Liking Yourself/Self Esteem

pastelspectre

pastelspectre

Memento Mori★
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    o-o making lots of topics lately, ayy.

    er, this is a serious topic. please try to be mindful of others and their responses to this topic, and how you respond to their replies and how you respond to this topic yourself. thank you:)

    here are some questions for you to answer to get the discussion going.

    do you like yourself? if not, why? if you do, how long did it take for you to like yourself?

    did you ever do drastic things because you didn't like yourself and the pain of you not liking yourself was too much to bear? did you ever do drastic things in an attempt to make you like yourself? [eg: eating disorder, self harm, etc]

    what is your advice for people who need a boost in self esteem?

    for me, i do..somewhat like myself, i guess. i'm trying to work on it, telling myself i am pretty and that i am a good person. however there are certain body parts that i do not like, like my chest area (it gives me major dysphoria some days) and my legs. i have done drastic things to myself because i didn't like myself, but it was also because i suffer with a serious mental illness, which made me not like myself and is the reason i still suffer with my body image and my self esteem to this day.

    my advice to people that need a boost in self esteem is: take it one day at a time. write down a list of the things you like about yourself, and the things you don't like about yourself. work on the parts of yourself that you need to improve, like a negative part of your personality or something. if you are doing drastic things to yourself because of your self esteem, please talk to someone about it, anyone. it's not too late to get help. like daniel howell said: do not suffer in silence.

    it's never too late to get help.

    feel free to start a discussion on this! if this is too sensitive to anyone, please tell me and i will modify it accordingly.
     
    Ha. Self-esteem. Funny joke. I've hated myself for years, and it's no less than I deserve, for a lot of reasons I won't go into here, because they're quite personal and I'm not overly fond of throwing myself pity parties. It took me a long time to get over doing that, though.

    Have I ever done things...I suppose. I don't self-harm or anything like that, but I do punish myself quite a bit. I deliberately isolate myself from other people, because I really don't deserve to have anyone in my life. So most of the time I don't. I don't give people much reason to like me, either. I suppose I put myself down a lot as well, although I see it more as simply reminding myself of the facts. But this is how others would see it. I've always been more of a solitary person by choice, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't cut myself off from people on a regular basis because I don't think someone like me should have anyone to talk to.

    I'm not really qualified to give people advice on how to get more self-esteem, although enough people in the past have asked me for some. I find that advice really needs to be tailored to the specific individual in instances like this - ask yourself why you don't like yourself, and break it right down until you've identified the specific things you don't like. Not many people actually do that. Once you've identified the source of these feelings, see what you can do about it. It's never that easy, but you can't tackle the problem if you don't know what the root cause is.
     
    I used to hate myself when I was younger and then realized that really wasn't getting me anywhere but into the lives of shitty people. I've made a lot of peace with myself, my past decisions, and the acceptance of where I am today. At the same time I don't want to say I love myself just yet because I simply don't think I do. I'm in this weird limbo state with myself where I don't hate myself anymore or love myself, I'm just okay with myself.

    I often find myself saying, "the day is what you make it." That saying goes beyond just the day. Your life is what you make it. Anything is what you make it. There are people who get into a pattern of negative thinking and overtime it gets really hard to break out of. Especially too if others treat you in a way that makes your justification for hating yourself stronger. Changing how you think about yourself starts by changing your thinking each day. If you catch yourself bringing yourself down, stop yourself and think of something positive instead. Even if you don't totally believe yet, just think it. It takes some time and practice, but its worth it
     
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    I'm kind of a paradox here. I do have something of an ego, there are elements of myself I am extremely proud of and sometimes those elements make me feel better than those who are more lacking in that department - even though I am well aware that I shouldn't feel that way at all.

    Despite that though I wouldn't answer that I have high self esteem. Quite the opposite really. I might come off more confident in myself online than I am, but I'm really not a confident person at all. I'm constantly berating myself for my various flaws and weaknesses.

    I don't think I can say I've ever done anything too drastic in an effort to change myself. I've technically self-harmed I guess, but I've never really cut myself or anything unless you count jabbing myself with something sharp in a completely safe way. I just found that the only way to really get a hold of myself in the midst of a really nasty anxiety attack was to break the cycle by inflicting pain.

    As for advice, I don't have any.
     
    It depends on my mood on whether or not I like myself. If I'm in a better mood I'm more likely to be confident.
    Now if only I could be in a good mood more often lol
     
    I think for a lot of my life I tried to change who I am and 'copy' other people around me in order to fit in. But that's all changed in the last couple of years ever since I got to Sixth Form and I've just been happy with who I am and haven't really bothered with what anyone else thinks of me.
     
    I still live at home with my parents and have no idea when I'll get the chance to move out. I work as a substitute janitor, a job I am not fond of, and my only plan for the future is "well I hope they hire me full-time". I have zero idea what to do with myself in life. I have no skills or talents, or any outstanding qualities. I've never really accomplished anything to be proud about. I'm kinda useless really. What have I done of any value on this site even? I don't think I'm as nice or intelligent as people make me out to be. What is good about my personality?

    But I'm supposed to like myself?

