low self-esteem

How do you guys handle having low self-esteem?

How do you handle the fact that there is always someone prettier, younger, thinner, smarter, cooler, stronger, more confident, more natural, more composed, more fun, whatever...?

What steps have helped to build an internal sense of self-esteem?

Hey vertices,

You probably know too, this question hurts to answer.

xdude wrote:Hey vertices,

You probably know too, this question hurts to answer.

I mean yeah but what's the point of posting here if not to talk about the actual hard parts of having a PD

Yea, sorry, just realized this question is hard to answer because it stirs that fundamental dislike of self.

In some ways it's just bad habit, but it goes deeper than that.

My therapist would say practice new habits, and that helps, but only to a degree. So compliment self, focus on the now, less on the future. Good advice, but the habit/perception runs so deep that it is hard to turn off.

One thing I have found a bit helpful is to focus on the thought that there actually was nothing wrong with me. I just had a parent that was so threatened, that keeping me feeling down on myself a a means to control me, and boost their crap self-esteem. The key thought being, there is/was actually nothing wrong with me. That message was utter BS. All the rest that follows, feeling down on self, comparing ourselves with others, all follows from a lie.

Its not the best answer but i have very low self esteem as well and i am jealous very easily and i deal with it , i oppress my feeling until i feel emptiness.
And when i jealous a person i start to want to be around to that person and when my jealousy is so strong that later i cry feeling like i dont matter at all and then emptiness.

I'm going to make an attempt at an answer. It won't be perfect.

It is primal instinct to approve of what boosts our social value, and disapprove of threats or outright damages our social standing. If looking for a deeper reason why, I doubt there is one. This is just a good old basic survival instinct and nothing wrong with that.

Personally I use an image of threat-o-meter, or you could call it a boost-o-meter. On one side the needle points toward extreme self-esteem boosts, on the other extreme threats. Everyone is the same, in that what others say, do, affects their meter. The difference is theirs doesn't swing between the extremes.

For some with cluster B personalities, the meter tends to swing to that extreme threat side more often than not, so they may seek to swing the needle the other way. I'm going to make two other overly broad generalizations why.

Some grew up with their sense of self being used against them. Maybe they were hyper-sensitive children to begin with, or just had a controlling parent, but either way, a depressed child is a quiet non-rebellious, out of the way child.

On the flip side, some learned they are entitled to over the top treatment. A parent or guardian who indulged them to the point that once they become adults, all those other people who are not the parent or guardian, they are unprepared for challenge to their entitled view of self.

Outwardly these can appear the same. Both are highly sensitive to criticism. Both tend to perceive others as threats. Both may be accomplished in some extreme, but how they got there is a different path.