because we feel out of place.

We feel the loss. We want to fill the space again—to feel connection, belonging, and stability.

Be aware.

We will sabotage our own success and rebuilding in order to feel social security. It is a boundary we must learn to regulate.

But if you don’t realise you are doing it, you cannot regulate it. Notice where you step back to let someone else go ahead. Or where you say, “It’s okay if someone else wants to…”

During vulnerable periods of transition and rebuilding, we may sabotage ourselves to avoid further loss or isolation.

But often, if you prioritise yourself over that connection, you will gain what you truly want without necessarily losing the connection.

Either way, there is risk of loss.

Choose yourself; that is why you are on this journey anyway.