How does one acquire low self-esteem?

It comes from youth, yet persists throughout adolescence and adulthood. the early experiences are very important and lay the foundation for your self-esteem later on in life. I can’t say how to correct it, because I suffer from it myself. I blame alot of it on my school environment and experiences in grammar school.

I don’t think you can inherit self-esteem. It’s based on your impression of yourself, and that doesn’t seem like something you can pass on. You can inherit physical and behavioral traits that may contribute to self-esteem issues, however (certain physical features you may be embarrassed about, a shy or antisocial nature, etc).

Self-esteem, in my opinion, comes from life experiences and the way a person is raised. If a family is extremely supportive and encouraging, the child may not have the same self-esteem issues as a person with parents who constantly berate them. Non-confrontational or shy people may not be able to handle the same level of verbal assault given by peers (because it happens to everyone) that a more outgoing or confrontational person might. People who are closest to you, like close childhood friends or significant others, can vastly impact self-esteem based on how they treat you.

Yet, sometimes an non-supportive upbringing and bad life experiences can inversely affect self-esteem. I have a friend whose family is not supportive at all, on the verge of verbally and emotionally abusive, and yet she has worked through it and remains one of the most confident people I know. She has explained to me that without certain negative experiences in life, she would have remained the shy and self-conscious person she was as a child.

Self-esteem is based in early life experiences, but it’s also highly affected by how you choose to deal with these experiences.

This is just my guess – but I think there is a genetic pre-disposition to poor self-esteem that having good or bad parents/adult role-models as a child will greatly influence. In our three kids we have 2 extroverts and one introvert.
One of the extroverted children is so easy going it’s like he’s a duck—he literally lets stuff just roll off his back.. so content and secure in his place in the world, and truly it’s as if he was born that way.

The introverted daughter, who reminds me very much of myself at her age, (introverted, a bit anxious, perhaps a bit OCD) has her father and I a bit worried about her having a healthy sense of self worth.
What she has going for her that I did not at her age is a wonderful, loving and supportive father who is very actively involved in her daily life and boosts her self-esteem. She is quite a daddy’s girl…and I think she is doing really well thanks to good teachers and our constant support.

I think my own somewhat absent father may have been part of the reason I earlier struggled with poor self-esteem in some areas (especially in the male/female relationship department) in my late teens/early 20s.

I also had teachers who, to this day, are memorable not for what they taught but for how they treated me. I had an algebra teacher who once threw an eraser at me and called me stupid (at age 14 when everything feels so cringe worthy) – and I directly trace my dislike of math from that point onward.
I had a Government teacher who praised my writing in front of a class…and guess what I majored in when I went to University? (Political Science, essentially).

I think adults should never underestimate the power of words/actions when interacting with kids. I point out positive traits in every Girl Scout I work with for this reason.

I think @ParaParaYukiko‘s last sentence comes pretty close to my thinking. I think it does have to do with life experiences, but I think it’s also something to do with how your support system teaches you to deal with the bad experiences. If they teach positive ways of dealing with failure then low self esteem is less likely to occur.

Never being good enough for whoever is evaluating you.

Life. People always putting you down; or people being cold and insensitive to your feelings. Picking on you, being rude, etc.

Didn’t have a solid foundation to begin with—parents may have been neglectful or somewhat abusive; didn’t have the best homelife, moved a lot, felt left out, etc.

Maybe even genetics or family history. Mother, father or someone else may have had depression or not the best self esteem and so on.
——
I think that those are some factors. All in all I like myself and had a good home life, but didn’t have self esteem issues until people started giving me harsh opinions about myself. Mix that in with being sensitive already.

Expectations of what we should be are acquired from many sources: parents, educators, our peers, the culture at large. Some of that is healthy, but when those ideals are reinforced by the experience that we won’t be fully accepted unless we meet those expectations, then we tend to internalize that way of thinking. We come to feel that to be loved, even by one’s self, that one has to meet whatever standard of worthiness we acquired from our mentors.

It’s not high standards that are the problem. It’s the message that one isn’t worthy of acceptance and love unless those standards are met.

Some people are naturally more resilient and somehow they realize, even as children, how to emotionally take care of themselves regardless of how they’re treated, like @ParaParaYukiko‘s friend. Some people don’t have a clue until they’re older, and some never do, with or without help.

I saw enough people in group therapy who’d been dealing with the same self-loathing issues for 40–50 years, and nothing had changed.

