How to Break Maladaptive Patterns That Keep You Stuck in Self-Sabotage
- Published:
- Updated: April 22, 2025
Let’s face it—some people have a harder time navigating life due to painful childhoods or traumatic experiences. These experiences can lead to unhealthy coping strategies that show up as procrastination, isolation, emotional eating, or numbing out.
As a healing and leadership coach, I help clients recognize how these patterns—often rooted in survival—are now holding them back from achieving peace, success, or real connection. These aren’t just bad habits. They’re maladaptive patterns—loops we didn’t choose consciously, but repeat unconsciously.
In this article, we’ll explore six common maladaptive patterns, where they come from, and what it takes to start breaking them—for good.
What Are Maladaptive Patterns?
Maladaptive patterns are emotional and behavioral loops we learned to survive tough situations—often in childhood. These loops are built on coping strategies: unconscious habits or mindsets developed to help us stay safe, avoid pain, or navigate chaos.
A coping strategy might look like shutting down when things get tense, avoiding decisions to dodge failure, or people-pleasing to prevent rejection. At the time, these responses made sense. They were protective. But over time, they become reflexes that keep us stuck.
None of us sets out to sabotage our lives. These patterns begin as survival tools. What once helped us cope becomes what now holds us back. That’s why naming the behavior isn’t about shame—it’s about understanding the root.
Let me give you an example:
Rachel was raised in an extremely competitive household. Her mother, Danielle, praised kids who brought home good grades—and humiliated the ones who didn’t. A “C” was treated like a capital offense. So Rachel learned to hustle, perfect, and outperform—because survival depended on it.
Fast forward to adulthood: Rachel is a high-functioning professional, but she’s chronically anxious, judgmental of others, and miserable in team settings. What once protected her—perfectionism and workaholism—became a wall.
Her story isn’t rare. Many of us are still living out rules written in childhood.
And here’s the hard truth: we don’t develop these patterns in a vacuum. Most of them were shaped in relationship—especially the ones we had with our parents or early caregivers.
How Parents Shape Our Patterns (Without Meaning To)
Our earliest relationships create the emotional blueprint we carry into adulthood. Most maladaptive patterns begin in childhood as coping strategies—ways to survive unpredictable, unsafe, or emotionally chaotic homes.
And these strategies didn’t form randomly. Nope.
They were shaped in relationship—especially with parents or caregivers who didn’t know how to model secure connection.
Take mothers and sons: some women, often still carrying unprocessed resentment toward their partners, unconsciously mold their sons into passive-aggressive men. Maybe the mother criticizes him constantly, limits his autonomy, or vents about the father’s failures in ways that burden the child. Instead of learning healthy masculinity, the son learns to shut down, lash out in indirect ways, or distrust his own leadership instincts.
The same is true for fathers and daughters. If a young girl doesn’t feel cherished by her father—especially in the early formative years—she may seek that validation from men later in life, regardless of how they treat her. She may become hyper-independent or over-attached, chasing what should’ve been freely given at home.
These patterns aren’t about blame. They’re about recognition. The more we understand where these dynamics began, the more choice we gain in how to respond now.
Yes, it’s very important for people to understand that.
— MJ (@TaoOfMJ) July 26, 2023
When I’m not at my best when parenting my daughter, I will tell her where I made mistakes and apologize to her.
I want her to be able to say sorry when she is in the wrong. The other half of the coparenting duo still has…
6 Common Maladaptive Patterns—and How to Break Them
These patterns aren’t flaws—they’re old survival strategies. Click any one to learn how to interrupt it with compassion and clarity.
6 Common Maladaptive Patterns
Addiction: Escaping the Pain Through Substances or People
Addiction isn’t always about drugs or alcohol. Sometimes it looks like obsessive productivity, doomscrolling news, or being unable to stop texting someone who drains you. At its core, addiction is a pattern of escape—a way to avoid feelings we don’t feel safe enough to face.
Whether it’s a drink, a hit, a person, or a belief system, the pattern offers temporary relief—and long-term sabotage. Over time, what once felt like control becomes compulsion.
And here’s the key: you’re not weak for having cravings. You just haven’t been taught a safer way to meet the need underneath.
When you feel the urge to reach outward—pause. Ask: What am I trying not to feel right now?
That moment of curiosity? That’s where the shift begins.
Aggression: From Explosive to Silent Sabotage
When we hear “aggression,” we often picture shouting, slamming doors, or public meltdowns. But aggression isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it hides behind sarcasm, missed deadlines, and polite resentment.
Aggression shows up in two main forms:
Overt Aggression
This is the kind you see: yelling, threats, physical violence, or using power to intimidate or control. It might also include emotional weapons like threatening to cut off financial support or manipulating someone in a vulnerable position.
Covert Aggression (aka Passive-Aggression)
This kind hides in plain sight. A forced smile. A joke with teeth. A “sure, no problem” laced with simmering resentment.
