Sara believed she had a normal upbringing

Sara believed she had a normal upbringing. She also believed her mother yelling at her was actually good for her. Sara believed that if she had not been yelled at, she would not be a good person. This is a great example of how trauma leads to false beliefs about ourselves and how abuse and emotional neglect however small lead to shame. When I suggested that Sara should stop emotionally beating up on herself, basically perpetuating her mother's treatment of her, she dismissed the idea, fearing that she'd become someone terrible without upholding those harsh standards.

— from The Mind in the Cockpit · It's Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Co

In the book

Paint a disparaging picture of yourself and you push away every comfort, which deepens the very picture you painted. People will believe astonishing untruths to keep an old story intact — there are those who remember a parent's cruelty and have quietly relabeled it as love, because the alternative was unbearable. And underneath it all sits the oldest engine: your unconscious is faster and more powerful than your conscious mind, and the ancient, instinctive part of the brain can override the reasoning part before you have noticed it moved. — The Mind in the Cockpit

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