</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
This is related to my pet theory of self-esteem, the sociometer theory. It states that the amount of perceived social acceptance or rejection predicts one’s self-esteem level. People that can accurately read the social environment know where they stand and can make adjustments to gain more social acceptance. However, those who inaccurately perceive more social acceptance and less rejection than is actually present may be prone to narcissism, where those who inaccurately perceive less acceptance and more rejection may be prone to chronic low self-esteem and depression.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">from Will Meeks' entry in the blog today.


I grew up believing that the whole world hated me. I think I was around 19 before I realized that it was pretty grandiose to think that way because I am too insignificant for "the whole world" to care enough to hate me. I've never had any self-esteem as far as I can remember, and that's what is keeping me stuck still. I can't change because I don't have enough self-esteem to look at where I need to change without being overwhelmed with self-hate. It doesn't matter how small it it. I cant accept feedback properly whether it's positive or negative. Negative feedback feeds the self-hate and becomes overwhelming. Positive gets dismissed (at least in my head) because I don't deserve it.

I know that I need to improve my self-esteem and change the way I deal with feedback. I just don't know how. Just acknowledging the need to do that differently doesn't seem to get me anywhere.

Does anyone have any ideas? Have you been here? Has anyone managed to overcome anything like this?

Rap