Self Esteem and the Past

It seems that you went through a lot already and it obviously hurt you. You are also a teenager and that alone is not an easy task. Best thing to do about your grandma is to spend as much time as possible as you can with her, eventually she'll leave but
she'll remain in your memories. 6-7 hours is not that bad really, although a couple of more hours wouldn't hurt, but it basically depends on you. How much sleep to you feel that you need?
And don't worry, you'll change you mind.

Hey,
Umm... well, honestly, I don't know how much time that I would need for sleep, but I am supposed to get at least 9 hours a night, well, at least that's what I was told last year and also when I last went to the doctor (8 years ago).
One problem with spending time with my grandma. She lives in another state and I don't get to see her very much. I don't get down to see my mom very often either, and that's about the only time that we go and see my grandma, and even that is very rare. My grandma comes up here once a year, and even then I don't see her most of the time because she doesn't always stop here to visit. I con't have my driver's license, so I can't drive to see her and my older brother works, so we don't get much time to do any visiting of our family members usually. We are lucky if we see our mom once a year now. I have seen my grandma 3 times in the past year because I went around Christmas last year, then I went when she got sick, and then I saw her when my aunt and her were up after she was better. As of right now my grandma is healthy again, the cancer is in resession and they said that if it stays in resession for 6 months that the chances of the cancer coming back are very slim.
Yeah, being a teenager is hard, especially when I'm treated like crap, have been ever since I moved in with my dad 8 years ago. I'm blamed for everything. My brother is favored over me, even my mom saw it in the first year or two that I was living here. I am still treated like that. If I do something I get hollered at, but if my brother does something my dad ignores it for the most part. I have confronted him about it, and he doesn't seem to care. He's part of my problem. I don't get along with him the greatest, but then again I don't get along with my mom the greatest all the time either. I get along with my mom better than my dad though. I just don't wanna leave my friends here just to move back with my mom and start all over again, I'm done with that, I had enough of that in my life, I don't need anymore. Not only that, but my sister and I don't get along the greatest, but my brother and I don't either, my step sisters and I don't get along the greatest either though, but we get together better than my brother and sister do with them.
OK, I'm just starting to blab on, so I'm gonna get my little depressed self out of here for now.

~Jamie~

I recently watched again a movie about the high school life in America. High school life seems to be tough in america, is it like this? Don't worry, real world is different, maybe less cruel, more mature and more down lo earth than high school. Nobody will treat you like crap after high school, you'll have to be carefull and not to associate with troubled adults. I strongly believe that you'll finally resolve the issues that bother you.

Hey,
I sure hope I'll be able to resolve the issues that bother me after high school. I just wish that would be sooner than it is.
I guess I'm doing a little bit better now, but I still feel like I can improve A LOT. My self esteem has been up and down quite a bit in the last week ever since I found out that my uncle was in the hospital. Now paranoia has set in for me and when I called my mom and my stepdad said she wouldn't be home until tomorrow I got all paranoid that something went wrong with my uncle and it led to major complications. I just don't know. It always seems like something in my life. I hate my life, and I always have and always will.
Anyways, I guess I better get going.

~Jamie~

Hi gremlingirl,
It'll drive you crazy, but believe me, even if you've hated school since you started.. when you get older you'd give anything to be 16 again.

I don't know why this happens. It just does.

Hey,
Wow, it's been forever since I've been on here! I just so happened to be bored and decided to check in and noticed my post had a reply!
It does drive me crazy, especially when my self-esteem changes so much. One day I'll have very high self-esteem, then then next it will drop down to the point that I don't want to be around.
Anyways, I'm sort of wishing that I could go back in time and stop everything that happened during my childhood.
Well, I better go.

~Jamie~

There have been some interesting comments here. I agree that high school can be really rough. People can treat you very bad. Worst of all is that we have so little control over things--like who we sit next to, or even when to go to the bathroom, or have a snack. When we leave high school things can be a lot different. We can choose what type of work to do and where to work and where to live. We may have to work hard to get what we want, but we do have control. If we are willing to go to college, we can get a good job with benefits and respect and sick days, ect.

However, I would not want anything to be different. I had a really rough time in high school with a speech defect, ADD, and other learning problems. Those painful experiences motivated me to study hard in college and get some control over my life. Those painful experiences have also made me a more caring person. I was a teacher for a while--I hope I made some people's lives a little better.
James

Hey,
Thanks for the reply, James. I don't get on here much anymore because I'm on so many other boards, so it's nice to come back and see that there has been a reply to my post.
My self-esteem is still horrible. It's still sort of like a rollercoaster, high one day, low the next, etc. I never know what my self-esteem is going to be like from day to day and I hate it. My self-esteem can be brought down by something as simple as my dad saying something to me, like yesterday when he started comparing me to my mom, I had been in a good mood and my self-esteem was pretty high, but once he said that it all came crashing down like a rollercoaster being derailed I hate it.
Anyways, I'm going to get going before I drag myself any lower than I am right now.

~Jamie~

Boosting your self-esteem takes time but it's something that if you work on it, you will see results.

There are lots of things you can do to help, some are mentioned on this board, and some are mentioned elsewhere on the internet. I'm not going to go into a complete list because you can read those elsewhere. Instead, I want to mention a couple of things that I have found to be most important to me.

Most of the advice about self-esteem deals with eliminating some negative factors and building up some positive factors. I agree with this idea, but what the advice doesn't mention is that:

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It's usually easier to build up the positive things and not as easy to reduce the negatives. If you are trying to improve yourself in any way, and espescially your self esteem, put most of your energy into building up the positive factors. As you build up the positive factors, this will push out some of the negative factors without much work on your part.
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The other thing I wanted to mention is a suggestion about building yourself up on some of the positive factors.

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The best way to build yourself up about positive factors is to find the one or two things that you are best at then build up those things in your life. As an example, let's say that you were good at painting and drawing. What you would do would be to spend as much time as you could working on this area. You could learn more about painting technique on the internet. Learn more from friends who could draw. Go to local art galleries and talk with the people there, find an artist club or group to join. Paint and draw more. If necessary find a part-time job so that you could buy more art supplies. And so on. By immersing yourself, and by working toward the goal of making your painting better, you will feel better about yourself.

This applies no matter what your areas of strength are. Just identify them, focus on them, and build them up.
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Hey,
Thanks so much for the advise. Sorry it took me so long to respond, it's not very often that I'm looking in this particular thread lately, I've mainly been concentrating on the grief and loss and depression threads lately.
I will keep that stuff in mind next time my self esteem starts to fall past a point that I can no longer control.

~Jamie~