I know for me, I was a different person in my BM’s house than I was with my guardian. I was much more emotionally resilient with my BM, even considering her husband and brother-in-law’s abuse, than I was with my guardian. At some early point, like 5 or 6, I asserted myself the same way with my guardian and she beat the tar out of me for daring to stand up to her. I decided to believe then that if I was too “me”, she’d destroy me, and that if that’s what she wanted to do, then “I” must be an awful person for making her so angry. It took me years to understand that how I feel about myself need have nothing to do with how I was treated or spoken to by other people.

What’s sad is that children don’t understand that the decisions they make and the beliefs they form about themselves at such young ages can impact their entire lives for better or worse, that it’s their thoughts and beliefs, and not anyone else’s, that determine how they treat themselves. How can they?

So, how do we empower kids to realize this and help themselves?

ALSO focusing on the negative a lot can help you bring yourself down even more since i cant edit my response again

I was thinking genetics don’t play a role, but then I thought of a family I know fairly well and the males in the family have tended to have problems with depression and several of them have committed suicide. This has been the case with 5 generations that I know of. The family is very successful, great members of the community, active socially, but for some reason the men have to deal with depression. So maybe there is some genetic aspect.

In my experience with peoples low self esteem I have observed the compulsion to keep doing/behaving in ways that keep promoting an endless cycle of such.

The key to self esteem is to become as self aware as possible, examine and refute untrue beliefs about self and to pay close attention to ones own integrity.

Most people with low self esteem are so defended they cannot see or admit to their own contributions to their condition.

A good example is an ex friend of mine who was always projecting that others ‘made’ her feel a certain way.

She was completely unable to see that what she perceived as coming from another was really just an activation of what was already there.

She would say a date with a certain man made her feel ‘cheap’ but failed to connect the dots with all the things she DID to cheapen herself.

He didn’t ‘make’ her feel cheap, he just activated the cheapness she had done to herself many times over in her dysfunctional pursuit or relationship. lol

The biggest problem with low self esteem is it is a self fulfilling prophecy, unless one is able to see that they are truly their own worst enemy they will continue to set things up in a manner which keeps the self sabbotage in motion.

If I want to lose 10 lbs. I am not going to do it eatng donuts for dinner and then blaming the donuts.

The equation for low self esteem would read something like this….

Low SE = gross insecurity = hypersensitivity = distorted perceptions = inability to self reflect in truth = continuing to behave in ways that are self sabbotaging all the while feeling victimized from the ‘outside.’

Not a happy way to live.

Ultimately it’s as innate as your personality. You are born with it. Life has an effect, the people around have effects, but they were affecting something – your level of esteem.

Some are born with it low, some high. Most are right in the middle. Life causes us to adjust.

You are not born with low self’esteem, this is an insane notion to me! It can come from many different sources and generates form general disrespect from others (parents, bullies teachers, ect.). Alot can come from school. Teachers get a picture in thier head of how things should be and if kids do not fit that cookie cutter mold , they are treated with intense disrespect. Sit at a school/daycare for a couple of days w/out the staff knowing and just see what happens.
I was let go from a daycare once because I complained 3 times in one week about the way the lady was talking to the 2 year old babies; telling them to “shut up & sit down”, and I could hear her before I even got to the door! But this is the way all schools and daycares that I have been a part of conduct business and I only got myself in trouble by suggesting that, “if someone was talking to your kid that way…..” The workers ALWAYS try to act like it is just perfect when the parent is around or teachers imply there is an issue with the student.
So I believe this can start as early as being a baby. So with that said, how does a 2 year old react to a situation they are stuck in?
As a child adults were always the ones who made me feel insignificant, and the children who are mean just learn form the adults.

My question about genetics is because we are finding so many personality traits are partially, at least, genetically determined. I believe it may be found that there is a component here too.

@janbb I believe there is a genetic component. Me and my wife have been nothing but supportive of my son and yet he sounds exactly like me in response to praise. He just doesn’t believe it.

It is very possible that he has been following my example, but I think there is more than that. Anyway, neither of us seem to be able to stand the thought that we might be good at something in other people’s minds. We want that too much. We can’t depend on it, so we have to deny it. Maybe. Just a theory.

My father was the same. Never thought he’d be good enough. Always wanted to be, but was never good enough (good enough meant winning a Nobel Prize). I remember him talking about this when I was a boy. He would also tell this story about me quite often. Well, I thought it was about me until my therapist said it was about him.

He had a dream when I was born. He saw a cradle with a sign on it. He bent down to see the sign. It said, “genius.” He would always tell this story at family gatherings and it was always clear that he thought I hadn’t matched up to the sign.

