I dont believe self-esteem takes ignorance... For me, I had to learn to love myself, all of me... That meant getting to know me, in essence and me as a byproduct of bipolar. I've always been intensely self-aware, but my initial awareness led to a subconcious self-loathing, and that destroyed my self-esteem before I ever really developed any.I do believe that knowledge is power, but it depends on how its applied. Wasnt easy, its still a WIP...

I'm not invalidating your struggle, just sharing my POV