How Trauma Can Fuel All-Or-Nothing Thinking
Subtle patterns you may not know are costing your happiness.
Trigger Warning: The following content includes personal experiences and discussions around difficult topics such as trauma, emotional challenges, childhood maltreatment, or abusive relationships. While my intent is to educate and share personal insights, some readers may find certain content emotionally distressing. This article is for informational purposes only. For an even deeper dive into all things trauma and relationships, sign up for my newsletter.
If you are familiar with my writing, then you know that most of my articles talk about the associations between traumatic childhood environments and the impact of narcissistic caregivers on our sense of self-worth, and our overall ability to function in our adult lives. The reality is that many of us have learned to downplay or dismiss the significance of these kinds of early experiences because: A) unpacking the past can be painful and something we are ill-prepared to deal with and B) we may end up knee-deep in denial and think that we’re ‘fine’ and the past is best left in… the past.
It’s not always easy facing the uncomfortable truths of what we lived through, or how our earliest experiences have shaped how we see ourselves, and what we believe to be true about the people in our lives. This can be an especially hard pill to swallow. When facing the reality of all-or-nothing thinking and how these kinds of cognitive distortions typically develop, it pushes us out of denial and forces us to accept that what we experienced was not just ‘normal’ childhood discontent.
For anyone living in a pattern of all-or-nothing thinking, it becomes the lens through which we observe the world and how we assess ourselves. We’re either winning, or losing. Loved or hated. Good enough, or a failure. There is no middle ground, no room for human imperfection; no shades of grey. We don’t wake up one day and suddenly start thinking in extremes. It happens subtly, over time, and something that is molded, conditioned, and learned. A hard truth is that relatively healthy environments are not teaching the world in absolutes. As with most things toxic, all-or-nothing thinking develops from chaotic and unpredictable environments, and as part of survival.
As anyone who understands the implications of all-or-nothing thinking, the reason it’s based on survival is because it helps you navigate toxicity, fears of the unknown, and unpredictability much easier. If you grew up being taught love as conditional, you learned that you were either ‘perfect’, or ‘horrible’. You learned that you were praised for making your caregivers proud, or harshly shamed for making a mistake.
In your adult life, it becomes easier to flip a switch and arbitrarily change your feelings or opinions on a friend or a partner instead of sitting with the discomfort or rumination in wondering if they actually care about you, or are going to abandon you. In essence, all-or-nothing thinking gives you a momentary edge in having the final say, or in being the first one to abandon a relationship before risking being abandoned.
When dealing with conflict, or fears of being seen for who you are, it becomes easier to again flip that switch and project your insecurities and self-hatred back onto the other person, and to paint them “All Bad” in an attempt to save face. The irony is that they may have been the same person you idealized last week, or for the last year until your fears and insecurities took center stage and triggered your survival instincts.
All-or-nothing thinking does not allow room for nuances, imperfections, or ambiguity. You either need to be the best, or you’re a failure. This mindset shapes everything in your life, from how you look, to how you feel, to how your relationships play out. This mindset also becomes your invisible rulebook that you carry with you, silently influencing how you show up for friends, for your partner, family, and your job.
It is also this mindset that keeps you stuck where it becomes impossible to believe that someone can love you, and still need time to themselves, that they may want a relationship with you, and still ask for space, or that someone can say ‘no’ and establish a boundary, and still care about you.
These types of nuances require discernment; for developing shades of grey where a person can hold more than one perception at the same time, without losing their positive feelings about the other person.
When you live with the mental equivalent of an ‘off switch’, your self-worth hangs dangerously in the balance. You are constantly feeling just one misstep away from having your value pulled out from under you, where someone’s feedback or constructive criticism can shatter any confidence you had for yourself. Relationships are experienced as walking on a tightrope where any comment from a friend, boss, family member, or partner is not only analyzed; it is dissected, and played over and over in your mind, where you question their intent, and mentally start pushing them away out of self-preservation.
This dynamic has negative implications on your job — how are you supposed to learn, grow, and evolve if you are too scared to accept constructive feedback without believing there must be something ‘wrong’ with you? It also affects your ability to be fully present in your personal relationships — how can you show up for yourself and others without the constant nagging fear of having to be seen as perfect’ or you must be garbage?
All-or-nothing thinking often hides in the shadows of the judgments you make about yourself or others when no one is looking. The hair-trigger flip from All to Nothing seems natural, almost necessary. These patterns don’t announce themselves. Instead, they slip into your choices, your relationships, and your sense of identity in ways that feel ‘normal’.
The Fear of Being Invisible
One of the biggest reasons you may develop all-or-nothing thinking is due to a history of feeling irrelevant, or invisible. Maybe you had to vie for attention over your siblings and became the ‘perfect’ student, or the ‘funny guy’ as a way to stand out and gain attention. If your environment was chaotic or unpredictable, or if attention and validation were inconsistent, feeling visible and wanted can become an obsession. It is no longer about seeing if others are paying attention to you, but a desperate attempt in showing that your existence matters.
