Sick of Low Self-Esteem

Millicent

Hi all,

I'm just wondering if anyone has any good resources for self-esteem? I've had it for as long as I can remember and know what has caused it but knowing it and working through it are two different things, unfortunately.

I have been to counselling and worked through a lot of issues but I haven't come anywhere near to tackling the self-esteem issues that are ruling my life. They cause me to self-sabotage on a regular basis and make routining myself near to bloody impossible as all my good work takes just one bad day to start a whole negative spiral off, which takes weeks to get out of again.

At the moment, I am exhausted having to fight my way through my low moods. It's hard enough to fight to get you where you wanna be in life but it's a million times worse when you keep getting in your own way. I'm just getting really tired of it again and can feel myself slipping into depression (again ).

I can't afford a counsellor at the moment but could probably be able to afford some books or tapes or whatever. Anyone any advice?

Ickle Magoo

Have you been to the doctors and told them how you feel?

I find the best things when the black clouds start gathering is to up the exercise and start a new project that I'm really excited about. Joining clubs and social groups that share in one of your interests is a great way of meeting new people and making friends is a good way to boost your self esteem. Sometimes I have to literally force myself out and about and to meet people but I'm always glad when I do.

Best of luck.

Millicent

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Have you been to the doctors and told them how you feel?

I find the best things when the black clouds start gathering is to up the exercise and start a new project that I'm really excited about. Joining clubs and social groups that share in one of your interests is a great way of meeting new people and making friends is a good way to boost your self esteem. Sometimes I have to literally force myself out and about and to meet people but I'm always glad when I do.

Best of luck.

I've been to the doctor's a few times (been feeling like this since childhood) and I have been prescribed tablets but I don't like taking them tbh.

But as to the rest of the suggestions, there are some great ones in there. Thanks very much. I suppose part of it could be because I am not living in my home town any more and don't know too many people in Dublin. A new social group would be a great way to up the self-esteem, especially as it would help to shove me out of my comfort zone.

And I have been thinking about exercising more. It doesn't help the self-esteem when you don't take care of yourself so it is definitely something I will start doing.

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

deadpoet

You remind me of myself; at least my old self. We are quite alike.

Apologies in advance if the following statement seems "new-agey" as it's the least of my intentions, but all these answers which you seek to know about yourself are to be found within.

Councelling can provide you with the tools to look within yourself but often those in councelling are far too emotionally depressed to sustain the effort of implementing the techniques, and even more often too depressed to initially articulate their specific issues effectively enough to get subjective advice from their counceller.

Obviously if you were in a state of complete mental clarity you wouldnt be going to councelling, but going into councelling the clasp of a depressive episode is often counter-active against what advice you're given and techniques you are trying to be taught.

My advice is to get yourself onto a bike and begin cycling to and fro from everywhere you need to go. I guarentee you this will have a hugely positive effect on your mental clarity and dexterity enough for you to gain what you will from councelling.

Of course, and as I found out myself, councelling is often utterly useless unless you're paying vast amounts of cash for private sessions that last over an hour; you're often going to be playing the lab-rat for therapists that are practically just out of college; seeing what works and what doesnt, and as you know - time is precious. You dont want to feel like this for another year...

I have some questions for you. Is there anyone you can imagine right now that you would desire to be like in terms of confidence? Who is the most confident person you know on a personal level that you have access to on a social level or at least have the potential to gain access to on a social level?

Millicent

deadpoet wrote: »

You remind me of myself; at least my old self. We are quite alike.

Apologies in advance if the following statement seems "new-agey" as it's the least of my intentions, but all these answers which you seek to know about yourself are to be found within.

Councelling can provide you with the tools to look within yourself but often those in councelling are far too emotionally depressed to sustain the effort of implementing the techniques, and even more often too depressed to initially articulate their specific issues effectively enough to get subjective advice from their counceller.

Obviously if you were in a state of complete mental clarity you wouldnt be going to councelling, but going into councelling the clasp of a depressive episode is often counter-active against what advice you're given and techniques you are trying to be taught.

My advice is to get yourself onto a bike and begin cycling to and fro from everywhere you need to go. I guarentee you this will have a hugely positive effect on your mental clarity and dexterity enough for you to gain what you will from councelling.

