andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2004-02-28 10:49 am
andrewducker) wrote2004-02-28 10:49 am
Distorted Reflection
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?
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?
From Ekatarina
Definitely talking about me. I struggle with it. I know what people tell me about myself. I know I have talents and skills and abilities and a great set of cheekbones, but I don't always *believe* it all.
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?
Oh I was always told I was "good" just never "good enough", especially by my father.
I don't think he ever meant it like that, but that is what I heard over and over again. Prime example - I brought home a test from my advanced calculus class. It was a specially developed class in my district and it was actually first year university math. This mid-term was hard and I got 95/100. My father looks it up and down and asks "Where did you lose the five points?"
I am sure he did not *intend* to make me feel like the most worthless bug that ever dared to intrude upon his time with such meaningless things as anything connected with my life, but that is what I heard.
And that message was reinforced over my entire life.
A few years before that I had asked to drive the ride-on lawn-mower. "Not this year. You aren't big enough, but you are too big to sit on my lap when I drive. So, you will just watch this year and then next year I will teach you to drive it." Cool, great. So I spend a year watching my little brother have fun sitting on dad's lap knowing that I will be driving it next year.
Spring comes and dad says he is going to fire up the lawn-mower. I run to my room to get my earmuffs and my outdoor shoes so I can be ready to learn. I hear the mower start up as I run past the living room window and then I hear it running. But wait! Wait! I am going to learn to drive it! Wait for me!
I open the door to see my little brother - two and a half years younger - driving the mower with Dad giving him pointers.
Again, I am not worth even thinking about let alone bothering to teach anything. I will never be good enough. I am just a stupid girl who he will not take the time of day for.
And no, I don't believe he intended that. Yes I believe he loves me, but I have never felt it.
Sure, I'm "grown up" now and I should be able to put it behind me. However, every remark, every line from him is so loaded with baggage and background that I do not always trust my father. I do not feel he believes I can actually do anything. Every time he corrected the way I was washing the dishes and then just did it for me. Every time he took over a task form me and did it himself. All of those told me I wasn't good enough. The few times I got uppity and dared to say something like "Fine, then *you* do it." I got angry tone and glare and "Don't talk to your father like that." looks from him - which made me feel even worse for daring to challenge his public opinion of me.
It's not all my father's fault. My North American English speaking society did a lot of damage since I am not a perfect size two and I don't play dumb. And yes, *I* am the one who has internalized it all. There is a lot here pressuring me.
Like my rape, I wish I could put it behind me, I wish I could forget those moments, or at least that the pain would subside. But, like my rape, the crystal clear picture of those moments hits me again and again and again, stalling me, stunning me into silence and fear when I most need courage.
I am trying to fight it, to learn to live with it, to be better than all of that garbage. But it is hard to be better than that when you do not believe you are.
So, there are some thoughts for you.
Ekatarina
Re: From Ekatarina
My father's great line was always: "If you coud just loise a stone or two {Amber}, you'de really be quite pretty."
My mothers' was "SO you got 95%. Where did the other 5% go?" It was a joke of course, but not a joke really.
It's very tiring trying to be perfect but I don't know any other way to survive.
I don't think I can understand people who don't understand low self esteem. Most people have it and live with it - it's like the common cold, or tooth decay.
Re: From Ekatarina
I loved getting my mother to read my essays since she would check my spelling, maybe make suggestions on grammar, but she would not pick about my thesis - unless it was truly awful in which case she would save me from myself. Mothers are supposed to do that.
And yes, we low-esteemers just make do, or we don't and we do ourselves in.
I am a nice person, I have had nice relationships, I have fabulous friends who tell me how wonderful I am, I have had a great life and I plan on continuing that. No one is happy all the time, it's unnatural.
Things get better. I no longer believe I am worthless, I just have brief moods when I do. I no longer live in no-self-esteem-world 24/7 but I still make short trips there. I think that is normal. And I think that reassessing why I go there and why I come back is important.
I realize I am beautiful and talented and amazing and that not having a professional career as a celebrity does no in any way diminish my wonderfulness as a singer, writer, scholar, or fry-cook.
I am me. I rock. Life rolls on.
There are parts of me that I may never "fix" and that's fine as well. Maybe I'll never have the dizzying highs of life that some of my friends have been able to enjoy, but my life does not suck so I am cool with that.
Sigh, time for dinner.
Ekatarina
Re: From Ekatarina
My dad also was of the "where's the other 5 points" sort. My mum was the supportive "save me from myself" one. (Thank all the gods for that, because some days she's the only reason I survived.)
I'm a weird mix of some days realizing that I'm attractive & intelligent, while other days I think I'm the ugliest & stupidest twit on the planet. Most days, I'm somewhere in the middle, but leaning towards the intelligent side of things even when I'm not so certain of the physical.
*shrug* Schoolmates reinforced my positive view of my intelligence, but didn't help at all with my general feelings of ugly-duckling-ness.