Thoughts on Improving Self Esteem
 

Growing up as the fat kid and getting teased, passed over, ostrasized (sp?), etc etc - my self esteem has taken a battering.

I guess that 99% of people on this board feel the same.

Does anyone have some good suggestions on dealing with this self esteem ? Can you rebuild it ?

I was a skinny kid and people were always pointing that out. "You are sooooooo skinny". "Don't you eat?"

Until puberty hit while I was going to high school with thousands of new faces- I am very shy. I ate lunch in the cafeteria everyday; hot dogs and hamburgers and chips. The weight came on...
Nobody commented on my weight any more.

I have gone thru times when I hardly ate anything (nothing appealed to me) in high school- got skinny again in grade 11 and 12 by basically starving to death. To times where I just ate everything I wanted whenever I wanted - like this past winter.

I had a new boyfriend who liked to watch videos and eat choclate bars and chips (hes skinny) and he kept bringing choclate for me - I think he was hoping I would stay fat and never leave him. WRONG!!! I dumped him and am back on Atkins and down 4 lbs in 11 days.

I do not want to relapse on Atkins again. I won't be at goal weight for this summers beach days, but I will next summer. I have goals that are atainable.

I think you have to change to tapes that play in your head to new ones that tell you how great you are and how much good you are doing for your health. I do not want my daughter to have food related issues like I did, so I want to fix this before she gets too much older and starts to clue in about kids in grade 7 on diets ( crazy stuff!). I also don't want to be a fat mom- and a possible embarassment to her.
I also realize that over the years I thought I was fatter than I really am. Now that I have acheived the highest weight in my whole life, I can see that even when I was much slimmer I still thought I was fat (more likely chubby) which set me up for yo-yo dieting and the dreaded low fat diets that so did not help. I have years of programming to fix and losing the weight and learning to eat healthy food for life will go a long way for me.

Mae

Dave you are a good looking young man and I'm sure others have noticed this. Since you asked about self esteem this is my suggestion. Make a list of what you know to be your good points now what do you want to acomplish? Take a class that just makes you feel good. Creative writing, painting ,whatever you are intrested in. Set goals you know you can acomplish even little ones. Little steps forward are better than big ones backwards. Always remember there are others worse off than you and when you meet them give them a hand up.

i was thinking along the same lines as sandy... because you've been called names and put down for most of your life, you actually start to believe these things are true. you really need to focus on your good qualities- remind yourself everyday that you're responsible and reliable, good-hearted, smart, faithful, dependable, loyal, determined, etc, etc. make a list. as silly as it may sound. you need to convince yourself that you ARE these things- and project that person- if you can project confidence based on these things, people wont even notice your faults. self-esteem can certainly be rebuilt, you just have to learn to be a little conceited about the things your good at. and taking a class is a GREAT idea.

Do esteemable things
 

Sometimes it's just easier to act your way into better thinking than to think your way into better acting.

Act like a person who has self esteem, or at least, act like you think a person who has self esteem would act. Dress like them. Get your hair cut at their salon. Etc. But it's more than the looks--it's the daily acts that fill a life. If you HAD self-esteem, what would you do differently? Then do it.

It might take a while to stretch into a new life, but it's like yoga. Just keep doing it and the next thing you know, your hands are flat on the floor...

I too am having HUGE issues with self esteem and body image right now. A friend told me something that stuck with me...

"Your "before" is someone else's "after"" You should be proud of where you are right now and celebrate as you teavel the path.

Now I have to figure out how to actually put those wise words into practice ;)

~Michelle

I love this thread! I once read the autobiography of Dick Clark, (of American Bandstand fame), his heartfelt advice on how to overcome ANYTHING was: "Fake it, till you make it". In the case of all of us here, lets start acting like we would if we were thin, georgous, full of healthy self-esteem. One quality I think we all have, is that we all know what its like to feel "less than", giving us an edge on human kindness.

Right now I'm going to act "as if".
Please do the same:)

I cant imagine no one else has issues with self esteem!?

