Irish People Have Low Self Esteem

UCDCritic

Maybe it's because we were colonized for so long

Maybe it's because of the Catholic church and their weapons of blame and shame and other horrors

Maybe it's because of mass migration for so many generations

...But I can help but feel Irish people are just emotionally damaged in such a way that on a deep level we feel not quite adequate and it's not fixable

In my experience with international people who have come to study and work in Ireland it seems their general perception of Irish people is that we are incompetent, like we are the drunk children of Europe, and I think they're right

For so long we were a poor nation and as soon as we have some real money we squandered it like a child wasting their money on too many sweets not knowing how to really spend the money

I think it's all just rooted in low self esteem as a nation

fleet_admiral

maybe its maybelline

Karl Stein

So's your face.

Lucifer MorningStar

To much internet porn is the cause of it, we're an awful nation of **** :pac:

Balmed Out

Perhaps in your experience the foreigners are meeting you a lot and so their opinion of the Irish in general is somewhat poor?
In my experience foreigners have a great opinion of me us.

Nib

Gave up on the veterinary did you?

The King of Moo

It'll all change if we get a sneaky goal against the Germans, then hold out for the win. It'd really give the nation's spirits a lift.

Come on you boys in green!

whirlpool

We're great at coming up with lists of reasons why we're great, though.

Sulla Felix

Load of bollix. How can you be emotionally damaged by shít that happened before your grandparents were born ffs.

SpaceTime

UCDCritic wrote: »

...But I can help but feel Irish people are just emotionally damaged in such a way that on a deep level we feel not quite adequate and it's not fixable

In my experience with international people who have come to study and work in Ireland it seems their general perception of Irish people is that we are incompetent, like we are the drunk children of Europe, and I think they're right

You must be meeting TOTALLY different foreigners to me then.
I've generally found most of my dealings with continental Europeans have been extremely positive and collegiate and really I've never come across anyone with a condescending attitude based on my nationality.

In general I find people who start creating national stereotypes aren't worth dealing with as they're usually closed-minded, prejudiced and just generally a bit thick.

If you think Ireland's incompetent, you haven't travelled much!

I also haven't really found that Irish people have low self-esteem either...

whirlpool

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Load of bollix. How can you be emotionally damaged by shít that happened before your grandparents were born ffs.

Why don't you ask the international black community that question?

UCDCritic

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Load of bollix. How can you be emotionally damaged by shít that happened before your grandparents were born ffs.

It's true that patterns of behaviour and thoughts can become internalized and passed on to the next generation and so on

Knex*

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Load of bollix. How can you be emotionally damaged by shít that happened before your grandparents were born ffs.

Its because they have habits, certain moral views, tendencies, etc, that they uphold and live their life by. This gets passed to their kids, etc etc.

On a broader scale, its why we have different cultures. Its not like you magically get all these traits at the moment of birth.

Your habitat and environment shape you hugely.

Rough Sleeper

Well at least we're not boring like Canadians, Swiss or Germans, or sleazy like Italians, or obnoxious like French or Australians, or stingy like Dutch and Scottish people, or sheep-shaggers like the Welsh, or universally hated like the English and Americans, or loud an annoying like the Spanish, or subtly xenophobic like the Japanese or Scandinavians, or drink antifreeze like the Russians.

Sulla Felix

whirlpool wrote: »

Why don't you ask the international black community that question?

UCDCritic wrote: »

It's true that patterns of behaviour and thoughts can become internalized and passed on to the next generation and so on

People choose victimhood. There are lots of perfectly well adjusted, succesful, non-emotionally damaged irish people, black people, asian people, jewish people etc etc. No nation or ethnicity has a monopoly on suffering.

mick_jt

I don't think we necessarily have low self esteem, I just think we are bad at coming across positive, really bad. We are bad at a lot if things to be honest. We are so sh*t. Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t.

Muise...

whirlpool wrote: »

Why don't you ask the international black community that question?

Ah yes, that monochrome, monolithic mass of like-minds and same-lives. A great bunch of lads.

Also, OP, explain Cork?

