Self-Hate Isn’t the Problem: It’s the Protector
It all begins with an idea.
The secret story behind self-hate and the slow work of reclaiming yourself.
Apr 27, 2025
These past few weeks have been full of reflection. I just returned to Florida after extended travel through California, New York, and New Jersey — an experiment in resilience, reconnection, and taking in the beauty of a snowy winter and the dramatic California coastline. Travel offered so much, but it also disrupted my usual routines around eating and self-care. Staying consistent was hard, understandably.
Coming back home feels grounding. The weather has been amazing, and I’ve returned to my early morning solo walks, meditation, and connection with community.
As I thought about this month’s newsletter, I kept coming back to a topic that can feel heavy — self-hate. It feels important to offer a different lens: one rooted in curiosity and deeper understanding.
Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself.
(Anam Cara)
For many of us, the voice of self-hate feels so familiar that we barely notice it anymore.
It shows up in moments of uncertainty: "You’re not good enough."
It punctuates our exhaustion: "You should be doing more."
It rises up in relationships: "Of course they’ll leave — you’re too much."
When we finally turn toward it in therapy or reflection, the instinct is to make it go away.
"I just want to stop hating myself."
"I know it’s irrational, but I can’t seem to shake it."
But what if self-hate isn't the real problem?
What if — as strange as it sounds — it's been trying to protect you all along?
In the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), we understand self-hate not as a defect, but as an adaptation.
When we were small, we needed love, attention, and emotional safety to survive.
And when that didn’t come — or only came conditionally — our developing minds had to find a way to make sense of the unbearable.
Rather than risk seeing our caregivers as unsafe or incapable, we turned the blame inward.
"If I’m the problem, at least the world stays predictable."
"If I’m bad, maybe I can become good enough to be loved."
Self-hate was the child’s brilliant, painful way of keeping attachment intact.
Of preserving hope.
Of making unbearable circumstances feel survivable.
As adults, these survival strategies no longer serve us.
They keep us trapped in cycles of perfectionism, self-abandonment, shame, and despair.
But because they were once life-saving, they feel safe — even when they hurt.
Healing isn’t about eradicating self-hate.
It’s about understanding it, honoring the fierce loyalty it represents, and gently, patiently learning new ways of relating to ourselves.
Self-hate softens when we stop treating it as the enemy.
When we meet it with curiosity, compassion, and grief for the little one who had no other choice.
You don't need to fight harder to love yourself.
You need to recognize that the part of you who still hates is the same part that once loved so much, and fought so hard, to survive.
And that is a story of resilience — not failure.
Reflection Invitation
Where in your life do you notice the voice of self-hate showing up?
What might it be trying to protect you from feeling?
Thank you for being here.
Ruth Trujillo Pertew supports bright, thoughtful women in healing the patterns of self-abandonment and finding freedom beyond survival strategies. Feel free to set up a consultation.
Seeing ClearlyFamily, Adaptation, and the Ghosts of the Past
It all begins with an idea.
I recently spent several months traveling and visiting family after being away for nearly three years. It was a perspective-shifting experience—like closing a chapter or being visited by the ghost of Christmas future. I saw my blind spots, the ways my relationships have been shaped by my worldview, my avoidance, and my survival patterns.
I have survived, but I’ve struggled to truly connect. I’ve moved through life guarded, cautious, hyper-aware of rejection—wanting closeness but fearing it just as much.
Thanks for reading Life Gets Lifey! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
On this trip, I saw something more clearly than ever: both of my parents struggle to take up space. They withdraw from conversations, as if afraid they might be a burden. My father started working at twelve, my mother cared for her siblings—work has been their measure of worth. They love me, but expressing it is difficult. My mother shows love through making my favorite foods, giving advice, and doing things for me. My father keeps his distance but slips cash into my hands as his way of caring.
One of my core memories is of my mother rejecting a gift I had saved to give her. She felt defensive, and instead of acknowledging me, she pushed me away. I am sure that was not just one time, but one of many moments when I felt that disconnection. My survival adaptation was to reject her first—to close my heart to her, to give up on the warmth I longed for. I held onto anger because it kept me from feeling the grief of that loss. Instead, I sought closeness with my aunts and carried contempt for my mother for years. It is only now, in my forties, that some of that is melting away as I heal my trauma and process the grief.
Even as I long for more emotional closeness, I feel the discomfort of it too—just as they do. I imagine their childhoods were not filled with warmth, attention, or curiosity. My father left school after sixth grade, my mother after third. Their families couldn’t afford to educate them; they needed their labor. My mother grew up in a violent, unstable home, while my father’s was absent of a father figure and heavy with responsibility.
I don’t share this for sympathy but to acknowledge how much more clearly I see them now—their vulnerability, their journey. They did the best they could. And I love them. But I also see myself more clearly: how I so brilliantly adapted to being raised by them, to living in poverty, to migrating to a new country and all that came with it. I see how these experiences shaped me, how they live in me, and how I want to grow beyond them. I want to expand my capacity to stay in my body, to experience life fully without disconnecting or numbing.
How We Adapt to Developmental Trauma
Most of us have experienced some form of developmental trauma—extended separation from a caregiver, repeated lack of attunement, basic needs going unmet. These experiences shape how we see ourselves and the world. For a child, it is often more adaptive to believe that something must be wrong with them than to recognize that their environment is failing them. It would be too overwhelming to grasp that their caregivers might not be capable of meeting their needs. The nervous system protects against that unbearable truth through adaptation.
This is where distortions in our sense of self begin—where nervous system dysregulation takes root.
But we don’t just suffer; we survive. We develop strategies to maintain connection with our caregivers, even if it means disconnecting from ourselves. These survival styles form in response to what is welcomed and what is rejected in us as children.
