Distorted Reflection

[andrewducker]

I have a fairly large chunk of self-confidence. Which isn't to say that I think I'm perfect - I have plenty of people around who will happily put me straight if I veer too far in that direction - but I do think that I'm fairly interesting, smart and fun to be around (if you're my kind of person - I'm probably not much fun to be around if you're into football, eastenders and gangsta rap).

Anyway, I'm fairly confident in my own general goodness. I don't need reassuring on this, partially because I get enough general background levels of reassurance and partially because other people's opinions don't actually matter a hell of a lot to me when it comes to matters of aesthetics - _I_ like me.

What baffles the hell out of me is why people that seem obviously cool to me - smart, funny, interesting people, who are capable, creative, fun and generally froody, _aren't_ self-confident. They need other people to tell them that they're worth knowing. They need reassurance. They don't believe, deep down, that they're good people.

Ed pointed out yesterday (yeah, this was the other conversation we had. Well, we chatted a lot about a wide variety of silly things, but I don't tend to catalogue silliness most of the time) that people look at themselves and see faults. That a cool person looking in the mirror may see nothing but the faults they have, much in the same way that an anorexic may look in the mirror and think "If I was just a stone lighter..." when they're already a bag of skin and bones.

So, all you people with low self esteem - why is it that you feel that you're a bad person? Do you think that you are undeserving? Or that you are deserving, but that the world will never recognise that? What do you need reassurance about? What would make you believe that you were good?

Comments

[gomichan.livejournal.com]

I have an interesting divide going on, self-esteem-wise. Since early childhood, I've somehow intimidated and confused people simply by existing. Never my family, though -- they found me delightful. Whenever I was at home, I was loved, accepted, understood, respected, challenged, rewarded. Whenever I left the house -- for school, church, or whatever -- I became, at best, a source of poorly-hidden mild unease, and at worst the target of violent attacks. This is a generalization, of course; my parents had their flaws, being only human, and not every teacher or schoolmate displayed fear and loathing. But it was consistent enough that I came to two conclusions, which alternate.

When I consider the viewpoint of 'the world', or 'people in general', I find myself vaguely horrible. Embarrassing, pompous, incomprehensible, unattractive, and dull. When I let go of the effort to see things as 'everyone' sees them, though, I recognize my merits and talents, and see my flaws as challenges rather than irredeemable.

Knowing this, oddly, doesn't change it. And I don't need to actually imagine what others think of me to trigger that self-loathing; so long as I'm trying to see in the Muggle spectrum, even if it's only to wonder what people see in SUV's or reality shows, I get that sick I'm-a-loathsome-crawly feeling.

So it's not that I think I'm a bad person. I don't really find the abstract 'bad' concept useful. I know what I am, and what I'm not, and generally I'm satisfied with my path. But I also seem to have an unshakeable conviction that only the closest, most trusted people in my world can see this, and that according to the populace at large I should probably be stoned to death while they point and laugh. Thus, to your question about reassurance, and what makes me believe I'm 'good', I suppose that would be simply the company of people I trust not to misunderstand me.

[andrewducker]

I had this. It took moving far away and going to university, where I met much more cool cool people who were also different and accepting for me to start liking myself properly.