Legs.Eleven

Sulla Felix wrote: »

People choose victimhood. There are lots of perfectly well adjusted, succesful, non-emotionally damaged irish people, black people, asian people, jewish people etc etc. No nation or ethnicity has a monopoly on suffering.

We suffered the most imo.

Slicemeister

Hadn't realised I'd been colonized! Didn't feel a thing.

Fox_In_Socks

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

We suffered the most imo.

Scans for sarcasm.


Just as I did a few weeks ago!:pac: (though you probably don't remember)


On topic, in what way?

Legs.Eleven

Slicemeister wrote: »

Hadn't realised I'd been colonized! Didn't feel a thing.

You've bottled it up and blocked it out to forget the pain. There there. *Pats slicemaster clumsily and a little too hard on the top of his head*

Legs.Eleven

Fox_In_Socks wrote: »

Scans for sarcasm.


Just as I did a few weeks ago!:pac: (though you probably don't remember)


On topic, in what way?

Ah ye know. Suffering. We've been through it all. All of it. Horrible so it was.

Peist2007

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

We suffered the most imo.

Worse than North Korea? Genuinely curious, never did history at school

Legs.Eleven

Peist2007 wrote: »

Worse than North Korea? Genuinely curious, never did history at school

Oh god yeah!

Worse than anywhere. You name a country, we suffered more than them. I mightn't have even heard of the country but tenner bets we suffered more.

hatrickpatrick

I agree 100% with the OP. I posted this on an Irish Times article earlier, Una Mullally publishing yet another anti-drink article about how restricting availability and closing down the Dail bar are the way to solve the problem:

me wrote:

Nobody ever seems to talk about root causes when it comes to binge drinking. The simple fact is that young people get locked mainly so as they can cast aside the extreme and abnormal national social inhibition which has been fostered on repeated generations of Irish people. Alcohol allows them to temporarily shut down the voice in their head which says "don't say hi to that girl, you'll probably make an idiot of yourself", or "don't talk to those people, you'll probably annoy them". We have a severe national shyness - illustrated to me by an extremely attractive Turkish girl I met in a nightclub last year who pondered why Irish guys would never approach her, and why those few who did always had to be hammered out of it first. Ask actual young people why they binge drink, and the most common answer is because it gets rid of their inhibitions, their in-built lack of self confidence and irrational shame which leads them to severely undervalue themselves both socially and sexually.

I'm not blaming the Church as many do, that's too easy an answer. It's a national, cultural phenomenon which in my experience is unique to Ireland, whereby the idea of leaving one's comfort zone on a night out and meeting new people - the main focus of going out in most other Western countries - is a scary concept which requires a gigantic social crutch to be contemplated. My eyes were only opened to this after several trips abroad, on which I discovered that this extreme level of inhibition common to most Irish young people is not norma as I had once believed, but in an international context, incredibly bizarre.

People in other countries don't drink like we do because people in other countries don't have hangups about social interactions which require a desensitizing drug to overcome.

Fr_Dougal

UCDCritic wrote: »

Maybe it's because we were colonized for so long

Maybe it's because of the Catholic church and their weapons of blame and shame and other horrors

Maybe it's because of mass migration for so many generations

...But I can help but feel Irish people are just emotionally damaged in such a way that on a deep level we feel not quite adequate and it's not fixable

In my experience with international people who have come to study and work in Ireland it seems their general perception of Irish people is that we are incompetent, like we are the drunk children of Europe, and I think they're right

For so long we were a poor nation and as soon as we have some real money we squandered it like a child wasting their money on too many sweets not knowing how to really spend the money

I think it's all just rooted in low self esteem as a nation

Sounds as if you're projecting. Have you spoken to a healthcare professional about this?

Peist2007

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Oh god yeah!

Worse than anywhere. You name a country, we suffered more than them. I mightn't have even heard of the country but tenner bets we suffered more.

What about.....Micronesia?