There is this overarching need to feel certain; certain that others are consistently showing up for you. Certain that you’re safe. Certain that the rug is not going to be pulled out of from under your feet if you say something ‘wrong’, leaving you (once again) feeling insignificant, or invisible. Or, if someone does not show up for you exactly as you expect — if they cancel plans, or show up late, or are distracted when they are with you — the switch gets flipped. Now, everything is painted All Bad, leaving you feeling disappointed and abandoned.
The reality is that anything you interpret as less than perfect is seen as unacceptable, or broken. It’s not about what actually happened. After all, you should not expect everyone in your life to be flawless, on time every time, or to hand you their unadulterated attention. It’s more about how you interpreted their actions and impulsively made a split-second decision. It is these expectations that everyone in your life will come through as ‘perfect’ that operate as self-protective. By going into a situation with the underlying belief that you are going to be disappointed or let down, you are preparing yourself for the inevitable let-down.
When all-or-nothing thinking is in place, the people in your life are held to unrealistic expectations (including yourself), where you internalize their human imperfections as being the rationale for splitting them as damaged or no longer wanted, and thus ‘protecting’ yourself from further pain.
They Love Me; They Love Me Not
When you live with all-or-nothing thinking, it’s not something that can be easily turned off or changed. It ends up controlling your life, your thoughts, and your beliefs. At any given moment, you may feel deeply loved by your family, friends, or your partner, and in the blink of an eye you can feel the sting of rejection. The fact is, that they may not be doing anything out of the ordinary. They may have sent a quick text, “I’m busy, I’ll call you later”, but it triggers all of your insecurities.
Most people won’t understand how something as menial as a text message can send you into a tailspin, or how a delayed response from someone you love can hijack your nervous system. Instead of taking the text at face-value, you begin ruminating on other times people may have sent you a similar text. Or, you fixate on the last time someone took too long to respond while making assumptions about their behavior. Suffice to say, miscommunication and assumptions are two of the biggest reasons relationship issues surface. Yet, the people in your life may not be behaving any differently towards you; it boils down to your interpretation and perception of their behavior that leads to flipping that switch, and painting them All Bad.
All-or-nothing thinking conditions you to oscillate between extremes where you either feel deeply validated and loved by the people in your life one moment, while swinging to the other extreme and feeling worthless or persecuted the next. It becomes exhausting where you are constantly questioning the people in your life, constantly bracing for disappointment, and constantly having them jump through hoops. Instead of taking their emotional investment without looking for ulterior motives, relationships often trigger a compulsion to ‘test’ others, where if they aren’t perfectly professing their undying love and commitment, they fail the test and the switch is flipped.
Those who have not lived with all-or-nothing thinking and the weight of carrying it, won’t understand the emotional toll it can take on a person. They may call you ‘extra’, or ‘dramatic’ without comprehending the back-and-forth war that is going on in your head. It’s like living with emotional whiplash where you’re constantly being pulled from one extreme, to the other. More than the overt feelings and exhaustion that go with all-or-nothing thinking is how you constantly doubt yourself.
You’ve learned not to trust things as they are, but to always look for agendas and the other shoe to drop. You develop an internal dialogue where you ruminate on what a person said, what they did, or how they came across to you. You shame yourself into wrongly believing you said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, or somehow upset the other person. Then, you convince yourself they are going to leave you or no longer want you in their life. So, you flip the script, and paint them All Bad.
The worst part is, you know it’s happening, but once the pattern is kicked into gear, it’s difficult to stop. Instead, you may find yourself compulsively over-apologizing, or shutting down and testing them to see if they will ask you what’s wrong. While it sounds manipulative, it’s not. It’s a cry for help, and a cry for peace. It’s a desperation to be truly seen, and truly loved, without judgment. And, without having to explain how you are hard-wired, or why.
Healing from a history of all-or-nothing thinking is not just a simple mindset hack, or a quick fix. One of the hardest parts about your growth will probably be learning how to fight the urge to turn your progress into being about all-or-nothing. It’s not about ‘either’ being perfect at growth, ‘or’ failing. It’s about understanding and respecting the journey, and taking notes as you go.
If you have learned to look at the world and the people in your life in absolutes, it will take time to unwrap how this started, when it started, and why. You will need to learn self-compassion, and to find healthier and more realistic shades of grey when it comes to navigating how you see yourself, and others. It’s not about suddenly allowing yourself to be imperfect, but in continuing to show up for yourself, even if you’re scared and imperfect. It’s not about walking away from someone to prevent them possibly hurting you, but choosing to stay with them knowing that no one is perfect and even healthy partners may inadvertently hurt each other. It’s about practicing to sit with your fears, even if your first instinct is to run to try and prevent the fears that scare you the most.
