What is the Story of Your Life? And is it True?
Image by Bernard Hermant/Unsplash
-We all have a story we tell about our lives, to ourselves and others. If you’re lucky, you may look back on your life with pride, feeling good about your achievements and the kind of person you have become. But for most of my clients, this is sadly not the case. Many people I work with tell a story that is highly self-critical, laser-focused on the negatives and also taking way too much responsibility for any difficulties they experienced.
Let’s look at Steven’s story as an example. Steven is in his early 30s, with a successful career as a property lawyer. He comes to see me suffering with depression and low self-esteem. No matter how well he does, how much money he earns, the praise he receives from colleagues, he always feels like a failure. ‘I spend every single day feeling like an imposter, as if everything that’s happened is just dumb luck,’ he tells me. ‘People tell me I’m smart, a good lawyer, a nice husband and dad but I don’t feel any of that is true. I never have.’
When we look back through his life Steven takes every opportunity to tell me what he screwed up, how obnoxious he was as a teenager, what a ‘difficult’ child he was. It becomes clear that this version of his life story was written not by him, but by his overbearing, cruel stepfather, who was in his life from the age of four, when his parents divorced and his mother remarried.
‘He just seemed to hate me from the get-go,’ says Steven ruefully. ‘Nothing I did was good enough – and I could never match up to his own kids, who were perfect in every way. He called me dumb, pathetic, lazy, workshy and much worse. It really got to me, because mum never stood up for me so it was like being bombarded with this horrible stuff.’
How schemas develop
As I have discussed before in these posts, we all have schemas in our brains, most of which are useful. A schema is a template in your brain which develops whenever you need to do something often, like tell the time, or read a sentence of English words, like this one. But the founder of schema therapy, Dr Jeffrey Young, discovered 18 schemas that are not helpful in adulthood, because they form when we have repeated stressful experiences, usually as a child.
When Steven’s stepdad told him, over and over, that he was stupid and useless, he developed templates for how to respond: schemas. And his core schema is called Failure, because that’s how he felt as a child and adolescent – and how he feels today, despite his apparent success. So Steven’s life story, which for him is one of constant failing and somehow, through mysterious forces, arriving in his well-paid, highly respected position.
It took many months for us to unravel this profoundly inaccurate and deeply damaging story. I helped Steven see that everything he thought about himself came from two suspect sources: his stepfather’s relentless criticism and the Failure schema that formed as a result. Neither source of information was accurate, so we wrote a new story, of a brave little boy who did his best, despite his parents acrimonious divorce and a loving dad being replaced by a bitter, angry man who took it all out out on Steven.
Over time, this helped restore his confidence and self-esteem. Steven kept a journal and began writing about what went right day to day, not just his mistakes and perceived failures, which he had been laser-focused on. He learned to take praise and compliments into his heart, for the first time in his life. His depression ebbed away and life started to feel lighter, more joyful and meaningful. This made us both very happy indeed.
Changing your life story
If any of this resonates with you, I’m sorry – no child deserves to grow up feeling bad about themselves. But I also hope you have at least a glimmer that the narrative you have believed for so long might not be true, accurate or fair. And if you tell that story over and over – that you’re a bad person, dislikeable, unlovable or just not good enough – it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it will drain your confidence and self-worth and make you depressed.
That’s why my new book, Heal Your Trauma: How to Overcome a Painful Childhood to Become Happy and Whole Again, focuses heavily on helping readers understand what they needed as children and what goes wrong when those needs are not met. I have had such lovely feedback so far – most importantly, from people with mental-health problems who tell me how much it has helped them. If you would like to order a copy, you can do so here or by clicking on the button below.
I hope you enjoy the book – and that you have a wonderful day.
Love,
Dan ❤️
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