Of course, and as I found out myself, councelling is often utterly useless unless you're paying vast amounts of cash for private sessions that last over an hour; you're often going to be playing the lab-rat for therapists that are practically just out of college; seeing what works and what doesnt, and as you know - time is precious. You dont want to feel like this for another year...

I have some questions for you. Is there anyone you can imagine right now that you would desire to be like in terms of confidence? Who is the most confident person you know on a personal level that you have access to on a social level or at least have the potential to gain access to on a social level?

Hi Deadpoet,

Thanks for the post. There is an awful lot that makes sense in it, especially what you said about counselling. I have always found that I'm just scratching the surface of the other problems when I have to stop. And you're very right-- it's often impossible to articulate what is going on with you in counselling when you haven't a clue yourself. You really hit the nail on the head when you spoke about not wanting to feel like this for another year; when you're struggling for a long time, it's hard to sustain the energy again to fix something else.

It's odd that you mentioned the bike cos I've been dying to get one for ages. That fits in with Ickle Magoo's advice of getting more exercise too and it would help me to get more thinking time uninterrupted and clear my head.

I have a couple of friends whose confidence and work ethic I admire. I know that they are not confident in every area of their lives but where in the areas I especially want to improve, they're strongest people I know. Would that count?

DublinMember

After trying different therapies, I've found CBT very useful. I was aware of many of the root causes of my low self-esteem prior to CBT. But found that although I understood why I had it, I struggled to find effective ways to move beyond it.

I also suffered mild bouts of depression over the years, but I now see that it's my thought process that sometimes leads me to feel low. I do 100% agree that exercise is great for the self-esteem, if you're like me, I find that when the depressive mood hits, I had a tendency to go into complete self-destruct mode .. no exercise, eating the wrong food, drinking too much alcohol, and cutting myself off from family and friends.

Although seeing a good CBT therapist is helping me a lot, there is also a good CBT book that you could use (if the cost of CBT is prohibitive for you) .. it's called "Overcoming Low Self Esteem" By Melanie Fennell. But for me at least, the therapist is working better for me than any book could.

Millicent

DublinMember wrote: »

After trying different therapies, I've found CBT very useful. I was aware of many of the root causes of my low self-esteem prior to CBT. But found that although I understood why I had it, I struggled to find effective ways to move beyond it.

I also suffered mild bouts of depression over the years, but I now see that it's my thought process that sometimes leads me to feel low. I do 100% agree that exercise is great for the self-esteem, if you're like me, I find that when the depressive mood hits, I had a tendency to go into complete self-destruct mode .. no exercise, eating the wrong food, drinking too much alcohol, and cutting myself off from family and friends.

Although seeing a good CBT therapist is helping me a lot, there is also a good CBT book that you could use (if the cost of CBT is prohibitive for you) .. it's called "Overcoming Low Self Esteem" By Melanie Fennell. But for me at least, the therapist is working better for me than any book could.

Hi DublinMember.

I agree that CBT has been the best form of counselling I have used too and I'm very similar to you when I get into depressive moods. Unfortunately, as I'm self-employed, it also affects my earning capability which is where the Catch 22 comes in--I'd like to pay for counselling but I can't afford it til I pull myself out of the slump. Gah! :pac::(

But thank you for the book recommendation. Have you used the book yourself?

DublinMember

I read some of the book to complement the therapy. Although there are a LOT of exercises with the book, so you do need to put some time aside over a numebr of weeks/months to do it.

Whereas my Therapist has kept it simple. A single worksheet that covers Anger/Anxiety/Sadness - 3 or 4 questions for each, so I just answer the relevant q's depending on what I'm feeling. And now I'm determining the type of thinking in my answers. (e.g. "catastrophising", "ignoring all positives", "personalistion", "mind reading" etc.).

Did you do similar worksheets when you did CBT? It may be helpful to start filling out the worksheets again to get you back on track.

Something else that has been working for me is getting a notebook and listing what I have to do, and then ticking it off the list. It's satisfying and good for your self esteem if you do that.

So perhaps get yourself a notebook and make a list of all the things you would like to do over the next few days (visit the library to get CBT books, writing out worksheets, updating boards with your progress etc etc) and that may help you to start to get out of the current rut you are in.

