How to understand why criticism makes you fall apart

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

In my twenties, a boss delivered some negative feedback about me he’d received from a co-worker. Instead of speaking up for myself, I dissolved into a puddle of frustrated tears over the unwarranted criticism.

I reacted like a child unable to regain her composure and inconsolable in the face of what someone else said about me. In this case, the criticism was unfounded, but I did not know how to advocate for myself.

That’s because in the home I grew up in, self-defense was futile. There was no point standing up for yourself because you’d only get into more trouble.

This workplace event and others like it placed me right back in childhood where there was nothing I could say to defend myself, so I wouldn’t even try. I felt the same powerlessness and helplessness I felt back in the home with my toxic caregivers.

Unwarranted criticism made me feel attacked in a life-threatening way. And my body was convinced there was nothing I could do to make people understand my point of view.

Constructive criticism

But even constructive criticism evoked a hair-trigger response. If someone tried to tell me ways I could do something better, I felt as if my life were at stake.

That’s because in the home, criticism meant loss of love and when you’re a child that’s life-threatening. My inner child had never grown up and learned how to handle criticism in a healthy way.

She was so convinced the world was a harsh and scary place that she could not take well-intentioned advice on board. She took it as a sign that she was worthless and it made her feel obliterated, as though her very existence were in danger.

If you grew up without praise or encouragement, or were criticized harshly, you will feel overly sensitive to feedback. You equate criticism with rejection that feels unendurable.

Instead of feeling like you may have done something wrong, you feel as though you are irretrievably wrong in a way that shakes you to your core.

Consequences

This fear of criticism prevents you from benefiting from constructive input from others. When others sense your reactivity to such input, they will stop giving it to you and that can hold you back.

When you assume that all criticism is malicious, you never gain the discernment to separate the good from the bad. Yes, some criticism is ill-intentioned and some of it is intended for your good.

Part of inner child healing involves understanding when to pay attention to criticism and when to discard it. For example, a performance review at work is different from a troll in the comments section on the internet.

Another part involves self-advocacy, or the willingness to speak up for yourself. When you were a child standing up for yourself was frowned upon.

Feeling misunderstood may have been the norm with no way for you to rectify the situation. No matter what you said, you could never make things better.

It was safer and easier to keep quiet. So you continue that pattern into adulthood where feeling misunderstood makes you feel like that helpless child again.

As you heal the inner child and regulate your nervous system, you will find it easier to defend yourself against unwanted criticism. It will become easier to discern the difference between helpful advice and malice.

In addition, when someone misunderstands you it will not feel like the end of your life. You can take the necessary steps to correct them and even when they continue to misunderstand it won’t matter so much to you, anyway.