How do I stop treading water and build up my self-esteem?

[pussincahoots]

Don’t really want to go into too much depth but it’s dawning on me that I need to significantly raise the bar in my life as I’m just not happy.

I have put up with some consistently (and sometimes shockingly) bad treatment from partners, friends, family throughout my life and it’s set an unpleasant standard that is proving very difficult to lift. For various reasons I’ve ignored red flags and believed the best in people and I feel positively stupid when I look back at what I have forgiven and forgotten.

I’m very well educated and good at my job yet constantly doubt myself. I worked abroad for many years and was immediately offered a FT job on my return which I took despite the role being a significant step down from where I had been before. I immediately became a bully’s target and continue to be six years in and don’t feel at all respected by my workmates in general. This has been exacerbated by the fact I had to cut down to PT hours a few years ago as I have a small child. This also makes it almost impossible to find another job.

I always thought I was a strong person. And in many ways I believe I am. But when I look back at my life I feel pathetic and ashamed of myself. I see someone who has either let people walk all over her, who consistently put herself last to appease others or sabotaged her own life.

I want this to stop now. I just don’t know how. I thought I did, and I am taking active steps to do better including seeing a counsellor, but I’m at a real low point and feeling like I’m treading water. I feel used, unappreciated, disrespected... really crap.

I am interested to hear from other women who have felt the same way and how you dragged yourself out of it. I have enough real-life critics so I will ask for people to please be kind or refrain from comment.

It’s a complex issue, but I think the main thing for me was having a child. The priorities changed, who I was changed.
I remember being really tired, looking like shit, I was at a point where all I did was give give give. Then I realised I sound like my mother, who perfected the martyr role. And the most important thing was not to be a mother to my child like she was to me.

I would really look at your own childhood and see where things went wrong, heal and then reassess.

@SeaSidePebbles. Thank you. A lot of your post sounds like me. I hope I don’t sound like a martyr, but I know what you mean.

I’ve had a few revelations about my childhood recently that have knocked me pretty hard, especially since becoming a mother myself and realising I could never do the things my mother (in particular) did to me as a child to my own child. It’s been decades I’ve felt the way she treated me was the norm of a mother and only now I’m realising it’s not.

It's complex but you're not weak for having this issue, you're strong for recognising you're not happy with the way people are treating you. Would recommend the book 'Overcoming Low Self Esteem' by Melanie Fennell (she's one of the people who essentially created CBT). When we have low self-esteem we struggle to set boundaries and then meet people who take advantage of that (hello bullies and piss-takers). I have been bullied many times over the years, but over the past 10 years have built my self-esteem by building my confidence, exercise, putting myself in new situations, practicing saying no, realising that noone else has it sorted, and probably most crucially, learning who I am and my likes and dislikes. I was a people pleaser and had lost sight of my own self to be liked. I'm more genuinely confident now and not afraid to call out bad behavior or if I'm happy about how I'm being treated. It's liberating, takes time and you'll find your own path. I wish you well.

@Girlmeetsbook Being a people-pleaser is such a trap. It’s so deeply ingrained in one’s self-image it’s very difficult to break. And then one day you wake up and realise you’ve spent your life making other people’s lives better and easier at the expense of your own. And now they just expect it of you and the pressure to continue just increases. I will give the book you mentioned a try. Well done on getting yourself out of it :)