If you're like me, and putting pressure on yourself to do a million different things, feeling overwhelmed, can't cope, negative behvaiours start, nothing gets done, guilt kicks in ... and a negative downward spiral kicks in

So I find that although I don't get to do all the things on my list straight away, I do make small breakthroughs that encourage me to make bigger breakthroughs, and then the positive upward spiral kicks in

Millicent

DublinMember wrote: »

I read some of the book to complement the therapy. Although there are a LOT of exercises with the book, so you do need to put some time aside over a numebr of weeks/months to do it.

Whereas my Therapist has kept it simple. A single worksheet that covers Anger/Anxiety/Sadness - 3 or 4 questions for each, so I just answer the relevant q's depending on what I'm feeling. And now I'm determining the type of thinking in my answers. (e.g. "catastrophising", "ignoring all positives", "personalistion", "mind reading" etc.).

Did you do similar worksheets when you did CBT? It may be helpful to start filling out the worksheets again to get you back on track.

Something else that has been working for me is getting a notebook and listing what I have to do, and then ticking it off the list. It's satisfying and good for your self esteem if you do that.

So perhaps get yourself a notebook and make a list of all the things you would like to do over the next few days (visit the library to get CBT books, writing out worksheets, updating boards with your progress etc etc) and that may help you to start to get out of the current rut you are in.

If you're like me, and putting pressure on yourself to do a million different things, feeling overwhelmed, can't cope, negative behvaiours start, nothing gets done, guilt kicks in ... and a negative downward spiral kicks in

So I find that although I don't get to do all the things on my list straight away, I do make small breakthroughs that encourage me to make bigger breakthroughs, and then the positive upward spiral kicks in

I don't mind doing a bit of work on it. It'd help get me into a routine anyway. I thought after reading this, that doing little and often is probably the best way to get me back to form. For example, this coming week, I have only to get to bed at eleven and up at about by half seven. Whatever I do after that, great. Then the next week, I'm gonna follow a schedule on Monday and Tuesday, and build that up by a day every week after til I'm on form.

I didn't get worksheets like yours when I did CBT but I might see can I download some somewhere cos they seem like a great idea. I don't know if the list idea would work for me, as I have a habit of beating myself up for not getting stuff done, rather than focusing on what I have done.

I've been thinking of wearing a rubber band on my wrist and pinging it whenever I find myself being negative about myself and seeing how that goes on top of the book.

Millicent

Also, @ deadpoet, I was thinking maybe you had a visualisation exercise about the person whose confidence I admired? I could see myself getting great use from that.

piotro2

I believe that therapy can only be helpful in uncovering the causes of your feelings of depression. They will not really yield a solution because it is a internal struggle you need to resolve on your own.

Most of the time, when someone feels depressed and suffers from low self-esteem it is because of fears and insecurities they have about themselves. The "feelings" of depression are just a symptom of the dwelling on these fears.

For example, why is getting over a broken heart difficult? The fear you will feel bad forever. The fear you might never love again. The fear you are somehow broken (If you got dumped). When you start breaking all this down you start seeing where those fears are coming from. You might feel your body is not as fit as it should be (Insecurity), or that your not smart enough etc. Well, when you finally identify those insecurities and identify those fears, you will need to act on removing them.

Why do people always say exercise helps with self-esteem? Because when you are done a workout not only is your body more energized BUT you just accomplished something you know you should be doing. It's the process of setting these small goals and accomplishing them (Meeting promises you made to yourself), that raises self esteem.

You have to understand your fears and insecurities first though so you know what you need to do to get rid of them.

I would recommend you go read Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This book completely changed how I think about myself, people, life, problems, relationship.....everything!

In 1 month after reading the book I quit smoking, quit biting my nails, I went from a heavy drinker to less than a social drinker. I lost 10kg of weight. And it has immensely helped me with every relationship in my life. I managed to score a quarter million in investment capital (I run my own business), because I applied one of those 7 habits is dealing with the investor.

I cannot stress how much 350 pages can change a person. What the book changes is not what you do, but how you think. Once you start thinking properly, the changes happen on their own.

Hope this helps. Best 17 Euro you will ever spend.

strokemyclover

Regularly find myself in the same position OP but have found over the last few years that a bit of meditation in a quiet and safe place helps enormously. Plenty of websites out there to teach you basic technique and even if you are doing it wrong you will gain a lot from taking the time out!

Best of luck anyway!