Depression Supporters Support Group
This community is dedicated to spouses, children, relatives, co-workers and others who are actively supporting someone suffering from depression or other serious mental illness. Depression can bring about intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive, which can have a grave impact on the ability of others trying to help.
hello guys, i would just like to ask for your opinion about self esteem. Just how do u build it? Self esteem is a very important in making us happy and successful.What are ways do you think so we could to improve it?
This is a tough one. It really would depend on the reason you have low self-esteem.
Couple of thoughts:
1. Write out negative thoughts about yourself you are having and directly contradict them with positive ones. Then, when you notice yourself thinking the negative ones, try not to judge yourself or get upset (you can't STOP thoughts from coming, only contradict them). Instead, replace them with the positive thoughts. This takes time to work, so be patient.
2. Sometimes, when we have low self-esteem it is because we have not either defined our values or are not living according to them. As a made-up example, maybe you don't like when you drink to get drunk, but you find yourself doing it a couple of times a month. This leads to negative self-image. Maybe spending some time defining your values and being sure your life aligns with them would be good.
That is all I can come up with right now. This is a tough topic.
Good luck!
Interesting you ask this right now... I actually have been putting thought into my own self esteem lately.
About a month ago or so a good friend on here (Chris :) said something in reply to a post that hit me hard! He said that I was apologizing too much and my tone of voice (aka typing :) sounded like I didn't think I was worth it. I have been going through lots of stuff over the past few months. Family has given up and decided not to like my depressed man- its over they won't try (mainly dad). But in that happening it caused a huge riff between dad and I! I was very open with dad and told him that he could call me if he wanted to talk and I would love for him to be in my life and be my dad- but he ignored me completely. He doesn't want to have anything to do with my guy whatsoever. This hit me hard. I realized that in having my own dad reject me and whats going on with me really made me hit a low point with my own self esteem. I really felt terrible!!! And I felt like I was burdening people with what was going on in my life. In fact- as I type this it makes sense that I had that anxiety/panic attack last week because I kept it all in so much more than I had previously! (light bulb!)
But, after Chris said he could see me being more apologetic and less excited to share- I realized that I was letting my dad's opinion of my life influence what I thought everyone might see of my life. I just had to really sit back and say look- my dad is missing out!!! I am GREAT! And I had to think of all the great things about me that if my dad took a minute to see and care about, he would want to be around.
I don't know if that exactly answers the question you posed- but since all that thinking came to me through friends here I thought I should share :)
Again, it's different for everyone but I really do believe it comes down to really examining yourself and either working on the things you can and accepting the ones you can't and finding a way to turn them into a positive. However for some people, if the cause for their low self esteem is more severe (abuse), professional help may be needed to be able to do the self evaluation process.