Have you ever been so insecure that it affected your life?

I’ve always figured if you don’t like the way I look screw you. There’s something like seven billion people in the world. I should be able to find one that likes how I look. And you know what? When I don’t care (within reason obviously) neither do they.

Two times in my life. I was a German Catholic in a 95% Jewish High School and was labeled the Nazi for 3½ years of my life…never fit in there and I also had braces for a good portion of that time. It didn’t really affect me but I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

@Mandeblind Please try not to fixate on things. There’s always another angle. Did you hear the one about the baby born without any ears? The family was heading to the hospital to see the mother and the baby, and they told little Johnny not to say a word about the baby’s ears. They get to the room and they’re all looking in the crib. Johnny pipes up and says “How are his eyes?” The mother says just fine why do you ask? Johnny says “Well he sure as hell isn’t going to be wearing glasses”.

Yesterday I bought a new cell phone.
The people at Verizon are taught to come out from behind the counter, and have a more personal contact with the customers. I had to ask the employee not to do that, and to go back behind the counter, because I was having proximity anxiety at the time. People trying to stand too close to me were freaking me out, and it didn’t matter that she was very pretty.

Yes. The first 40 years of my life were marred by low self-esteem. I was verbally and sexually abused as a child, and thus believed myself to be the lowest life form on the planet. There was no one in my life – even in childhood – who had given me a sense of being loved and accepted for who I am. I made many poor decisions because of this and was extremely miserable.

At some point it dawned on me that I was letting my perpetrator win by continuing to be a victim. I made a conscious effect to focus on what was good in my life and the world, and the positive things I had accomplished despite him and myself. I stopped defining by the way some people had treated me and stopped my wishful thinking; and in that regard, I let go of the unchangeable past. I took accountability for the choices I make in the here and now and made a point to consider my future, rather than my past, when making decisions. I learned to accept and forgive myself for the mistakes of my past, and eventually learned to like and even love myself as a flawed human being.

No one is perfect, and no one should place unrealistic expectations on themselves or others. We don’t get to choose when and where and into what family we are born. We don’t get to choose our DNA, or the environment in which we spend our ‘formative’ years. But once we reach an age where we have some degree of autonomy, we do get to choose what to do with what we have been given to work with; what lessons from earlier years are valuable, and which are harmful or useless to the person we intend to be.

For a long time my insecurity affected my dating life. I’d figure it wasn’t even worthwhile asking a girl out or that I’d get shot down if I tried having sex with her.

It’s a bit disheartening to be told 20 or 30 years later, ” I wish you’d asked me out” or “I really wanted to have sex with you.”

Yes. My youthful fears and insecurities led me to marry really young to an abusive narcissist because I was unsure how to proceed with my life at the tender age of 21.
I overlooked a lot of red flags because I was hell bent on having a family and living my dream, except I chose the wrong person to make that a reality.
I then spent the next 22 years in a co-dependent marriage trying to create the relationship I always wanted with an untrustworthy, controlling, personality disordered man that would never be capable of true intimacy.

Hard lessons learned and choices that are still effecting me in the present moment on a financial level after initiating a mid-life divorce in 2003. I have no regrets other than the fact that I am screwed financially and will be forever at this stage of the game. I really like who I am as a person but the cold, hard reality is that I am going into my older middle age and old age with zero financial security which brings up a lot of present moment insecurity.
I really like who I am as a person, but looking into a frightening future of insolvency is terrifying.

Save your soul end up a bag lady. lol

Over my lifetime I’ve suffered countless bouts of insecurity, both brief, lengthy and also repeatedly, in every aspect of my life. My insecurities undoubtedly affected my life, though how, for good or for ill, can be I know? Perhaps I would be a published novelist or playwright or newspaper columnist had I not been so self-doubting I could write one. Perhaps I would be an acclaimed stage actor had I not been so afraid to continue taking classes and auditioning. Perhaps I would have found a lifelong partner had not been so shy about approaching women whom I too often felt were “out of my league.” Perhaps I would be a greater success in my career had I not been so reticent to go out on own, or to ask for positions and raises I believed I deserved. Perhaps I would have a more secure financial future had I not been so timid about investing.

Or… who knows? ... had I NOT been so insecure or reluctant or timid or afraid in some of those instances, perhaps I would be less okay about how my life has turned out than I am today.

I’m insecure about loads of things. I put it down to a few things, past abuse and lack of self concept. I found the best cure was to develop a very successful career. I put all my energies and insecurities into that. Currently, I have bugger all, no career, no money, nothing. I feel like an oxygen stealing blob to be honest. So, I have put all my sense of self worth on my appearance with is dodgy at my age.

I do know though, I have a true fighting spirit and this is a learning curve for me. Fifty one is a tough age!! particularly when you do not feel secure financially, but hey! Life is an adventure. I’d rather be breaking the bank and making mistakes then counting daisies as they grow.