A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I have been wondering for a while about how my childhood may have affected how I feel about myself today. I have a lot of difficulties of social anxiety, and I always feel that I am inferior to everyone else. Even though I firmly believe in equality myself and that every person deserves respect and understanding. I can see the good in people, but not myself. I used to self harm and I have been depressed and suicidal, but have come out of this and moved on with my life. But these feelings of being a useless, inferior human being who doesn't deserve good things, like friendship, a good job etc, these feelings just won't go away. They are always there, preventing me from achieving my dreams and from feeling comfortable in my own skin, in social situations particularly. I feel like I should hide away from the world, sometimes, because I feel I will only bring problems and be a nuisence to other people. And I feel ashamed of this, I would never burdon anyone else with all of these feelings(except here, but here it is optional for people to help :) )What I am trying to get to is whether family relationships can be a root cause of this. Now, I love my parents, and I do not want to blame them for who I am, but I have been reflecting over my childhood experiences and some seem to really fit with why I feel like a bad person.The main issue was sibling rivalry. My brother was born when I was 3, nearly 4, and I can always remember being told I was jealous of him. Now as an adult, I know it is natural for older children to feel jealous of a younger sibling, and I feel it is important to help that child see that the parents still love them and to help the siblings form a bond. Now I know my parents did try this, but one thing sticks in my mind, and that is being told I was jealous and this was really, really bad. As an adult, I feel it is unfair to make a child feel their feelings are bad and wrong, when they do not understand them, as this makes them feel they are a bad child.(This seems petty now I write it)But this continued through my childhood. Any conflicts were blamed on me. Even ones that were not caused by me. I can remember 2 examples. Once my brother was crying because my dad was taking a long time to cook the food and he was hungry. My day was stressed. He though I had upset my brother. So he snapped and punched me in the face. I told my mum who basically said it was a misunderstanding and that I must have really wound him up. Even my brother backed me up on this one, because he saw it.Another time my brother was on the computer and wouldn't get off when I asked him if I could use it. He was making a paper castle, so to try to get him off the computer, I threatened to cut his castle with a craft knife. Then he flipped and stabbed me in the arm with the craft knife. On telling my mother this, she just told him to go to his room, and didn't really seem to believe that he was to blame.Basically, I think I was always blamed for any arguments or difficulties in us getting along as a family. I felt like a black sheep, looking back on it, and I was constantly told I was bad, and evil for teasing my brother, which made me resent him more, which led to me teasing him more. So my parents didn't really help us to get along at all. Also he was given pocket money, in larger amounts than I was, until the age of 17, I had a job from 13. He was always and still is give money for anything, without much question, he just has to ask. My dad has paid all his university fees and for a voluntery trip abroad, he has never had to work through university. Whereas I have worked at least part time since 13, and nthrough Uni. My dad has always begrudged giving me money. If I asked him he would question why I needed it, resist giving it to me and make me feel terrible for asking, even if it were money for a bus journey. When it came to going to Uni, I asked for help with money for accomodation, because the grant I recieved wouldn't be enough to cover it. He fought with me over it and made me feel like I was begging and didn't deserve it. SO after that I decided never to ask for money again and just worked through university instead. To save some pride I suppose. My borther has actually told me that he recognises that our dad has not treated us equally with money and that this did not help us to get along when we were growing up(we get on now, thankfully).This does all sound very petty, picky, pathetic and I am truely grateful for the positives my childhood has given me and that I have not been treated badly in other ways. I always had food, was not abused and my parents were together untill I was a teenager. I have just had these memories playing on my mind and I wondr if they could have contributed to my low self esteem issues. I was not treated badly, but I always felt like the outsider in our family. My mum has told me she thinks that my behaviour was responsible for her leaving my dad. I think I was basically blamed for all dysfunction in our family, because I was jealous of my brother. When as and adult, it is the role of the adult to educate a child about their emotions and to understand that jealousy is wasted energy. But instead I believe thay balmed me for it and saw me as evil, and troublesome. This I think has deep down, affected my self worth. I have never felt very good about myself except when I was rebelling against my parents as a teenager. But now as an adult these feelings haunt me. I would just like to know if anyone could tell me if they think my suspicians are correct? Or is low self esteem just my own fault because I am a weak human being, and it is just my personality?Thanks.
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reader, anonymous, writes (9 April 2011): Your personality is fine and you seemed like a very normal girl with very abnormal, cruel parents. This is child abuse and you will carry within you the flaws up your mom and dad until you get help, like counselling. You need help not because you are flawed or bad but because the adults who were supposed to be building up your self esteem and worth were breaking it down instead. They flagged you with their dysfunction and now you are still bearing that cross. I would go get a counsellor and take a temporary separation from both your parents. Step back and don't let them undermine your progress. The healthier and happier you get, the more they will be threatened because they need you to be the one with the problems so they don't have to point the finger inward. Your internal tape has mom and dad's voice and not your own. Our thoughts about ourselves determine how we feel in life. Get some help and change yours. You'll have to emotionally reparent yourself.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (9 April 2011): Self esteem issues do originate because of how you was treated as a child. You only experience all these negative emotions because of past experiences you had. They are not you as a person, they only exist in you. You are the person that originated before having these negative experiences. You should look up EFT which is really good for clearing out negative emotions which you attach to old memories. It can change your life.
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