 Hey Psych2Goers, and welcome back to our channel. Thank you so much for all the love you've given us. Your ongoing support has helped us make psychology and mental health more accessible to everyone. Now let's continue. We've all done something self-destructive at some point in our lives. Most of the time it's not intentional and doesn't become a habit. Self-destructive behaviors are those that are bound to harm you physically or mentally. It may be unintentional, or you may know exactly what you're doing, but the urge is too strong to control. Problems can eventually arise when this type of behavior becomes habitual. So here are seven common behaviors of a self-destructive person. 1. You hold on to a self-defeating mindset. Do you struggle with thoughts like, I won't be able to make it? Or I'm not good enough for this. Do these thoughts plague you before heading into any kind of situation? A self-defeating mindset is when you have a constant stream of negative thoughts about yourself, or your relationship with others, and this sorely impacts your self-esteem. A self-defeating mindset can become a self-destructive habit because it does not allow you to be the best version of yourself, and it's caused by no one other than you. 2. You hide from your emotions. When you are hiding from your emotions, you fail to acknowledge both your positive and negative emotions. This results in a forced deception of your emotional state leading to both physical and mental health issues that impose additional stress on your body. You are at risk of having an outburst of emotions. This is all most likely due to deep emotional scarring, like dealing with the death of a loved one. You feel like it's better to not feel anything to relieve the pain of grief. Over time, these emotions start to build up and can be much more harmful when they burst out during a meltdown. 3. You fail to take action. Do you over-indulge in playing video games instead of finding a much-needed job? Do you feel like things just aren't worth trying for in the first place? When you fail to take action, you are setting yourself up for failure from the start. You might cost yourself relationships, jobs, and other opportunities that require you to take some risk. This kind of behavior can be a very difficult habit to overcome and bars you from future attempts at being successful in your goals. 4. You hold on to forced incompetence. Do you sell yourself short when you tell yourself, I'm just not good at math, and don't even try to understand the material better in your math class? Forced incompetence is a mindset where you won't try to learn and practice if you believe that you do not have an innate talent for it. This thinking can also be a coping mechanism if you aren't confident in your abilities. Unfortunately, this mindset can only set you up for failure and keep you from trying new things and broadening your horizons. 5. You are socially isolated. Do your friends and family no longer want to talk to you? Did you pick a fight and insult them? Or maybe they don't reach out to you anymore because you've simply ignored all their texts, calls, and invitations to hang out. Harming yourself from friends and family can be an active or a subconscious choice. You might think you are doing the world a favor, figuring everyone would just be better off if they just stayed away from you. In reality, all you are doing is harming yourself and the people close to you by damaging your relationships and stirring up depression and anxiety for yourself. 6. You are unnecessarily self-sacrificial. Are you so focused on making others happy that you forgot to look for your own happiness? When you're being self-sacrificial, you feel noble, and maybe you've tried to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing. Truthfully, this behavior can actually be more self-sabotager. Maybe you decided to follow a professional career path only because your parents wanted that particular path for you, but it's now left you mentally and physically exhausted because your heart's never truly been in it. 7. You have problems with alcohol and drug abuse. Using the use of alcohol and drugs is much more evident in people who are not happy. By reaching for these substances, you might be using them to escape from your situation. Meanwhile, the world around you keeps going, and you will keep falling behind, and then find yourself in an even worse situation than the one before. This can turn into a cycle that negatively affects your physical and mental health. Do you relate to any of these habits? We hope this video helped you to recognize some self-destructive behaviors. These kinds of behaviors are common in all of us, and the importance of bringing awareness to them and being able to identify these negative behaviors is important. Go ahead and like and share this video if it helped you, and you think it can help someone else too. The studies and references used are listed in the description below. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and notification bell icon for more Psych2Go videos. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.