low self-worth

[sh2st]

yup, me too. i always have put others' desires above my own. i hate shopping for myself. my mom will perposefully give me gift money and tell me i HAVE TO spend it on myself.. lol. awkward..

 

[HisGrace58]

I have had low self-esteem and low-self worth off and on throughout my life. I have finally come to terms with it by realizing that God knew exactly where I would be at each stage in my life - and he meant me to be EXACTLY who I am... with that being said, He is my father, He created me this way... so I must be okay!!

 

[Faith84]

i've had very low selfesteem for most of my life, and now that i'm an adult nothing has changed.. curious if anyone else has had my problem and overcome it? how? i see myself as worthless and small..

I've been there once. I remember I was obsessed with the way I looked. I always looked at my features and I felt I was inferior to those that are classified as "Beautiful" in the media. Then one day, I was looking at a preacher's sermon on television that changed my self-loathing dramatically. He said that we were built in Christ's image; God's image. He also said to look in the mirror and say "I Love You, (insert your name)". Believe it or not, this has helped me. I never claimed to love myself because I thought it was vain thing to do. You try it and see if it helps. And pray for the lord to guide you in your quest to appreciate yourself as well. God Bless You!

 

[SonicBOOM]

i've had very low selfesteem for most of my life, and now that i'm an adult nothing has changed.. curious if anyone else has had my problem and overcome it? how? i see myself as worthless and small..

I just turned 21 a couple weeks ago and I can't name a time in my life where this has not weighed me down. I constantly struggle with this myself. Through experience though I've come to realize, I don't think you can ever really completely get over it. It's like a cement hand-print. It's just kind of stuck there. Alot of the power I think comes from not knowing why you feel how you feel. You can't really fight something you can't see can you? I know all to well how tough this is...... we've been taught so much stuff that we simply must unteach ourselves. Me? When i was growing up i never felt I was doing enough to please my family or friends. I was always given "more to do". And hence, now I'm a massive perfectionist and would do anything to not fail. To me? Being anything less than perfect is 100% unacceptable and that I'm less of a man when I make mistakes. Realizing this I now had a target I could shoot at. I would strongly consider examining what it is that you have been taught that is making your self-image low. than i would treat that message like the enemy and I would do anything to destroy it. Than I would reteach yourself what is true. I would start filling your soul with stuff that is uplifting to you. If you have any friends who bring you down i would get rid of them and find more uplifting friends. This may seem like abandoning them but in reality they do that to themselves by not treating you with love and respect. i don't care who a person is no one deserves to be treated cruelly. I think a change of habits is all it really takes

 

[sahjacq]

I just turned 21 a couple weeks ago and I can't name a time in my life where this has not weighed me down. I constantly struggle with this myself. Through experience though I've come to realize, I don't think you can ever really completely get over it. It's like a cement hand-print. It's just kind of stuck there. Alot of the power I think comes from not knowing why you feel how you feel. You can't really fight something you can't see can you? I know all to well how tough this is...... we've been taught so much stuff that we simply must unteach ourselves. Me? When i was growing up i never felt I was doing enough to please my family or friends. I was always given "more to do". And hence, now I'm a massive perfectionist and would do anything to not fail. To me? Being anything less than perfect is 100% unacceptable and that I'm less of a man when I make mistakes. Realizing this I now had a target I could shoot at. I would strongly consider examining what it is that you have been taught that is making your self-image low. than i would treat that message like the enemy and I would do anything to destroy it. Than I would reteach yourself what is true. I would start filling your soul with stuff that is uplifting to you. If you have any friends who bring you down i would get rid of them and find more uplifting friends. This may seem like abandoning them but in reality they do that to themselves by not treating you with love and respect. i don't care who a person is no one deserves to be treated cruelly. I think a change of habits is all it really takes

God bless brother, you are blessed to have found a way to take your self away from your feelings and deal with them, I can relate to this and it is a rock to climb, and to understand the people and things which bring you down, but to take yourself away to evaluate the circumstances and then to understand why, is the first stepping stone, and with the lord holding your hand makes the walk alot softer.

 

[Kathleena]

My self esteem is connected greatly to how I look. I just feel such pressure to have a certain look as a girl...it's so stressful. I just wish that God didn't curse me with this big curly frizzy mess that I call my hair. Uggh, why can't I just have normal hair? Why can't I just have normal clear acne free skin? I just had to rant I'm sorry. I'm just whining, I guess I'm of no help. Just know you're not alone, sh2st.

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I have always had low self-esteem, though I cannot even pretend that I have had to endure what many of you in this thread have had to endure.

