Do you wonder if you suffer from low self-esteem? Self-esteem is the confidence you have in yourself and in your abilities. It's how you see yourself. One of the most common long-term effects of being bullied is low self-esteem.
When someone repeatedly makes you feel bad about yourself, it's hard not to see yourself in a negative light. When this happens while we are young, it becomes even more detrimental. We don't need people trying to put us down when we're still trying to figure out who we are.
Being bullied as a child causes you to lack confidence. You begin to think that you're not worthy or good enough. These feelings can stay with you for a long time after the bullying has ended. It's difficult to feel good about yourself again.
What's worse is that you might even come to dislike yourself. You may think that if only you were good enough people might treat you better. As a result, people with low self-esteem try to not make mistakes in order to be more accepted, which can cause you to become a perfectionist.
What also happens is that your perception of how others view you becomes distorted. You think that everyone is being critical of you even when that is not their intention. Or you might think that someone who is being nice to you isn't being sincere.
The infographic below shows the common characteristics of someone who has low self-esteem.
Now I don't want you to worry if you feel like a lot of these characteristics describe you. Another thing that happens when you have low self-esteem is that you lose hope. I want you to have hope that you can have a healthy self-esteem again. Honestly, self-esteem is something I still struggle with myself, but I have been able to come a long way. I'm confident that you can do the same.
In the next post we're going to look at ways in which you can start to rebuild your self-esteem, so look forward to that. In the meantime, have hope! It takes time to rebuild self-esteem but it is absolutely possible.
Please leave a comment and let me know if you have any stories or questions.
A note about comments:
Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated to ensure mutual respect. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.
the best thing in life is to accept the way u r n learn to appreciate yourself that will help you to fight the outward forces.
My twin sister is better than me, very friendly etc.. and when someone ask what’s the difference between me and her she would say I’m a little bigger than her and Everytime we go out people notice her more … and I told this guy I like him and his respond was he used to like my sister and had a crush on her and I have to tell him twice before he gave me and answer and that was a no.. and couple months later I tell this other man I had a crush on him but he told me he wanna have a 3some with me and my twin.. and Everytime I invited my sister to hangout with me she declined and go hangout with other people instead… and The only time we hangout if the groups friends are hanging out together and Everytime I stand next to her I have very low self-esteem, that I’m not good enough, and remember the time I get bully and people saying no one wants me, I look like a giraffe and I get anxious, anxiety..etc… and if I drink and get a little tipsy she judges me saying I drink t much … I don’t know what to do.. like I’m more of staying home, organized my closet and go over my schedule , be OCD about stuffs.. and she more of going to the gym, working out, very friendly , outgoing etc.. and one night I was going to give the man that Im Friend with benefits yell out his car to give him a second to not to come closer to his car cause my twin was in the car with him and I’m over here overthinking about stuffs him and my sister doing and having bad anxiety about it and I even dream about it when I told him I like him and he told me he like my sister and he said in my dream of course I do and I said what about me and he said no.. maybe I just feel like to distance myself and focused on who I want to be and work on my sel-esteem.. I need advice please!!!!
I just graduated from college last march and it has been 8 months since I stayed stagnant inside my own home. I know my first priority was to find a job but instead fear overpowers me whenever I try to think about applying for a job. It feels like I would faint or vomit especially when I think about having job interviews. I do not know how or why this has happened to me. I really wanted to overcome this kind of fear but each time I do it, I just get really anxious even more. I don’t want to live my life this way. I wanted to get a job, work hard, have fun and maybe fall in love and not just stay locked inside my own room for the rest of my life. I really don’t know what else to do. Can you help me?
Hi Chara. You definitely deserve to have all those things you mention that you want for your life. Fear is a terrible thing because it robs us of the joy we could have. Have you sought out any therapy for this? Working with someone on this could help you to figure out where the fear and anxiety are coming from and allow you to work through it and hopefully be able to overcome it. Congratulations on graduating from college! I hope you can feel proud of that. Think of how you can use that experience to face situations now.
I feel am not good enough am loosing hope in life I felt others are better than me Am feeling scared to face the world its hard for me to step out of the door
I’m sorry to hear you are feeling that way. It can be hard when we feel like we are losing hope. Please hang in there. My advice is to seek the help of a therapist or other helping professional if you are able so that they can help you work through the feelings you are having. You can find some support links on my resources page at http://thegrassgetsgreener.com/resources/.
first of all thanks for this help .
My unique problem is that I can’t build myselfimage ; may be because of phobia of people
The good thing is that you don’t need others in order to build your self-esteem or self-image. I would recommend checking out the strategies in this other post of things you can do to build your self-esteem – http://thegrassgetsgreener.com/strategies-for-building-self-esteem/