Children sense the parts of themselves that their parents accept and value, as well as the parts they reject. They adapt to maintain and maximize the attachment and love relationship." — Lawrence Heller & Aileen Peltier
Here are some ways these adaptations take shape:
If a parent rejects emotional expression (e.g., "Stop crying," "Don’t be so sensitive")
The child learns to suppress emotions to avoid disapproval.
They may become hyper-independent, believing their feelings are a burden.
People-pleasing becomes a survival mechanism—hiding their needs to maintain connection.
If a parent only attunes to success and achievement
The child equates love with performance, leading to perfectionism.
They may develop workaholism, feeling restless unless they’re achieving something.
Relaxation and play feel undeserved or irresponsible.
If a parent rejects vulnerability or dependence (e.g., "Be tough," "Figure it out yourself")
The child becomes fiercely independent, avoiding reliance on others.
They struggle to ask for help, feeling ashamed of needing support.
Strength becomes their identity, making it hard to admit when they’re hurting.
If a parent only attunes to their child's caretaking or helpfulness
The child learns that their worth comes from taking care of others.
They have difficulty setting boundaries, feeling guilty for saying "no."
Their own needs take a backseat to everyone else’s.
If a parent only attunes to compliance and "good behavior"
The child loses touch with their authentic self, suppressing desires and opinions.
They fear expressing disagreement or upsetting others.
Self-criticism and guilt become ingrained, making assertion difficult.
If a parent rewards rebellion but ignores vulnerability
The child over-identifies with independence and pushes people away.
Vulnerability feels dangerous or weak.
They challenge authority to maintain a sense of control.
These adaptations make sense. They helped us survive. But as adults, they may keep us from true connection—not just with others, but with ourselves.
The work is not about blaming our parents or dismantling the defenses that once protected us. It’s about recognizing these patterns, bringing them into awareness, and gently expanding our capacity for something new.
For me, this trip illuminated the past, but it also showed me the future—the possibility of moving through the world with less fear and more presence. The work is ongoing. But I am hopeful of being able to live more fully.
What about you? Do any of these adaptations resonate with you. Feel free to schedule a free consultation to see how I might be able to help you reconnect to yourself.
Reckoning and Connection in a Time of Collective Alienation and Grief.
It all begins with an idea.
I am starting this on the brink of Monday, January 20th—a day that feels heavy with anticipation. Tomorrow, the country gathers for a rite of passage, the inauguration. It’s a ceremony we repeat every four years, but this one feels different. It feels less like a celebration and more like a reckoning—a reckoning with the fractures in who we are and what we’ve become.
This week, I’ve been sitting with the weight of how this system dehumanizes us—how it others us. It strikes me how much we have to fight to feel seen, heard, and connected under these conditions. In many ways, this fight mirrors struggles from childhood, where survival often meant distancing ourselves from pain, from parts of who we are.
Lately, I’ve been trying to slow down. I’ve started writing down my dreams each morning, waking up with the intention of capturing what lingers in that quiet space between sleep and waking. I recite the Serenity Prayer in my head, asking for guidance from something greater than myself. Writing this post feels like an extension of that practice—letting the words flow, speaking from the heart instead of overthinking or holding back.
After my last post, where I shared openly about my eating disorder, I felt vulnerable but not buried in the shame I feared. Naming the shame gave me room to notice what it was pushing away. I’m learning that healing requires these moments of exposure—of saying the thing that feels most tender and finding, in the process, that I can hold it.
So, here too, I want to open up space for something vulnerable: my complicated relationship with this country. It feels raw to call it “my country” because belonging here has never been simple for me. I came to the U.S. at 12, to a mostly white community, where I felt like an outsider. I hated myself for standing out—for not being lighter, for not having blue eyes, for being “other.” I carried shame for my father, who was undocumented, and for all the ways I thought we didn’t belong.
The systemic dehumanization I see today echoes those early wounds. It reminds me how I learned to disconnect from parts of myself that felt threatened—to survive by shrinking. And I can’t help but wonder how many of us are carrying that same strategy, shaped by a world that draws boundaries around who is deserving and who isn’t.
This week, the quiet feels like collective grief—a mourning of the dream of America as something inclusive, something expansive. It’s a reckoning with how narrow the definition of “American” has become. During grad school, I studied how countries define their social contracts—how they decide who deserves care, resources, and dignity. One factor stood out: countries with more homogeneity often have broader social safety nets. But in diverse populations, those boundaries of who is deserving become tighter, more rigid.
That’s what I feel now: the tightening of those boundaries. The people drawing them are shrinking the idea of who counts, who belongs, who gets to call this place home. But I ask you—what does it mean to you to be American? And do the ones defining this title truly embody it?
I spent much of my twenties working for environmental groups, attending marches, and volunteering for farmworker organizations. Back then, I felt connected to something larger, shoulder to shoulder with others striving for justice. But as I started my own family and built my career, I moved away from that activism. Now, I feel called back to it—not necessarily in the same form, but in some way that allows me to share grief, to hold space for connection, and to resonate with the pain of others.
Because that’s what we need, isn’t it? To grieve together, to listen deeply, to let our pain call us into action. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe in the power of naming what hurts and letting that be the starting point for change.
Adrienne Rich’s words have been on my mind this week. She writes:
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.…This isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
Rich reminds us that to reckon with this country, we have to face its ghosts, its truths, and its shadows. It’s not an easy process, but it’s a necessary one.
This is an adolescent country, still stumbling through questions of identity and worth. But I wonder—can we, the people, redefine what it means to belong here? Can we widen the boundaries of who is deserving, of who gets to call this place home?
The answers won’t come from one administration or even one lifetime. But maybe they start here—with us, listening, grieving, and imagining a better way forward.
Thanks for reading Life Gets Lifey! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Blog Post Title Four
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.