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How to deal with low self esteem?
So I have really really low self-esteem to the point where when someone calls me pretty (which is very very rare) I never believe them. The only people that really compliment me are my parents and it's never about my face it's always about how curvy my body is, which is annoying. So basically growing up I've never thought I was pretty at all, my elementary school was kindergarten to grade 8 so I went to a school with the same judgemental people all my life. I remember in grade 3 this guy would always make fun of me and you know the saying "if someone makes fun of you they have a crush on you" but this wasn't the case it was flat out bullying. In grade 5 I remember this other guy said his brother said I looked like a man. In grade 6 I remember one of my best guy friends saying my lips were too big. That same year a boy finally had a crush on me but then this girl who I thought was my friend basically filled his head up with nonsense about me and made him dislike me. Fast forward to high school those same judgemental people now go to my high school. If you've read my previous questions you'd know I have this friend who is always talking about my appearance she's always making sly comments like in grade 9 she said that "you're so lucky you're not popular cause if you were I'd hear the boys saying you're so ugly", in grade 10 she told me she can imagine me with longer hair and makeup. Also that same year she had a boyfriend and my other friend made a joke saying that me, Chrissy and marissa were gonna steal her boyfriend and she said and I quote "I understand if marissa was gonna steal my boyfriend cause she's pretty" basically indicating that me and Chrissy were ugly. Also in grade 10 this boy had a crush on my friend and his friend made a joke saying that if he can't get with my friend he can get with me, he got so offended and repulsed he was like "chill....Let's not go that far". In grade 11 I was minding my own business talking to my friends when this boy just randomly called me "burst" which is slang for ugly. Then in summer school while I was walking past by these group of boys this one boy joked with his friend and said "hey that's your girl" and then he said "ew wtf man" and they all started laughing. I've never had a boyfriend my whole high school career or any guy friends either cause everyone at my school is superficial if you're pretty guys will automatically want to at least get to know you but if you're ugly like me you have to try talk to them yourselves and 8 times out of 10 if you're ugly then they won't really acknowledge you unless they wanna make everyone aware that you're ugly like that one guy did when I was minding my own business. Grade 12 just started so I don't know what it has in store but these are some of the factors that impacted my low self esteem it's so low that whenever an adult gives me a lecture on how I'm pretty I just bawl out and start crying because I know it's not true. Also if you've read up to here can you also give me tips on how to stop being so nice cause now everyone is taking advantage of me, like I'm so nice that one time a girl sneezed on my hand and I didn't say anything cause I didn't want her to feel bad.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
If looking for a way to get over being of low self esteem, there are two area's to pay attention to.
1. Your thoughts 2. Lack of confidence
Human naturally think negative or distorted thoughts more often than positive ones. I've found also that for say every one negative thought, you need more than just one positive thought to cancel it out, more like 5 or 6, maybe for some, a dozen. So the more we allow ourselves to dwell on negative thoughts, there more we become over run by them. This can easily pertain to how you view yourself in looks, personality, etc and feeling like you don't match up. Kids in HS haven't even begun to understand this yet and I was there too at that age, worried about being liked and what others thought of me.
Along with low self esteem there is low self confidence. Funny thing about self confidence, it is something our subconscious mind picks up on, like vibes that emanate from other people. So there is behaviour and mannerisms that give us a clue that a person may be no fun to know, or high maintenance, like unable to look others in the eye, always hanging their head, trying to avoid people, hide in a dark corner of a room and have problems verbalizing our feelings, believes and setting rules. In tests done with adult men who were placed in a room with different types of women, they seemed to more often go for the ones with high self confidence rather than the beauty queen who was high maintenance and low self esteem. In explanation, they found the average woman with self confidence to be sexier than the ones without. After reading that, I did my own experiment. It really works, so here's what you can try. Think of a famous actress you admire, someone hot and gorgeous, and pick one where you may have something a little in common with, same bone structure, same body size, same shape of eyes, same hair cut, same nose or mouth. Just one thing will do the trick for this mind exercise. I did this with my eyes and Sophia Loren, an actress you probably wouldn;t know of from the past. Because of the eyes, I thought of them as my best feature and imagined myself as looking like Sophia and getting the same attention and reaction everywhere i went once I stepped out of the house. Before entering the grocery, the bar, the store, going to the park, I would close my eyes and visualize myself entering a room looking like her. The results were tremendous!!! I am not kidding you dear and I was in my 40s when I tried this. People would stop me and mention that I had the most beautiful eyes they'd ever seen, both men and women! I got compliments even if my ex husband was with me. It felt so surreal like I was someone being pranked on a TV show with a hidden camera. Did my eyes change from before my little test. No, they looked the same. So why did people notice me now? Simply one thing, self confidence which isn't something tangible that can be touched or seen, but peoples sub conscious minds can pick up on. I borrowed self confidence from an actress to start out, but once you've received enough compliments and choose to believe them because in truth, people are only seeing you, not the actress, then you can continue on with your own self confidence in being an attractive women that turns the head of men who are not available, and spurs others to approach you, and fills the dreams of all.