Sam Kade

UCDCritic wrote: »

Maybe it's because we were colonized for so long

Maybe it's because of the Catholic church and their weapons of blame and shame and other horrors

Maybe it's because of mass migration for so many generations

...But I can help but feel Irish people are just emotionally damaged in such a way that on a deep level we feel not quite adequate and it's not fixable

In my experience with international people who have come to study and work in Ireland it seems their general perception of Irish people is that we are incompetent, like we are the drunk children of Europe, and I think they're right

For so long we were a poor nation and as soon as we have some real money we squandered it like a child wasting their money on too many sweets not knowing how to really spend the money

I think it's all just rooted in low self esteem as a nation

What's this we sh1t not everyone went mad spending money. You also believe we are drunks again not every Irish person likes to drink just like Americans are not all fat and stupid.

Legs.Eleven

Peist2007 wrote: »

What about.....Micronesia?

Pah! :rolleyes: Obviously! They wouldn't know suffering if it gave them a wedgy.

Archeron

Peist2007 wrote: »

What about.....Micronesia?

Is that where micro machines are from? I loved that game, driving across rulers and the little mini tanks

Muise...

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Pah! :rolleyes: Obviously! They wouldn't know suffering if it gave them a wedgy.

Bet they wouldn't even remember it - they sound a tiny bit forgetful.

nails1

I find that it is very awkward to have a sober conversation with a tourist, particularly the American ones.

Legs.Eleven

Muise... wrote: »

Bet they wouldn't even remember it - they sound a tiny bit forgetful.

Oh ho!;)

donegal__road

in Ireland, we are very good at being able to laugh at ourselves.. and to others this might appear like Irish people have low self esteem, but in fact it is a clever technique we use to win the affections of people of other nationalities.*

Irish people can laugh in the face of adversity.. remember, it takes a wise man to play the fool.




*maybe not all Scots, English, Australians and Israelis would agree..



.

Muise...

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Oh ho!;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lya292wdpo

hatrickpatrick

nails1 wrote: »

I find that it is very awkward to have a sober conversation with a tourist, particularly the American ones.

That's exactly what the girl I mentioned was so fascinated by. I told her I was sober only AFTER hooking up with her, she was astonished. Had been living in Ireland for a year and had never got so much as a "hi, how are you" from a guy who hadn't had several shots of dutch courage first.

It's not difficult to draw the conclusion that people's desire to binge drink is at least partially linked to their inability to be confidence and forward without it. It's not a stretch, therefore, to conclude that since people from other countries don't seem to have this shyness problem, that's probably one of the reasons for them drinking less than we do.

Ergo, sort our national issues with self esteem and we sort out our drinking problem, among other things.

It should be plainly obvious that we have a national self esteem issue to be honest. You'd be amazed how many times I'll be asked for advice about a situation in someone's life and I have to stop them at some point and say "STOP apologizing!!!" Whether it's "sorry for going on about this" or "sorry if I sound self absorbed" or "sorry if this sounds foolish"... It seems blindingly obvious that this is a national problem and not merely restricted to the odd individual as it is in most places.

Muise...

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's exactly what the girl I mentioned was so fascinated by. I told her I was sober only AFTER hooking up with her, she was astonished. Had been living in Ireland for a year and had never got so much as a "hi, how are you" from a guy who hadn't had several shots of dutch courage first.

It's not difficult to draw the conclusion that people's desire to binge drink is at least partially linked to their inability to be confidence and forward without it. It's not a stretch, therefore, to conclude that since people from other countries don't seem to have this shyness problem, that's probably one of the reasons for them drinking less than we do.

Ergo, sort our national issues with self esteem and we sort out our drinking problem, among other things.

It should be plainly obvious that we have a national self esteem issue to be honest. You'd be amazed how many times I'll be asked for advice about a situation in someone's life and I have to stop them at some point and say "STOP apologizing!!!" Whether it's "sorry for going on about this" or "sorry if I sound self absorbed" or "sorry if this sounds foolish"... It seems blindingly obvious that this is a national problem and not merely restricted to the odd individual as it is in most places.

It's not difficult to draw the conclusion that your conclusions are based on studying the really small sample of your peers wherever it is you kids hang out these days.

goz83

Sam Kade wrote: »

What's this we sh1t not everyone went mad spending money. You also believe we are drunks again not every Irish person likes to drink just like Americans are not all fat and stupid.