Examples include:
Barbed humor or sarcasm: “It’s okay if you don’t like me. Not everyone has great taste.”
Backhanded compliments: “That haircut makes your nose look smaller.”
Vague avoidance: “Let’s catch up sometime soon.” (with zero intention to follow through)
Repeated no-shows or dropped commitments
Condemning generalizations: “People like you never get it.”
These aren’t personality quirks—they’re emotional defense systems. Many of us, especially those raised by abusive or emotionally absent caregivers, learned that being direct wasn’t safe. So we found sneakier ways to express our pain.
When Suppressed Anger Becomes a Relationship Pattern
I have a client named Sue (not her real name), whose father was a womanizing alcoholic. On the rare occasions he was home, he either zoned out in front of the television or launched into alcohol-fueled rants that belittled her mother and poisoned the atmosphere.
Sue never felt protected, seen, or emotionally connected to him—and over time, her grief turned to fury. Not just at her father, but at all men.
Yes, all men would pay the “Daddy Bill” for the emotional crimes of her father.
Sue married a man named Harry—bipolar, emotionally unstable, and always teetering on the edge of dysregulation. Whenever Harry upset her, Sue went straight to blame. She’d threaten to leave, using her anger as leverage. And while Harry worked hard to manage his mental health, Sue’s rage ran deeper—it was generational, unprocessed, and inherited.
This is what suppressed anger looks like in adulthood: control instead of closeness, punishment instead of partnership.
If we never saw healthy anger growing up, it makes sense that ours either explodes—or turns inward, weaponizing itself in subtle and self-sabotaging ways.
Procrastination: When “Later” Becomes Never
You tell yourself, “I’ll do it later.”
But if you’re honest? You’re secretly hoping the task disappears altogether.
Procrastination isn’t laziness—it’s fear wearing a time-stamped mask. That fear of failure. Or the fear of not doing it perfectly. Maybe the fear of confronting what the task might bring up emotionally.
The longer you delay, the more the tension builds. Stress increases. Your self-trust erodes. And suddenly, the mountain feels too big to climb.
The pattern: avoidance pretending to be planning.
The shift: one micro-action. One imperfect start. One small win to prove, “I can.”
Emotional Eating: Feeding Feelings Instead of Processing Them
Food can soothe—but it can also silence. Emotional eating is one of the most common ways people try to escape discomfort. It’s not just about hunger. It’s about grief, boredom, shame, or even celebration turned compulsive.
Some people overeat. Others restrict, starve, or hop from diet to diet trying to regain control. But both behaviors are often rooted in the same thing: a disconnect from what we’re really feeling.
Before reaching for food—or denying yourself it—pause.
Ask: Am I hungry for nourishment, or for something else?
Support from Intuitive Eating resources or groups like Overeaters Anonymous can be powerful tools for healing this pattern.
Self-Isolation: When Hiding Feels Safer Than Connecting
For some, isolation feels like relief. No social pressure or messy relationships. No risk.
But what starts as protection often becomes a prison.
Isolation can look like working from home 24/7, canceling plans “just because,” or ghosting people you love. Over time, it feeds loneliness, anxiety, and emotional disconnection. You become a stranger to others—and to yourself.
The pattern says: “Connection is dangerous.”
The shift says: “Start small. Reach out once. Stay just long enough to remember you’re not alone.”
Excessive Screen Time: Escaping Reality One Scroll at a Time
Let’s be real—your screen probably knows more about your mood than your best friend.
Screens aren’t the enemy. But compulsive screen time is a numbing pattern. When we use devices to avoid hard feelings, discomfort, or silence, we disconnect from reality—and from ourselves.
Overuse can lead to physical symptoms like dry eyes, migraines, neck pain, and sleep disruption. Emotionally, it breeds anxiety, restlessness, and detachment.
The pattern says: “I’ll just check one more thing.”
The shift starts with awareness—and a boundary.
Try apps like Freedom, screen timers, or digital detox hours where you replace scrolling with something grounding: walking, stretching, journaling, or calling a friend.
Final Thoughts
Maladaptive patterns don’t mean you’re defective—they mean you adapted to survive.
You’re not lazy, dramatic, or weak. You’re carrying coping strategies that once made perfect sense. And now? You’re learning to let them go.
That’s not failure. That’s growth and strength. Own it.
If this resonated with you, here are a few gentle ways we can stay connected:
🎙️ Listen to the podcast – Real-talk episodes on healing, leadership, and emotional sobriety (especially for business owners and change-makers)
💌 Write me a note – I read every message. If something stirred in you, I’d be honored to hear it
🤝 Explore working together – If you’re ready for deeper clarity and emotional support
You don’t have to rush this season.
You don’t have to pretend it’s easy.
And you definitely don’t have to do it alone.
You’re doing sacred work.
Let that be enough—for now. 💛
