to ask whether anyone has overcome low self-esteem?

[oggbogg]

And if so how? I am in my late 40s and outwardly probably seem OK. I don't think people would think I am especially confident but I sometimes do things that look as though I might be - give talks to large numbers of people, that kind of thing.

I have a lucky and fortunate life but MY GOD I have spent my whole life internally torturing myself with feelings of inadequacy. At the moment, these feelings are mostly focused on my career which I experience as a total humiliating failure. I punish myself for every mistake, I dissect everything I do and find it wanting, and constantly punish myself for that. It's so painful but I also know by now that if I didn't work for whatever reason, I would find something other way to internally tear myself apart.

Is anyone else like this and crucially what have you done if so? I have tried counselling and self-help books and sometimes they help a little but it seems my brain is set to function like this.

Whoops - didn't mean to have a voting function here!

You're not alone. Sometimes I find it difficult to recall any good times and think everything bad has been my fault.
. My parents were very critical and perhaps that's made it easier for me to beat myself up about everything.

Hi Tostig, sorry it's you too. My Dad was very critical. He loved me but thought I was 'silly'. I have got pretty strong academic qualifications now but feel inadequate nevertheless and weirdly constantly put myself in situations where I feel intimidated and out of my depth. Not sure what that's about. Other than most situations leave me feeling out of my depth!

I think the biggest thing that helps is the awareness of it which you seem to now have as then you can try and start challenging these thoughts like what evidence is there for that though or what would a friend say to you or you say to them? I think I might have experienced similar growing up so I have learned to be much kinder to myself now. My confidence has improved a lot over the last year practicing this type of things along with books like you mention, podcasts, doing more things for me like taking time out and not feeling guilty and trying new things, the most recent being wild swimming! Not easy and does take time.

If you find CBT as an approach appealing, google CCI Health. There's a big section for self help, and a great CBT work book for self esteem. It's free too!

Thanks both. I guess it takes constant work, right? And sometimes just being really busy means there isn't time to work on how I feel. And maybe ... I was going to say I am lazy but I honestly can't remember a time in my life when I didn't feel like this so it feels deeply engrained. In a way, that is a comfort as intellectually I can see that this is not situational. If I have always felt like this no matter what I apparently 'achieve' then I should be able to view it rationally. But on the other hand I would love a day when I just feel at peace with who I am and what I have done with my life.

By the way, just feel I need to add given current times, that I completely recognise that feeling like this is self-indulgent when others are suffering much more.

Hi OP. I have, sort of. Over the years I have read so many self help books - some of them are effective but often they are theories that never really altered the practise of self criticism and judgement.

Two things helped - sadly, one of the most effective was going low contact with my parents. I hate the idea of cutting them out of my life but my dad is a really poisonous person and my mum colludes with him. I'm also her least favourite child so she has said some unspeakable things over the years to me that hurt. DSis and DBro speak to them frequently but I stick to a brief phone call once a month. I no longer think about them very often and the screeching judgemental hatred that ran in a loop in my mind (which I worked out was my dad) has calmed down a lot. If this is relevant to you, I'd say, do it when you feel ready, when you know you can cope with it. And if it is relevant, the Stately Homes thread which looks mad from the outside, is a really supportive haven.

Another thing that made a massive difference was as a PP said, trying something new. I went through a phase of trying to do something new every day. Now I just do it whenever I feel low. It works better than anti depressant medication. I went from being scared to go into a cafe I'd not been in before (I know - so timid and sad!) to giving lectures and designing computer apps (completely untechy before.) These little adventures have made me physically fitter, mentally and spiritually happier and stronger. It's the most fun way to build your self esteem. To get ideas, you can read I Dare Me or some online blogs about similar challenges.

I also think going through menopause helped massively. Sounds weird but you lose all that female oestrogen that causes you to be all motherly and fretful that you might have done something that upset someone else. And your testosterone rises so you start thinking, 'I'll do what I like.' Or 'No!' Or, "I have an opinion and here it is!' DH and DC are a bit at my sudden decisiveness and opinionated personality change but I love it, after decades of being a mouse.

Try to ask yourself when you decided that you were not good enough.

Often it's in our childhood and very often before the age of 11. Try and untangle the stories you told yourself around those issues and you might start realising that what you have told yourself about your 'worth' all these years are cognitive fallacies.

Very often class, race, a migration background, health issues in childhood, caring responsibilities or undiagnosed and unsupported learning difficulties / ADHD etc are at the root of low self esteem in adulthood.

I know it's a cliche but mindfulness, yoga, tai chi etc can help feel more at ease with ourself

Thanks for replying everyone.

@labobo - I do really love my (step)Dad, and genuinely he didn't mean to undermine me. He is a product of his background and of being stepdad to loads of chatty girls, while maintaining a stressful job. We have skirted around the issue but he would be horrified to know how it has affected me and I am not quite sure what it would achieve in our case. He also mellowed a lot in retirement! It's impossible to know what I would be like though if he had been a more active and vocal supporter.

I like the idea of having adventures. The funny thing about me is that I do things that I find incredibly scary - even like going on the TV and radio very occasionally - so my self-esteem doesn't prevent me from doing everything, it just causes me to absolutely torture myself when I do. But it does prevent other things - for example, I don't network with colleagues when I should do even though it's important to my job, because I can't bear the thought of exposing how rubbish I am. So in that sense, I do hide myself away.

