Serious Self Esteem

Similar to what @colours wrote, I have an astronomically low self image. It's to such a degree that I have trouble looking up at my reflection in the mirror.

I almost never speak of it, because honestly that's not something others want to hear. I've almost never been able to stay in a community for longer than 2 months because of these mind eating thoughts. (so 3 years on here is quite amazing). It's also the reason I've never integrated into the discord server. Only ever chatted briefly when I was on the social media team, but I would dwell on everything I typed so heavily. It just wasn't worth the stress.

Yet I'm still receiving help professionally. I was diagnosed with anxiety, and I'm currently on an anti-depressant.
 
So self-esteem is something I'm having a huge problem with even now. It's... Uh... Let's say not good. Constantly being scolded and criticized without any words of praise or reassurance besides academic achievement in my childhood is something that caused me a lot of pain in the long run. I'm mostly indecisive and let other people do the choice taking as long I know the choice is bad, and I constantly second guess my choices. Also, the fact that my parents firmly stick to their values and only theirs helps negatively in this.

I'm afraid of reaching out to people because I'm afraid I would be a nuisance, also when I did a mistake and say sorry to a person don't expect me to chat with them again, it's not because I hate them but I just don't want to awaken the feeling of disappointment in them again so I'm the type that really needs someone to reach me first because I'm too ashamed to ask. I'm trying to suppress it, but even things like active on discord and posting a roleplay post? Even after a year I still had to second guess myself if someone would enjoy reading what I wrote or if it would just attract criticism.

Shout out to several people, especially Anna for helping me here about this on PC. Ily guys.
 
My advice is to be who you are. There are some arrogant people out there that are hard to reason with which makes me have a grudge against them, but I've learned not to listen to what they have to say; I can simply ignore them. Though, if you can't control your negative thoughts, remember to be as humble as you can. Also, let your own actions speak for your ideals. That's one virtue I know from humility. Moreover, you have to find your confidence through motivation. Ask yourself "What motivates me?" and look as hard as you can. Think about those who you care about you and use that motivation to lift your spirits. No one is perfect, but you have to push forward and hang in there. There's no point to be scared if you made it this far in life! Go for it! Believe in yourself and your love ones that are close to you! That's my motivation for self-esteem! (Why am I crying right now?)
 
Oh, man...this topic is sad =/

You guys need to understand that self esteem comes from having value. What type of value do you currently possess and what type do you wish to have in the future?
Do you want to feel smart? Then you need to study.
Do you want to feel helpful? Then you need to help people.
Do you want to feel healthy? Then you need to exercise/eat healthy.

I find that some values are harder to get because they can go from very specific things to the most abstract (beauty is one of them). But not only this, you also kinda need to find the "right" group of peers, the ones who are in search of the values you currently hold. Sure, you can sell bananas to someone looking for apples but this only holds true until they start starving for what they came for.

Summing up, if you want people to value, for example, your intelligence, your average joe is not the right companion since most people only appreciate the most shallowest group of values (beauty, richness, etc.). You need to find them somewhere else. So having a good Self-esteem is the perfect balance between two worlds: your own and other people's, not a "one way" thing.


Also, take in consideration any potential illnesses that might skew your perception. They act like a fog covering your eyes from the truth and for this you'll need big help first. =)
 
I think the only thing I really value myself on and do not have a low esteem about is my art. I've worked so, so hard to get where I am and I'm always looking to improve and grow as an artist. But that's really it, you know? The rest of me doesn't feel live I've conjured enough in the world to have pride about, if that makes sense.
 
Fairy said:
I think the only thing I really value myself on and do not have a low esteem about is my art. I've worked so, so hard to get where I am and I'm always looking to improve and grow as an artist. But that's really it, you know? The rest of me doesn't feel live I've conjured enough in the world to have pride about, if that makes sense.
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I believe the question you need to make inside yourself is "Is there anything else, besides art, that I would like to be appreciated for?". If so, can you do anything in that direction to improve your value? =)
Also sometimes we think we have less than what's needed to be happy. Could this be your case?

Growing up my parents taught me that I was always incomplete - There's always something to do, something to be, something to see, I could never just chill and appreciate life for what it is.
So this made me into a very anxious adult and one that is always unsatisfied with the current state of things as well, exactly like my parents.
I've been trying to destroy this mindset ever since. I guess realizing the problem was a step forward into solving it altho I would be lying if I told you that it's easier done than said xD
 
Catto said:
I believe the question you need to make inside yourself is "Is there anything else, besides art, that I would like to be appreciated for?". If so, can you do anything in that direction to improve your value? =)
Also sometimes we think we have less than what's needed to be happy. Could this be your case?
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That's actually very insightful and rather profound, Catto. ♡

And, yeah! I've always been passionate about helping people, animals, and the environment. And I guess I do value my ability to empathize and be compassionate towards others! I do have pretty decent self esteem for the choices I've made regarding charity, volunteering, and activism. It's just hard to make those external accomplishments meaningful internally too, ya know? And sometimes empathy can be rather painful in and of itself too.