My late dad had a dominating personality, and he emotionally abused me. I grew up believing that I was a complete failure and a total loser. My feelings and thoughts were never treated as being valid, and I was never allowed to disagree with my dad. My mom would often tell me that I needed to see a psychiatrist.

Only in recent years have I begun to realize that other people make the same mistakes that I do, and have the same problems that I have (i.e., that I'm normal, and not some complete loser freak). This was a revelation when I first discovered it.

Several years ago, I attended a Personality Seminar, where I learned that I was the way I am because that was how God made me, and my melancholy personality was actually given to me by God purposefully, and along with it came a positive side (because it was a gift) and a negative side (because everything in this world is tainted by sin). This was another mind-blowing revelation to me: that God could actually use my personality type, and it was not just a curse that I needed to have fixed.

Unfortunately, this new-found revelation was so incredibly mind-blowing to me, that I made the mistake of stopping by my parent's house and sharing my incredible news with them. Well, my dad told me that I was completely wrong, and in 15 minutes, he had completely destroyed everything I had just learned. I went back to feeling like a complete failure in life.

However, more recently, I read a little book by Andrew Wommack called "Low Self-Esteem: The Root of all Grief." In it, he said something that was another shocker to me: that low-self esteem is actually pride. He said the answer to low self-esteem is dying to self. If you truly die to self, then you won't think about yourself anymore. You can kick a dead corpse around all you want, and it won't feel a thing. A dead corpse doesn't worry about its problems. A dead corpse doesn't get depressed. In the brief way that I'm explaining it here, it may not sound very convincing, and it would probably make a lot more sense if you read the book, where it explains it in much more detail. However, here is a similar article that explains it in summary form:
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/root_grief

 

[Mayflower1]

self-esteem is something I think we have to deal with through out our lives. There will be low times and high times, but the best way is to remember 1 Peter 2:9

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession; so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

You are not worthless and small... you are a child of God, enemy of the devil, righteous and holy, a new creation, given the mind of Christ, a saint, part of the true vine... and God loves you and we love you hardly knowing who you are. Can't you love yourself?

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

All my life I learned to believe, from my parents and others, that I am a loser and a failure. In more recent years, when I would admit this to people, they would say to me, "Oh, don't be silly! You're not a loser! You need to change your attitude!" And that only made me feel worse, because it made me feel like my attitude is just one more thing about me that is messed up.

But this is what I've started doing now: When I get thoughts or feelings that I'm a loser or a failure, instead of saying to myself, "I'm NOT a loser! I'm NOT a loser!" (which is a losing battle), I say, "That's right! I AM a loser! I AM a failure! Because, in and of myself, I am NOTHING! I am a wicked sinner who has rebelled against God and deserves Hell! Even my own salvation is a gift from God. I am nothing great. I am merely a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. But He loves me, and He wants the best for me, and I am alive to serve Him. So it doesn't matter what people say about me, or think about me. All that matters is that I serve my Lord and Master. I am unimportant. Only HE is important. And I am to show love for others, and have compassion for their souls. Souls are dying and going to Hell every day, and I need to be about the business of telling them about Jesus, so that they might escape the terrors of Hell and gain everlasting life. We are all here to glorify God. Nothing else matters.

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I used to have hundreds of pimples on my face, and I still have scars from it. When people get 1 or 2 pimples, and say, "I can't go out! I've got this pimple on my face!" it seems so silly to me, because 1 or 2 pimples is NOTHING compared to what I used to have! Excuse me for being gross, but my sister and brothers used to call me "pus mountain." Now I can laugh about it, but in High School, when they would turn the lights off to watch a movie, that would be a gigantic relief to me, because I knew that people couldn't see my face then. When I walked in the halls, I would stay close to the wall so that they could only see half my face. When I was sitting in class and someone behind me would tap me on the shoulder to talk to me, I would quickly determine which side of my face looked worse that day, and then turn around the other direction to talk to them. So looks can definitely affect your sense of self-worth, especially in today's society of fashion models, magazines, TV, products that are supposed to make us perfect and fix all of our problems, and touched-up photos that remove any blemishes from the model.

 

[restore]

My feelings and thoughts were never treated as being valid, and in 15 minutes, he had completely destroyed everything I had just learned. I went back to feeling like a complete failure in life.

However, more recently, I read a little book by Andrew Wommack called "Low Self-Esteem: The Root of all Grief." In it, he said something that was another shocker to me:

Praise the lord for your CHANGE, and u r a big testimony now

But it is really v hard to go through those path? and I would say most people will never survive.....
I m still on the struggling path, and the mind storms and self pushing just so mixed confused like fogs in night, it blows my body , make me shaking and belt down, make me feel my head will down , and can not stand anymore,

For me, i think it is already a disease PTSD or depression. Have u also suffered those mental disease?