Only the real ones are.

nails1

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's exactly what the girl I mentioned was so fascinated by. I told her I was sober only AFTER hooking up with her, she was astonished.

She thought you were drunk when you were actually sober. That's not exactly a good thing either.

Adamantium

Sulla Felix wrote: »

Load of bollix. How can you be emotionally damaged by shít that happened before your grandparents were born ffs.

Playing too much Assassin's Creed, in this case a potato farmer from Galway circa 1841.

The Diabolical Monocle

Oh ...UCD roysh.

But I don't suppose you'd have these self esteem issues loike.

osarusan

Peist2007 wrote: »

What about.....Micronesia?

Always in the shadow of Macronesia. Always. Nothing they do is ever good enough.

Fortheloveosod

This can't apply to everyone, but you have to admit there's something to what the OP said. I have fairly adequate self esteem and don't care for drink. I have Catholic guilt but it mostly manifests itself in computer games. Used to manifest itself in money as well but I believe I may have that overcome now. I can't stand to waste any thing, either, sometimes to an absolute detriment. All that's Catholic guilt. For me it's mostly positive but can be negative. I'm dating the same woman for better than a decade now as well. That has to have contributed to my opinion of myself. (And we're both fairly happy about it. At least I am. I hope she is. Oh, my. What if she's totally dissatisfied? What'll I do? Once I ask her she'll only lie, like. She'll tell me everything's grand and her secretly loathing me. There's no-thing else for it, I have to break up with her.)

monkeysnapper

Reading a opening thread like this doesn't help . I'm not from Ireland and I find the place great, and so do all the other non Irish people I meet.

Every country of the world focus on the bad things, it's what we humans do.

Flip the switch in your head over to " let's have a flipping great life and be a small bit mad, if not a lot .

strobe

hatrickpatrick wrote:

Nobody ever seems to talk about root causes when it comes to binge drinking. The simple fact is that young people get locked mainly so as they can cast aside the extreme and abnormal national social inhibition which has been fostered on repeated generations of Irish people. Alcohol allows them to temporarily shut down the voice in their head which says "don't say hi to that girl, you'll probably make an idiot of yourself", or "don't talk to those people, you'll probably annoy them". We have a severe national shyness - illustrated to me by an extremely attractive Turkish girl I met in a nightclub last year who pondered why Irish guys would never approach her, and why those few who did always had to be hammered out of it first. Ask actual young people why they binge drink, and the most common answer is because it gets rid of their inhibitions, their in-built lack of self confidence and irrational shame which leads them to severely undervalue themselves both socially and sexually.

I'm not blaming the Church as many do, that's too easy an answer. It's a national, cultural phenomenon which in my experience is unique to Ireland, whereby the idea of leaving one's comfort zone on a night out and meeting new people - the main focus of going out in most other Western countries - is a scary concept which requires a gigantic social crutch to be contemplated. My eyes were only opened to this after several trips abroad, on which I discovered that this extreme level of inhibition common to most Irish young people is not norma as I had once believed, but in an international context, incredibly bizarre.

People in other countries don't drink like we do because people in other countries don't have hangups about social interactions which require a desensitizing drug to overcome.

But lots of people in other countries do drink the way we do. Binge drinking exists in the UK, Germany, the USA, lots of other places... Ireland's never top of any per capita alcohol consumption table I've ever seen either (although we are always top ten or there abouts)...

The emboldened part of your post is demonstratibly untrue, empirically so. We don't have to rely on vague personal impressions people have gleemed from weekend business trips away etc. These kind of things are actually researched and studied, and the facts and figures don't back up your assertions. Which would seem to render much of the preamble to it somewhat inaccurate by default.

Thoughts?

Tail Docker

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's exactly what the girl I mentioned was so fascinated by. I told her I was sober only AFTER hooking up with her, she was astonished. Had been living in Ireland for a year and had never got so much as a "hi, how are you" from a guy who hadn't had several shots of dutch courage first.