Back to the self-help books perhaps ..

Essentially, you may have to “fake it til you make it”. Eventually you won’t know if you’re faking it or if you’ve made it.

People believe what you tell them about yourself, so don’t tell people that you did things wrong, or can’t do that, or anything else negative. Be your own advocate.

Following as I am the same. Spent years doing therapy and self help books. Recently thought about pursuing a new career and burst into tears thinking about how rubbish I am. People tell me how good my experience is but I can't believe them. It looks good on paper but in my mind every time I think of something I could do or have achieved it is followed by a "yes but". I need to do my CV and selling my skills feels like torture.

Only after having children. After a lifetime of men taking me I'm ugly, I'm weird, or some women calling me weird, odd, etc, it was the purr non-judgemental love from them that helped me more than anything.

It got better as I got older.
I also found the following helped:
Don't compare yourself with others, and never compare 'up'. There is always someone who appears to be 'better' and at times, at some things, they are. Ignore them.
Surround yourself with cheerleaders who like you and think you're great and are generous in telling you.
Tell other people they are great when they are. It becomes reciprocal and does you both good.
Off load people who drag you down.
If an area of your life constantly makes you feel inadequate, for example your job, maybe you need to try something else instead. Sometimes not feeling good enough at something is because it's not the right thing for you. You might feel great doing a different thing.

I just look at the shower of complete incompetents running the country, and it reassures me that even at my worst, I'm far more capable than most of them.

Not joking. This has been one of the very few upsides to the last god knows how many years of idiot Tory rule, for me.

@YouJustDoYou

Only after having children. After a lifetime of men taking me I'm ugly, I'm weird, or some women calling me weird, odd, etc, it was the purr non-judgemental love from them that helped me more than anything.

As the saying goes “before diagnosing yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first check that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by dickheads”.

I bet you’re great, OP, you’ve just been unlucky in not having people around you who lift you up.

I love all these comments, thanks everybody. Agreed, re: the incompetents in charge. The amazing thing about our current government is how little they seem to care about how rubbish they are. At least I can comfort myself by knowing that even if I am totally incompetent, at the very least I mind about it. And I have no opportunity to inflict my incompetence on the entire country.

It's such an interesting question. I have had two strands to my career for decades. One I have been told again and again I have enormous talent at, and have won awards for. But I have no confidence in it. The other, I am confident at. Guess which strand of my career thrived? Even though I apparently was above average at one thing, the lack of confidence pretty much killed it off. The other thing I felt fine about and it has developed.

Like that Henry Ford cliché: If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Meaning - our own attitude to our ability is 90% of the struggle. And I've seen proof of that so many times. Talented people fall by the wayside, overtaken by mediocre people who believe in themselves. Who work hard and learn and eventually get better at the job than people who started out ahead.

@oggbogg - that's so true. Not caring at all about your own competency - that must be so liberating. For all the wrong reasons, but it does make my jaw drop: how people in power are there through sheer self-publicity. Bozza's dream of being Churchill 2nd was built on his career as a TV buffoon.

I am not sure that books and the such are actually helpful in adult age. I find that they just feed the constant self-obsession. I have low self-esteem, but it is because I know myself very well and know for a fact that I am unfortunately not a innately good person. So I don't think I can ever grow out of it as such, however, after a while I just got bored of myself and the constant self-centered thoughts, so self-esteem is now on a back shelf, not playing central part in my life. It is quite liberating!

Boredom is a thing. I am bored of myself too in some ways or at least the nagging voice always telling me how crap I am. I'm a bit cynical about some sort of self-help stuff but one thing I do believe in is growth mindset. They are big on this at my DD's school and although it's a bit cheesy I think it relates to what you said @labobo. I need to think more about getting better than being the best and I have been my own worst enemy at times, as my lack of confidence and fear of failure has held me back when I recognise that sometimes being good enough would have been good enough. Anyway, thanks all for engaging in this discussion with me.

Hi oggbogg
I know what you mean about being your own worst enemy and holding yourself back.
I've wasted time regretting decisions made in the past which didn't turn out as hoped. It helps to remember that a decision was made for the right reasons with the information to hand at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but can also be a curse.

Don't compare yourself with others, and never compare 'up'

@5128gap

How do you measure standards and ensure you are growing/improving otherwise? How do you see what is possible if not by seeing others achieve it? Am curious

@LadyfromtheBelleEpoque

Don't compare yourself with others, and never compare 'up'

@5128gap

How do you measure standards and ensure you are growing/improving otherwise? How do you see what is possible if not by seeing others achieve it? Am curious

By compare up, I was thinking less of areas you can develop and more about other things that can impact self esteem that you may have less control over. For example comparing yourself to someone who is better off materially and seeing that as a sign of your own failure. Or looking at others who have innate talents or personality traits you don't possess. However, even in areas you can improve I think using others as a yard stick isn't necessarily best for raising self esteem, as what if you never reach their level? While it may be a good way to motivate and inspire improvement, the OP asked specifically about raising SE. I think SE comes from your own 'distance travelled' from where you were to where you are get to, not from keeping up with or exceeding others.

Cheers @5128gap

I like your way of looking at things