Self respect and respect from others.

[CherryChoc]

Do you think that self-respect (and therefore self esteem) is dependent on how others see you (ie if you are surrounded by people who don't respect you, is it inevitable you will stop respecting yourself)?

Or do you think you need self respect before other people will respect you at all?

I think the second one cherry - if you have self respect you also have boundaries for how people treat you.

I agree with the second one.

Hard really:

If you are surrounded by people who don't respect you (and they are people who are close to you, like a boyfriend or something) and they repeatedly knock you, then yes, you could quite easily stop respecting yourself. In this case, you need to recognise that they are doing this and try to get them to stop. My boyfriend at university did this to me, convinced me that I was no good at anything (when I was perfectly OK). He did me the biggest favour ever when he dumped me, although it didn't feel like it at the time!

Anyway - I don't think you should necessarily have to have self respect for people to respect you either. I wouldn't disrespect someone unless it was for a good reason (like they were a murderer or something!).

I think it's difficult! I am talking about not a basic level of respect as you would afford any stranger, but the higher level of respect that you give to friends, family, people you admire etc. (Sorry, should have said that in the OP.)

I know someone who was never really well respected within the family but not disrespected either - just not really noticed if you know what I mean.

Anyway, he got a promotion at work and then changed to a more responsible role at his work which meant he had people reporting to him. He went on some management courses and stuff like that which involved improving self esteem. All of a sudden he seemed to act like he really knew what he was talking about in every area of his life, started acting really self assured and got rid of people in his life that didn't really mean anything to him or were bringing him down. He didn't cut them out of his life, just didn't pay attention to their remarks and was really indifferent to anything they would say which is his way of deflecting their negativity.

As a result, people think he is great now (including himself) which is great for him, but I have started to notice he has started to disrespect people who are the way he used to be and this is a bit annoying because he knows how much it can knock your self esteem if you don't feel that great already.

I myself don't really get respect from my immediate family at the moment. I have never really had a great job or done anything particularily amazing (in their eyes) with my life so they think I am a bit of a disappointment. They still love me but do make comments sometimes about "what happened to you? You used to be so..." which really affects the way I think of myself sometimes. Also, I have given up work to be SAHM and I feel I am always trying to justify this to people close to me for some reason.

Sorry - didn't mean to post such a huge reply, but I think I believe that it is a vicious circle... People you care about disrepect you, you start to disrespect yourself. You don't respect yourself, people pick up on it (especially bullying, controlling types) who therefore show you less respect and so it goes on.

If you don't respect yourself, others see you as weak and vulnerable and as soon as people see something they hate about themselves in someone else, they pick up on it and usually dislike you for it...