You Finally Feel Accepted, But You’re Still Doubting Yourself
It’s no secret that feeling accepted isn't something that has come easily for many LGBTQIA+ people. From microaggressions to hate crimes, and everything in between, living in a predominantly cisgender, heterosexual world often means navigating experiences that people outside those minority groups simply don't have to think about. And if you're part of more than one marginalised group, these experiences can intersect in complex ways.
Hiding parts of yourself and trying to prove your worth were likely part of your life for a long time - creating a constant tension between who you really are, and what felt safe enough to show the world.
But you may have always harboured a secret hope that things might be different when that all changes.
Once you come out.
Once people know.
Once you stop hiding quite so much.
Once you stop performing.
Except - perhaps that's where you find yourself now.
People have accepted you (or at least, those who matter). Your colleagues are supportive. Your friends are lovely. Your family has learned, and their hearts are in the right place.
And yet - you’re still terrified of making mistakes.
You overwork.
You overapologise and overexplain.
You overanalyse and overprepare.
You’re still not at all convinced you’re good enough.
Acceptance isn't the same thing as self-acceptance
Now, to be clear, this isn’t everyone’s story. Being LGBTQIA+ doesn’t automatically lead to low self-esteem or self-doubt. People arrive at those struggles for all sorts of reasons.
But if you've spent years receiving messages - subtle or explicit - that who you are is somehow wrong, too much, not enough, or something to hide, it's understandable that those experiences might continue to shape how you feel about yourself, even after you've built a life where you feel accepted.
That's because being accepted by other people, while incredibly important and at times, life-saving, still isn't quite the same thing as accepting yourself.
External acceptance can change your environment. It doesn't automatically rewrite the beliefs you've developed about yourself over years of trying to stay safe, fit in, or prove your worth.
Just because you're safe(r) now doesn't mean your mind knows it
For years, you may have explicitly or implicitly learned that, in order to keep the peace, be tolerated, or be accepted, you need to keep your head down, be useful, and prove your worth - because who you were was too much, not enough, or too different.
These beliefs and rules shaped the way you see yourself, other people, and the world. You internalised them - kind of like wearing tinted glasses without ever realising.
And to be fair, they likely played an important role at the time - they helped you stay safe, for a while.
Now, there’s somewhat less to keep you safe from, in theory - your environment has changed.
But the human mind isn’t quite so responsive and adaptable. Its main purpose is still to keep you safe. And when you grew up in an environment where safety was not guaranteed, and, in fact, put at risk, the mind continues to act as if those conditions still apply.
It’s not “just” about how you see yourself - these beliefs and rules also shape how you operate in the world, your patterns. Constantly chasing achievement, success, and being “good” may have been one way you tried to feel safe, accepted, or enough - another set of tinted glasses you wore without realising.
The tricky bit is that achievement rarely resolves the underlying belief. Instead, it tends to move the goalposts. Each milestone brings temporary relief, followed by a return of the same underlying doubt - what if this still isn’t enough?
Therapy isn't about convincing you that people accept you
There’s a common misconception that therapy - and CBT in particular - is all about challenging your thoughts so you feel better.
Understandably, people often ask: what if you know your thoughts aren’t 100% true, but they still feel real? Or what if your thoughts are factually accurate?
The thing is, CBT isn’t just about challenging beliefs. That can be part of it, if it’s helpful - but not the whole picture. Approaches such as mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) add important nuance here - not changing the thoughts themselves, but changing your relationship with them, and how this influences how you act.
So therapy might be less about trying to get rid of these beliefs, or overanalysing them, and more about noticing when they show up, and learning to acknowledge them, without them taking over.
It might be about getting to know your emotions better - how they show up in your body, and how to stop fighting them when they’re already there.
And it might be about realising what you tend to do when these beliefs and emotions are present, and starting to experiment with doing things ever so slightly differently.
Over time, this might mean feeling more grounded and at peace in your mind and your body. On a more day-to-day level, this might mean you can actually make decisions based on who you really want to be, and the life you really want to lead - rather than patterns and expectations you have outgrown.
If you've spent years proving yourself - even though nobody is asking you to anymore - it can be really difficult to know how to stop.
These are the exact kinds of things I work with in therapy - helping you understand how your mind and body have learned to operate, and finding ways to relate to them that feel more supportive and flexible. The aim isn’t to get rid of parts of you, but to help you live in a way that feels more aligned with who you are and what matters to you.
You can read more about how I work with LGBTQIA+ clients, and also with high-achievers - where themes like perfectionism, self-doubt, and the pressure to prove yourself often overlap.
Hi, I’m Carina - an experienced, yet very human BABCP-accredited CBT therapist specialising in working with high-achievers with low self-esteem, high-functioning anxiety, or OCD, including autistic and ADHD folks, as well as LGBTQIA+ folks.
I use evidence-based approaches - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but really from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness perspective - so if you’ve tried CBT before and haven’t really connected with it, I might be your person.
If you’re curious about what this could look like for you, I offer a free, no-pressure initial chat.
Related posts:
“Just Be Yourself” Can Feel Complicated as an LGBTQIA+ Person
My peer-reviewed journal article on mental health interventions for LGBTQIA+ populations:
