Quote:
Originally Posted by bellaviolet
my dad's reaction was more damaging to me than what the neighbor did because it made me feel like what happened to me was ok, just no big deal. like i wasn't worth defending or avenging or anything. since then i've had serious self-esteem issues.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bellaviolet
to sannah... yes, horrible self-esteem still. but part of me feels like i should be able to get past it after all this time. like, i recognize the cause of it, so why can't i change it. grrrr....
i'm torn between wanting validation and feeling like a whiny brat.
my dad, who told me i was beautiful every day, and told me stories, and bragged to his friends about how smart and talented i was. it made me feel like he was a fraud somehow. like all the good stuff was just a bunch of crap.
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Bella, recognizing the cause of the low self-esteem is the first step but not the only step. You haven't worked through this issue yet either. Working through this will help I would think. Improving your self esteem is a step by step process and everyone is different.
I can see how your father's actions would make you feel worthless. Now your siblings arent' validating how it hurt you. I would think that this would just compound your feelings of worthlessness because they cannot see how it affected you. I can see how this would all keep your self esteem low.
You cannot change your siblings or change the past of course. What helped me was to reconcile how I was treated by my mom (which never changed and which left me with low self worth). Your situation is different, everyone's is, but I think that you can reconcile this in your mind. Some families just don't outwardly value any member in it very much (they never learned that each individual is precious). They learned this because how they were treated. If no one in your family was taught that people are precious how would they have ever learned it? Because they never learned to really appreciate others, this doesn't mean that no one was precious in your family...........???????????????? So, you were treated as less than precious concerning this one issue but this in no way means that you are not precious..........