For most of my life, I thought that if I wasn’t a genius, I was a failure. I’m smart, but I’m not that smart. It is very difficult to change one’s thinking about that. At least, I’ve found it very difficult. The best I can do is to not think about it. Although, now I think it’s just a myth—a rather ridiculous one, too. My life has nothing to do with how smart I may or may not be, nor with what I do or do not do.

Then again, maybe that’s why praise makes me so uncomfortable. It reminds me of this myth. Maybe low self esteem is just something we pass along through stories. But I think it’s stronger than that. I think there is a genetic predisposition towards low self-esteem. There may even be a good reason for it. Maybe it pushes you and pushes you all your life because you are never happy with what you have done.

@janbb & @wundayatta dont get me wrong you bring some good points, it is very possible that our brains are genetically programmed as to how we deal with things. But the things that happen are outside influences and have everything to do with who is around and how they act toward you, especially as a small child growing up.

I think it’s a matter of practice. However much time you spend alive you are constantly practicing, constantly training yourself. The people we are today are the people we’ve trained ourselves to become.

A person who practices to avoid failure and embarrassment by avoiding effort is a person with low self esteem. Why? Because they’re experienced effort-in-spite-of-risk avoiders. They never fail because they never try. They have few memories of ever overcoming risk with successful effort and many memories of avoiding risk.

A person who practices effort in spite of the risk of failure is a person with high self-esteem. Why? Because they’re experienced at risk taking. They fail often, they’re used to it, it doesn’t bother them and from their efforts they’ve grown accustomed to the success that comes after failure. They have a head filled with many memories of success and overcoming the risk of failure with effort.

The ultimate difference is what you remember. A person with confidence is a person who remembers the successes that come after the risk of failure is neglected. A person without confidence is a person who remembers only the many risks they’ve avoided.

I think it comes from the conditioning received in childhood. In my particular case it was my parent’s constant “Don’t be stupid!” every time I said something that was of importance to me.

I believe that how we view ourselves in adulthood comes from how we were viewed in childhood. If children are encouraged and given respect when growing up then they will have self esteem. If they are neglected or put down as children then they will have low self esteem no matter how successful they are in life.

To add to my comment above, I’m not opposed to the idea that many share that it comes from childhood. That’s where, I believe, the practice begins. Many years of practice as a crushed child would reap predictable low self esteem effects.

However, I don’t like the idea that you’re somehow stuck that way. Yes, you may have been born into a circumstance that forced you to get more practice as a low self esteem type of person. But once you know that, I believe all one needs is practice to counteract that training. It takes time and effort to retrain yourself but it can be done. One simply has to get started putting the time in to overcome the years of negative training.

I think change can come about fairly quickly but the longer you live with the new memories the more they help. So, emphasis on getting started sooner rather than later.

@ninjacolin, no one here is saying that people have to remain stuck. But no one can do everything alone. People need help. Not everyone is inborn with the ability to suddenly realize at 14 or 16, “Hey, I don’t have to be so emotionally dependent on my parents or other adults anymore. I am enough! And they’re wrong for calling me stupid!”

If you’re a kid and you don’t realize that the grown-ups you’ve depended on for survival and guidance for your entire life up are wrong for putting you down, then that’s where the problem comes in. Most people don’t figure it out until something in their lives goes really wrong.

So it’s up to those of us who know how hard it can be to overcome these things as adults to help those suffering around us, including kids we see along the way. Everyone is responsible for doing their own healing work, yes, but we can listen and support people’s efforts to change old patterns of thinking.

@ninjacolin I agree that you’re not stuck that way – my self esteem has improved a lot but it’s taken me 40 years and it still needs to improve.

@aprilsimnel, I did say: “I don’t like the idea that you’re somehow stuck that way.”

But that wasn’t meant to be read as an accusation, promise. I was just generally warning against the danger of thinking you’re stuck the way you are. :)

Mine comes from years of practice, in fact, I trained for it since birth. I also watched my mother. Seemingly confident; yet very low self-esteem.

I’m breaking the cycle. I do different things, I don’t surround myself with family members that bring me down. I still am there for them, but I don’t spend as much time with them.

@ninjacolin – Aw, all right then! ‘S all good.

I think it stems from having too high expectations for oneself and being a perfectionist. There is also a lack of empathy and probably a great deal of narcissism. As we train ourselves to observe the world around us, we gain empathy and lose narcissism.

@YARNLADY

Well said!

Perfectionism is a killer in more ways than one.

Sometimes drug use causes low self esteem.

One acquires low self-esteem through the practice of negative thinking.

I would suggest buying a copy of Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way by Rick Carson.

Hurt feelings and humiliation.