Why Anxiety Can Make It Hard to Trust Yourself

One question I hear often is "Why can't I trust myself?"

It's such an honest question.

And one I wish fewer women felt they had to ask.

I think it often begins because, somewhere along the way, trusting yourself became much harder than it used to be.

Sometimes it starts after you've spent years putting someone else's needs ahead of your own. Sometimes after years of trying to do everything "right." And sometimes it's difficult to point to one reason.

Then one day, you realize you trust everyone else's opinion more than your own.

And that's a painful place to be.

Because no matter how much reassurance someone gives you, it never feels like enough when you've stopped believing in yourself.

If this sounds familiar, you're probably already exhausted.

Not because you're making bad decisions.

Because you've spent so much time thinking everything through, trying to get it right, and afraid of making the wrong choice that it's hard to remember what simply trusting yourself even feels like.

One thing I know is this:

Anxiety doesn't just make us worry.

Over time, it can make us lose trust in ourselves.

Not all at once.

Little by little.

Maybe you replay a conversation for hours after it's over. Maybe you keep wondering if you made the right decision. Maybe you look to someone else for reassurance before listening to yourself.

After a while, it just becomes the way you move through the world. You don't even realize how much energy you're spending questioning yourself until you're exhausted.

There's More to the Story

What continues to amaze me about women is how much they carry while still wondering if they're doing enough.

I've never believed that women lose trust in themselves for no reason.

I see women who have spent years doing the best they could while navigating work, relationships, family, grief, criticism, painful experiences, and the everyday pressures of life. Many have also lived through experiences that were deeply painful or traumatic.

Too often, those experiences quietly convince women that they should doubt themselves instead of what happened to them.

I also see women who have been surrounded by countless messages about who they're supposed to be, how they're supposed to look, what they should achieve, how much they're expected to handle, and what it means to be a "good" woman.

Over time, it's easy to internalize those messages.

Instead of questioning the expectations, many women begin questioning themselves.

Knowing what so many women have lived through and continue to carry, it makes sense that they begin to lose trust in themselves.

Not because they're weak.

Not because there's something wrong with them.

Because they've spent years trying to meet expectations that often ask more of them than anyone could reasonably carry.

That doesn't mean those patterns are still serving them.

It means healing begins when we start understanding ourselves with greater compassion.

Looking at Yourself Through a Different Lens

One of my favorite questions to ask is:

"If you trusted yourself just a little more, what would be different?"

Would you still replay that conversation?

Would you still ask three people what they think before making a decision?

Would you still assume you've done something wrong every time someone seems upset?

I don't ask those questions because there's a right answer.

I ask them because they help us slow down.

They help us understand ourselves instead of immediately assuming something is wrong with us.

I've found that when women begin understanding themselves differently, they often begin relating to themselves differently too.

The anxiety doesn't disappear overnight. Life doesn't suddenly become easy. But something begins to change.

You start noticing the moments when you automatically doubt yourself.

You begin asking whether the expectations you've been living by were ever fair to begin with.

You begin hearing your own voice a little more clearly.

And that's when something shifts.

You realize your voice was never lost.

It was just buried beneath anxiety, painful experiences, impossible expectations, and years of putting everyone else first.

And that's one of the most meaningful parts of my work.

Not helping women become someone different.

Helping them reconnect with who they've been all along.

Because underneath the anxiety, the self-doubt, and all the expectations they've carried for years, I believe there's still a part of every woman that knows her own strength.

Sometimes she just needs help finding her way back to it.

About the Author

I'm Kimberly Rudy, LCSW. I specialize in helping women experiencing anxiety, trauma, perfectionism, and self-doubt in San Francisco and throughout California.

My work is guided by the understanding that women don't lose trust in themselves for no reason. Together, we'll explore the experiences, relationships, and expectations that shaped the way you see yourself so you can reconnect with your own voice, trust yourself more deeply, and move through life with greater confidence, clarity, and self-compassion.