It's not difficult to draw the conclusion that people's desire to binge drink is at least partially linked to their inability to be confidence and forward without it. It's not a stretch, therefore, to conclude that since people from other countries don't seem to have this shyness problem, that's probably one of the reasons for them drinking less than we do.

Ergo, sort our national issues with self esteem and we sort out our drinking problem, among other things.

It should be plainly obvious that we have a national self esteem issue to be honest. You'd be amazed how many times I'll be asked for advice about a situation in someone's life and I have to stop them at some point and say "STOP apologizing!!!" Whether it's "sorry for going on about this" or "sorry if I sound self absorbed" or "sorry if this sounds foolish"... It seems blindingly obvious that this is a national problem and not merely restricted to the odd individual as it is in most places.

I think it varies, from not enough to too much with insufficient middle grounders. Both extremes are possibly misplaced and come from not knowing better. Some of the most capable people I know have low-self esteem, and some of the biggest spanners I know have too much.

It's also the case that if you went around full of positivity and friendly confidence, you wouldn't be long in getting the psychological legs kicked out from under you or be labelled a head-case/stuck-up/mad..

jimgoose

Tail Docker wrote: »

I think it varies, from not enough to too much with insufficient middle grounders. Both extremes are possibly misplaced and come from not knowing better. Some of the most capable people I know have low-self esteem, and some of the biggest spanners I know have too much.

Nail-on-the-head. It amazes me the leatherin' furken apes around the place that consider themselves "experts" of one denomination or another.

Tail Docker wrote: »

It's also the case that if you went around full of positivity and friendly confidence, you wouldn't be long in getting the psychological legs kicked out from under you or be labelled a head-case/stuck-up/mad..

I seem to be largely immune to Catholic Guilt, thankfully. My default setting is a sort of bull-headed optimism, and it is indeed true that for that you're sometimes labelled this that and t'other, but I'm largely immune to that too.

Sarajevo Assasin

Muise... wrote: »

It's not difficult to draw the conclusion that your conclusions are based on studying the really small sample of your peers wherever it is you kids hang out these days.

It's fairly obvious if you look at the evidence.

We drink far too much.

We fight and abuse each other when drinking towards the end of a night. This is symptomatic of unexpressed anxiety when not drunk.

We are overly polite.

Suicide rates are above average.

The over use of sarcasm.

High depression rates.

We take offence very easily.

People in Ireland are on average more insecure and lacking in self esteem imo, that's why we drink so much.

Sarajevo Assasin

Tail Docker wrote: »

I think it varies, from not enough to too much with insufficient middle grounders. Both extremes are possibly misplaced and come from not knowing better. Some of the most capable people I know have low-self esteem, and some of the biggest spanners I know have too much.

It's also the case that if you went around full of positivity and friendly confidence, you wouldn't be long in getting the psychological legs kicked out from under you or be labelled a head-case/stuck-up/mad..

You can't have too much self esteem, if you think you can then you don't know what self esteem is. Self esteem isn't a belief in one's relative importance or ranking amongst peers. That is a cover for a lack of self esteem.

When you have self esteem you don't need to tell yourself how great you are because you feel good already. You don't need to try and make your bad feelings go away.

Fortheloveosod

I think it's also different with younger people as well. The 'national shyness' mentioned somewhere above is more notable in younger generations, and my theory is that it has something to do with the internet, not being forced to engage in all interactions by at the least using one's voice in real time and at the most being physically face to face with someone and looking at their face. I'm not totally opposed to the internet, either, but it has some serious benefits and hindrances which come with it.

Tail Docker

Sarajevo Assasin wrote: »

You can't have too much self esteem, if you think you can then you don't know what self esteem is. Self esteem isn't a belief in one's relative importance or ranking amongst peers. That is a cover for a lack of self esteem.

When you have self esteem you don't need to tell yourself how great you are because you feel good already. You don't need to try and make your bad feelings go away.

I'm going to agree to disagree there. I have a meeting in an hour with a fella who disproves your rule. I do believe there's a high chance he is on coke - that or his Mammy told him he was wonderful a few times too many.