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Honestly I felt like I was reading my diary reading your question, I've had the same problem since I was a kid, and people would say stuff like that to me too. Just lately I've been really realizing I will never be any prettier, and feeling sorry for myself won't help. I try to pretend I have a high self esteem, just things like having good posture make you seem and feel more confident. Also, I think of the person that I think is beautiful, like a celebrity, and pretend I look like them.
There's this one girl who is so popular at my school, all the guys think she's so hot, and even I admit, even though I don't like her that much, I think she's so hot, she acts like she's the hottest thing ever and knows it, but actually when I look at her closely, she's actually not pretty at all, and she really doesn't have a nice body, but the way she acts, I'm so jealous of her! So just acting like your hot and confident can actually make you seem hot and confident.
Seriously, I am so sorry with what you're going through, I feel exactly like you; just people looking at me makes me feel so ugly, sometimes I would stay home from school because I didn't want to show my face at all. But we really just have to get over it because we can't change how we were made. My heart goes out to you and I will pray for you and hope that you can see how valuable you are because you are just as valuable as any other person, pretty or ugly :)
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In your question "Everyone is in a relationship but me?" I advised on how to make lasting friends. This is still good advice. The people you are going to school with today will be by next fall, for the most part, taking off for the four corners of the world as they begin the next phase of their life and college as you will. For the most part you will probably never see most or all of them again.
Of all the kids I went to school with I stay in touch with two or three and mostly on Facebook. We are spread out up and down the East Coast and unless one of then had an accident on I95 in the area my fire station protects, while I was on, duty there was little chance of us ever seeing each other again.
What I'm saying is while I know it is hard to hear the insults and to put up with the bullying; just ignore them. Become a duck and let whatever it is said just roll of your back. If they don't get the response they are looking for they will stop.
Now as to beauty. There are two old sayings that are appropriate.
1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
2. Beauty is only skin Deep.
Number 2 is the most important one to remember. Your say that you have a curvy body but are not a facial beauty. First I don't really believe that for there are things you can not do to enhance what you have if you wish to. Second in high school kids are very shallow and most will not look past the beauty that is only skin deep. Yet you write that these same kids are not afraid to come to you for help with other things which tells me they are well aware of the beauty you have that lies just below the skin.
One girl said that she could see you with longer hair and makeup. Okay maybe she is right longer hair and make up may change the way you look. The problem is that you may feel that this look is not you, that it is false.
The very first thing a psychologist will tell you in raising self-esteem is to accept who you are and make the best of what you have. As a teenager with peer pressure that's hard and it is understandable but you should try. Remember this and this has stood me well all my life. It is a quote I made for myself or a motto I made for me. The only person I have to be better than is to be a better person tomorrow than the person I am today. Meaning it matters not what anyone else says or does. If I can be a better person tomorrow than I am today then I have learned something and I have grown. This motto kept me at the top of the sales chart my entire sales career.
You might also want to talk with a psychologist it can't hurt and can only help. as the psychologist is you new best friend you can tell anything and everything to knowing know one will ever know what was spoken about and he or she may just have some valuable help to offer you. If you
parents have health insurance through work then thy may have a program called EAP which is Employee Assistance Program. This program will help you find a psychologist and in may programs will pay in full for the first visits.
If you have had something against the suggestion of changing your hair style or using makeup. Talking to a disinterested third party such as a psychologist just may be informative. It can only help .
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I'd like to quote a Chinese philosopher who said, "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
Read it again, and again and understand those words. Every person has their own opinion of what is pretty and what isn't and so some (childish) people say you are ugly but this is just their opinion (and lets not forget here you are dealing with childish immature people here) and just because they think this of you it doesn't make it true and nor does it mean everyone thinks this way.
I will tell you something honestly which has happen to me a number of times when I have been out with friends at a club or bar. I have had a couple of friends turn to each other and comment after seeing a couple say how could he/she be with that person they are so ugly and out of their partners league. This kind of narrow minded thinking always annoys me. And I usually have to explain that just because they think one of those persons is ugly it doesn't mean the person they are with thinks this way, the person they are with sees beauty in them that they clearly cant see.
I don't get many compliments at all on my looks (I actually can't recall the last time I had) and if I do it's always about how I have a great personality. But there are times I have looked in the mirror and thought to myself, "I'm not really that bad at all - so to hell with what people think!" I've always believed that there is no such thing as an ugly person. How a person looks is all down to perspective. One person can find someone attractive and another can find that same person not so attractive at all. This doesn't make them ugly it just means they are not attracted to them because they are not their preference (sometimes this comes down to something so minor as the colour of the persons eyes, their height, hair colour, their style of dressing or other things - the list is endless).
Ignore what these other kids are saying - they say all this stuff to make themselves feel like they are better than you or more important than you but reality is that they are not. Have some confidence in yourself - just try it. :) You'll see how much a difference it will make because when you have that confidence it shows like a glow around you to others around you and yes you will come across many opinionated and marrow minded people (especially at your age - this is just down to them being immature so is unavoidable) but you'll find not everyone is like this. Just have some confidence in yourself. As for how not to be so nice, there's nothing wrong with being nice (its a rare thing in my opinion in the world today) so be yourself and be nice but at the same time also be assertive too, show confidence in yourself so people know that they can't just take advantage of your kindness by walking all over you. You have a voice and that voice gives you all the power you could ever need to stop people from walking all over you - use it.
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