Low self esteem ruining my life

[Alwaysonholidayy]

I have been suffering with low self esteem and been in counselling for over 2 years. I had started feeling a lot better but recently feeling triggered. I am feeling quite stressed and seems to have set it off.

We are getting some work done on the house and it's costing about £5k more than expected. I don't have the money to cover it and it has just set off a discussion about the imbalance of what myself and partner contribute to the house as he has more savings than I do. The problem is that this minor interaction has now set off to me feeling like I'm not good enough and hiding away as I can't stop sobbing.

I overthink every interaction I have, like going out with friends and I'll come away feeling like I've spoken about myself too much or I've done xyz. Even when I interact with people at the gym who I barely know, I leave thinking they must think something negative about me and everyone would be better off without me. It feels like it's hit me like a wave today and I genuinely just think everyone hates me. I feel like I am ruining my relationship as my partner thinks it's about him but it's really not.

It feels so stupid but I don't know how to explain it to him or anyone else but I can't seem to control it?

What is your relationship like usually? Do you feel loved, accepted, treasured?

Doesn’t sound like the counseling has been very helpful if you’ve been going for 2 years and don’t feel better? What approach are you using? You may benefit from a different therapist? Have you tried CBT?

Apologies for the cliche but what was your childhood like? Very often low self esteem is rooted in negative core beliefs, which are largely formed in the first decade of life. It doesn't necessarily point to neglect or abuse but perhaps messages about your value were misunderstood.

This is a useful guide to core beliefs;

https://www.betterup.com/blog/core-beliefs

I honestly think it sounds like you need medication. I don't usually throw that out there but you are really going to struggle to break these thought cycles without it.

I took antidepressants in my 20s and I was exactly as you describe, I was constantly overthinking and ruining perfectly happy days by tearing them apart in bed later and going over them peice by peice. It's really hard to let go of these thought patterns because it's more akin to OCD than depression, once you start you find you can't stop. There's medication that can help, as well as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and the two should absolutely be used together. There's exercises you can do at home as well, training yourself to think something else the moment your feeling yourself spiralling, to acknowledge the anxiety then let it go and not dwell on it. It's important to learn to catch yourself straight away, as right now you probably start doing this automatically without any really consideration and have catastrophised before your more logical brain catches up and realised what you're doing.

@MiloMinderbinder925 for the most part good, he tells me he loves me all the time and treats me well but we have been together for a long time and not engaged which makes me doubt things a little as again feel I need to be better for him to want to marry me. I know that sounds so toxic.

@SunnyCrab I have done CBT and talking therapy in that time and felt the CBT did help with the self esteem but after the sessions finish I just go backwards. My CBT counsellor said CBT is not intended to be an ongoing thing and I need to use the tools I've learnt which at that point we both thought I was doing well but that was 2 months ago.

@Eyesopenwideawake yes have done some work on core beliefs which really helped. My childhood wasn't perfect as my Dad left when I was 2 and never spoke to him again and my uncle abused me as a teen so I've tried really hard to work through those things and thought I had but still seem to be stuck in this negative cycle.

Feel like I just sound really pathetic and broken writing this all out but if you'd asked me last week I would've said I was doing great 😥

Wow this is really helpful, I also suffer from low esteem and know it’s connected to my childhood

I just wanted to know if his behaviour was contributing to your self esteem. You meed to approach it in a variety of ways; read books on assertiveness and self esteem. There are work books you can buy. Try compassion based therapy and download CBT worksheets and challenge your thoughts.

Medication and exercise might also help.

Keep looking at the CBT tools, and assertiveness books as PP mentioned.

As an aside, are you on the deeds of the house? If not, you absolutely should not be paying towards making someone else's property nicer.

From personal experience the first thing i recommend is trying to remove some layers of stress. So if you have a really full mental inbox and have lots of things on your mind. try to remove all unimportant things from that list.You need to remove some of the pressures of daily life to give your self some space to think. It might do you good to just go out for a walk and just allow your brain to unwind a little. Just get a tiny bit of space or respite, just to allow you a bit of a mental break.

Put some music on while you do it, to stop your thoughts racing. you need a rest and you need to come down from level 10 stress to a more managable 7,6,5 etc. Even if you just do this one thing every day, get up, get out for a walk with your music on or favroute audio book, it will help to form a small period of time where you're not thinking too much.

If you talk to people who care about you and love you, you will find that that everyone just wants you to be ok. They probably worry about you more than you know. Don't supress how you feel, talk about it, take it's power away. I used to feel like you, i used to over think interactions because in some way i guess i wanted to be part of the crowd, I had no confidence, it felt like a real effort to think of anything to say of relevance. I always felt like i was on the outside, and i had some pretty low times in my twenties.

Now im 44 and i have acheived so much in life that i never though remotely possible at the time. I am probably the most extroverted person I know now, my whole mood has changed massively for the better. It's hard to see down the road when your in the moment, but I promise you, you keep fighting and don't let it beat you. It will fade eventually.

If you arent taking an anti depressant such as sertraline, ask your doctor about it, its very good for anxiety and might just give you a little break till you get back on your feet.

Me and my partner have gone through periods where i was the bread winner, then her, then back to me, now we both own our own business and we face the world as a team, its not my money or hers, its ours. Tell your partner how much he means to you, and good luck with your journey, don't give up, this isn't going to beat you. You sound like a really nice person and you deserve good things in life.

Keep fighting, and you come back here when you are struggling and we will be here to support you.

Have you seen this thought record as part of your counselling? It's really helpful to write down maladjusted thoughts and this allows you to challenge them in a structured way;

https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/docs/ThoughtRecordSheet7.pdf