Relate so much to growing up being an anxious adult tho, omg.
 
Fairy said:
That's actually very insightful and rather profound, Catto. ♡

And, yeah! I've always been passionate about helping people, animals, and the environment. And I guess I do value my ability to empathize and be compassionate towards others! I do have pretty decent self esteem for the choices I've made regarding charity, volunteering, and activism. It's just hard to make those external accomplishments meaningful internally too, ya know? And sometimes empathy can be rather painful in and of itself too.

Relate so much to growing up being an anxious adult tho, omg.
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Thank you ^^

Yeah, I get it. You don't feel like you've made any kind of progress inside of you, right? In that case I don't know what to say, there might be a bigger issue down there =O
Oh yeah, empathy is like managing fire, if you're not careful it can burn you badly! But other times it serves as a way to light our relationship paths. I guess it's a matter of learning how to tame it.

Oh right? The world doesn't help it either. So much pressure to be a good son/daughter, to have a job, get a house, a family...oof ><
 
I struggled with self-esteem issues for a very long time and mine is still not as high as I'd like it to be. But I've gotten way better. The best thing that's happened for my self-esteem is to do something I assumed I'd fail, and not fail. It helped realizing that I didn't fail. I didn't shine bright either, but that's not what mattered. So I kept trying, and I kept not failing, until I finally started to shine. And, as time goes on, I try to shine brighter. That's how I've developed my self-esteem: beating the idea that I'm doomed to fail. Baby steps.

If your self-esteem is low, it's likely because you are critical of yourself - and that's good. It means you expect a lot of yourself, and that's admirable. You should be proud.
 
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I had and still do at times, difficulty with my self-esteem but I feel like I'm in a place where I can say it has improved a lot over many years of work. I did not value myself for years. I would never feel good enough no matter how hard I worked or how much I achieved in my life, I always thought about how I could be doing better. It never occurred to me to appreciate my own effort. I used to say that I wanted to make my parents proud and that's why I overworked myself so hard but in reality, it was my own self-imposed standards of who I wanted to be. My self esteem depended a lot on how productive I was being but it created cycles where I would get incredibly depressed, become more unproductive and then beat myself up for it. To this day I still struggle with not attaching my worth to how much I achieve and I am trying to learn to let myself rest, recover and take free time.

I also struggled with who I was and why people wanted to be around me. I didn't feel like I had anything to offer and would wonder when the facade was up and people would leave. I didn't feel like I had anything to say. Most of my time I spent working hard, when it came to talking about myself - it scared me that at the time I had nothing I was genuinely interested in or found worth sharing about myself. I felt like I was pretending to be happy and excited about life. I thought at the time that I'd never get over being anxious/depressed and that people would tire of it and tell me they didn't want me to be their friend anymore. So I often thought about cutting people out and disappearing to save them the trouble, tried it a few times and realised my depression would get out of control in that time and came back, resigned.

A challenge I've also faced in particular is imposter syndrome and not feeling good enough in a lot of situations. I would hold myself back from opportunities thinking that I didn't deserve them. Getting into my academic high school was a fluke to me. Being accepted to study law recently resurfaced my imposter syndrome but once I started recognising and becoming proud of how hard I have worked in my life to earn both of those, it helps with dealing with those feelings of doubt of if I deserve it. I can genuinely celebrate my achievements now.

In regard to how I built up my self esteem again, I realised at one point a lot of my unhealthy behaviours. I was dependent on people to make me feel like I had a happy and satisfying life since I couldn't stand myself. But in reality attaching your happiness to what other people do is never a long-term solution. Last year, the one benefit of quarantine was learning to be happy by myself and confronting spending time alone. Starting uni also helped create a fresh start where I felt motivated to try push myself out of my comfort zone, try something new and get a better idea of who I was as a person. Getting over imposter syndrome was hard at first but I'm proud that I went out my way to sign up to different clubs, jobs etc. that I would have said I was never good enough for. Did I get everything I applied for? Absolutely not but I was happy to learn that I could deal with failure and I started seeing setbacks as an opportunity to learn rather than a be all and end all. I also learnt how much it was nicer to be forgiving to myself rather than critical and harsh - I respected times I wasn't in the mood to work and learnt to start enjoying my free time. I learnt to be proud of my work ethic, resilience and so on slowly but surely.

The flexibility of uni also meant that I had more time where I was free to finally get a grip on who I was, what I like about life and myself... finding hobbies that didn't depend on other people has made my time alone with my thoughts much better. For example, I rediscovered how much I love reading. I found out through university clubs that I'm really interested in working in social impact/human rights and I'm finally excited and happy about what I'm studying. Smaller things like starting to care about fashion and feeling good about it is nice when you've spent years not caring about yourself. I think before I was super reliant on other people for happiness and affirmation of my worth but once I started realising how toxic my past thoughts were and improving my relationship with myself, that is when I saw the most improvement in my self esteem. I still struggle a lot with it some days but I feel like I'm doing much better than I was in high school. :)
 
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