My self-esteem has gone up and down throughout the years. When I have felt it lower than I would like, I take action. One of the things I have done is go to a book store, look through the pyschology section at the different self-esteem books and buy one that I think will help me out. I find that different books will give me different tips that help me out and get me to where I want to be. Something to think about... :)

Self -esteem, whats that? I lost mine years ago. Got teased all through school for being fat etc. My ex went out of his way to destroy any self esteem I had left so I wouldn't leave him (didn't work, i DID lose the self esteem but i also DID leave him). I am 26 years old I have a loving husband who tells me daily how beautiful I am and i argue with him about it. I've tried acting like I had confidence and telling myself the good points but all in all it hasn't done anything. I am hoping through this life journey I am now on, losing weight and getting healthy I will also find somewhere along the way..... my self.

Do not argue with compliments
 

The only appropriate response is to say "thank you" and let it be. This will be one of the hardest things you learn how to do, and one of the most useful for self-esteem.

I'll let you in on a little secret: the thin, the beautiful, and poplular people are as insecure as the rest of us.

Seriously. I have a lot of friends in the music and fashion industry, who for all external appearances seem chic, well adjusted, and very confident. But dig a little deeper and they are no different to anyone else.

So just keep in mind that they are no better than you.

Never give anyone the permission to make you feel less about yourself.
One time a guy passed me as I was walking through the airport he turned to his girlfriend and said "If I was that big..." and laughed.
I whipped around and said "You'd what?"
He turned his head, raised an eyebrow and kept going.
Would he have owned his first house at age 20?
Would he have a lot of supportive friends?
Would he have climbed the tallest pyramid in the Americas or flown to Vegas that weekend for the hell of it?
I dunno. But I did those things.

Each of us is so much better than someone else at particular things. Mine happens to be a particular, small, unoccupied corner of the software world. Others have so many other things, so many bigger things. What slays me is the women who have children and no self-esteem. My God, you created life!!! You're wholly responsible for little people who I'm guessing haven't turned out to be demons.

Our potential to share with the world, to give back in multi-fold all the wonderful things that have been given to us, that's the center of self-esteem.

No one else has had my life experiences. No one else has conquered the demons I've conquered and the other ones I continue to fight. The 15 year old who calls me "fatass" doesn't deserve the CO2 I would expel to have the discussion with him. If someone is so small as to use the precious breath God's given us to say something nasty, bad on them. If I feel any reaction to that, it's maybe the disappointment in myself. Ah, there's the rub, right?

Remember, disappointment is nothing more than a trigger to say that we either have to adjust our expectation ("I'm just going to have to be fat, so comments like that won't bother me.") or change our method ("Guess I'm gonna have to get thinner so I won't deal with that.")

When I finally figured out to start living my life for me and that I'm the master of my Universe, my life changed. I live by the choices I've made with no regrets and no looking back. I am the man I am today because of me and I choose to like me. The responsibilities, troubles, joys and good fortunes I have are mine. I take ownership for all of it. With that knowledge and knowing all I know about myself, how can I have anything except esteem and love for me?

How can you not have anything except the same for yourself?

H (wondering how many ignore lists this will get me put on :p )

Right On
 

Heath
I really liked what you had to say.

Sandy :thup:

Heath, your story was awesome :)

As for me, I too went through the whole brutal ordeal of being tormented through elementary school which has stuck with me through the years. Even as an adult, I hear those words being taunted at me and still find myself being belittled by them.

But a trick I find that works when I am feeling particularly low is setting myself small attainable goals and then achieving them. It can be something as silly as "Today I will take out the garbage in less than 30 seconds". Then I will time myself and do it as if I were an olympic garbage-taker--out athlete. Once I achieve that ridiculously simple goal I will set a more difficult one. Throughout the day, after achieving goal after goal, I will feel myself start to swell with personal pride and able to attain goals that are far more challenging than I could have imagined I would achieve. It sounds almost comical but it truly does work for a quick self esteem fix on those days that you're feeling low. :)

Kirsten