    .....yet at the same time, I don't think I'd want to be someone else, or even a past me. For some reason.



    ok now someone who actually likes themself post so we don't like spawn a black hole of sad from this thread or something
     
    I like myself a lot. I mean, not to any extreme levels or anything. But I think I'm just good at recognizing my weaknesses and my strong points ^-^;. There's sure some things I don't like about myself, and if I can't change all of them... That is fine, no one can be perfect.
     
    I'm not perfect, but god damn if I don't love myself. No, that's not me trying to sound like I'm all great, but I am everything I like and everything I want to be, because I am me, and as long as I'm being what I like in myself and continue to improve I won't have any reason to dislike myself.

    My idea is to just picture what you want to be doing, what you want to be like, the person you want to be, and go be that person, because it feels bloody good in comparison. I had a pretty low self esteem when I was starting high school, and decided that if I didn't like the way I was, I should just focus on becoming a better person, and within a year I was almost completely changed emotionally. I have flaws, and I'm sure who I am isn't how everyone else would like me to be which is fair enough, but I'm proud of my strengths and it makes me a much happier person.

    Just ah, don't think you're better than other people because you are the perfect you to you.
     
    I like myself most of the time. My moods go up and down like rollercoaster. I have suffered from depression and been treated for it. Every now and then I lapse and get very down.
    I have been in a dark place a few times before, although never to the point of harmful thoughts.
    Advice? I don't have much to say besides that you are stronger than you think. Even if things don't seem to get better just believing is a credit to you. As previously said, if you are struggling on your own, seek some help.
     
    do you like yourself? if not, why? if you do, how long did it take for you to like yourself?

    I do now. I like myself a lot. But I've been disappointing myself a lot lately. It took me a VERY VERY long time to like myself. To treasure myself. I felt like I wasn't doing anything right, I took myself too seriously (which is good). It's good to laugh at yourself sometimes.

    did you ever do drastic things because you didn't like yourself and the pain of you not liking yourself was too much to bear? did you ever do drastic things in an attempt to make you like yourself? [eg: eating disorder, self harm, etc]

    I don't really think I've ever physically done harm to myself, but I've "mentally" done harm to myself. It felt like I was a prisoner and I was trapped. I can't really explain it... but yeah.

    what is your advice for people who need a boost in self esteem?

    It's okay to NOT be okay.
    It's okay to change for YOU not for others.
    It's not okay to not talk to others about what's going on.
    It's not going to happen overnight.
    Imagine how much change you could have done if you started two weeks ago, imagine if you started now.
    Excuses are excuses don't kid yourself and don't lie to yourself. :)
     
    i like me. obviously i have faults and imperfections, but then like... so does everyone. i'm not a horrible person and i'm not cruel, so i don't really think there's any reason to hate myself. i didn't used to like myself much for most of my childhood but now that i'm a bit older i've learnt that it's just... easier. even if you've got to fake it to begin with and wait until it actually sticks, it's just easier to accept yourself for who you are and avoid the pain of hating the person you have to live with for the rest of your life. there are days where i don't particularly like myself, like when i do smth socially awkward or clumsy, but it doesn't take long for me to jump back up and realise that it was just a small mistake! not going to lie though, it did take a few years for me to adapt that mentality. it's just a lot of hard work, monitoring your own thoughts and small steps towards really accepting smth, i guess.

    to answer the second question, yes, i did drastic things to myself when i was a little younger. nothing too serious in that i never physically self harmed or attempted anything; my methods were more based on putting myself into situations i knew i hated as punishment or getting involved in dangerous things as a distraction. nowadays i still struggle with physical confidence so i do monitor my eating and weight in a way that would be considered unhealthy but i don't hurt myself and i wouldn't consider myself to have an ed. looking back on it it makes me angry at myself that i ever attempted things like that bc rly, my life wasn't that bad, i wasn't that bad, and there was no reason for it. : - (

    my advice for ppl who need a boost... change the way you think. it sounds difficult, but it's just a process of tiny steps - if you catch yourself thinking 'i suck', 'i hate me', anything like that... change it. just think something different, picture something different, and eventually you'll learn to associate those clicks of negativity with brighter things. i'm pretty sure there's a psychological term for that but i'm not entirely sure what it is? apart from that just focus on the positive, always, no matter how hard it is - you're clumsy? yeah, but you're really good at that videogame. you're not academically intelligent? no, but you're street smart. that kind of thing! also never, ever listen to the negative opinions of others bc humans are just mean in nature. you deserve to be kind to yourself.
     
    I'm very conflicted with myself so I find it super hard to like myself. Sometimes I feel content about myself but it quickly turns back into negativity when I remember what my face looks like. Nothing else bugs me too much, it's just the face. I'd be lying if I said that I haven't hit myself in the face because of it.

    The above thing probably counts as self-harm since there have been bruises and cuts and stuff, but the face isn't the only thing that gets the same treatment. It doesn't really help with anything but it's a way to punish myself for being inferior.

    I'm so sorry I don't know any proper advice for boosting self-esteem though, since I don't even know how to do that to my own. :(
    I also have no idea why I'm talking about this out loud like this.
     
    Me and me are okay, we get along alright. The best advice I have for people with low self-esteem is to stop thinking so much. That's where you run into trouble, when you start analysing yourself. If you just go about your day thinking about other things then you'll mostly be fine.
     
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