[Argint Sekhem]

Most of the biggest factors on my depression and self esteem issues stem from myself. I'm under the impression that for some reason my mind judges my failures and insecurities far heavier than anything good I accomplish. There are a number of examples that I could provide, but more I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with mentioning at this point.

One of the few examples that I am comfortable with mentioning is that I have a really strong desire and feel for romance and have tried to prevent people that I've talked to feeling like love isn't something for them. Yet when it comes to my own life, I seem to fall back in a habit of finding excuses for why somebody wouldn't want to be in a relationship with me.

Whether I tell myself that I'm not physically attractive enough, or worthy of their social contact or even that relatively small things that I've done in the best are coming back to me through karma to keep love out of my life. In the latter, I do mean 'small things' as in really little things, like argueing with my brother when I was a small child.

The thing is, whenever I see something that could validate one of those ill construed explainations in my head, like when somebody doesn't acknowledge me greeting them when I say 'hi' in the street, it becomes a much stronger belief in my head that I am not worthy of anybody's attention or love.

This self invoked feel of inferiority has sabotaged myself from actually living a 'life' for the past eight years. During which anything decent that I accomplish, like giving support to somebody, holding down a job while juggling depression with suicidal thoughts or random acts of kindness, I see it as trivial exceptions to the rule that I am a worthless, disgusting waste of genetic material.

Somebody close to me explained the latter bit as me just being humble, but it's more the feeling that my priorities in my mind are so much different from where my priorities lay rationally. Though there are other indicators that I am judging myself completely different than how I judge others, like how I hold myself to much higher standards or how I've deprived myself of food while working and insisting that my mother and brother ate properly, it is mostly the first example I mentioned that worried me the most.

It just all leaves me with the impression that I am my own worst enemy and is one of the biggest fuels for my depression. Hopefully by posting this, I can get some sort of deeper insight or a different perspective on what's going on?

[Rohag]

Hello & Welcome, Argint Sekhem!

Several things are clear from your post.

• You have excellent self-awareness; you understand your view of life is coloured by emotions.
• You judge yourself far more harshly than situations and events warrant.
• You are deeply insecure in yourself and judge yourself unworthy of love; you have low self-esteem.
• You are irrationally tormented by the past.
• You are prone to "catastrophizing" social encounters.

Originally Posted by Argint Sekhem

This self invoked feel of inferiority has sabotaged myself from actually living a 'life' for the past eight years.

Eight years is a long time. Have you had the opportunity to explore your feelings and emotional reactions with a counsellor or therapist? Can you think of anything in your upbringing or in your life that possibly contributed to you viewing yourself so poorly?

Please keep posting.

[sconnie892]

Argint Sekhem,
Welcome. I can relate to your post in many ways.

I have a tendency to brush off or minimize accomplishments or progress I make. So much so that often if I mention them to my therapist she makes us stop and review the good that occurred. Or my therapist will give me "tools" to use and I use them for awhile, but fail to acknowledge the good they are doing. Then I give up on using them and I am right back where I started. I also have the tendency to give more weight to my failures than my successes. I tend toward perfectionism - especially in areas where I know people may judge me.

Sorry I don't have any words of wisdom other than you are not alone in what you are feeling.

[Argint Sekhem]

Thank you both for the welcome.

Sconnie892, I am happy to read that I am not the only person dealing with this, though it also leaves me with a sour taste due to the painful nature that such personality traits provide.

Rohaq, in reply to your post, I am glad that you have read through what I wrote. At times I have a tendency to keep writing and end with very long posts. Originally I was under the impression that my original post was rather long as well and thus that it would not be read.

My self-awareness is most probably sprung from dealing with this issue for such an extensive period of time. During which, I asked for help on several occasions, though only my closest friends were able to make any difference. They helped me a great deal to first learn to come to grips with my self mutilation addiction, followed with learning how to stop doing that. Similar approaches were used on my suicidal tendencies and other destructive problems. Though really helpful, the biggest of issues did not prove to be something that could be tackled with that approach.

Another person who is really close to me taught me a couple of techniques to keep a decent control over my thoughts. If even just to notice which thought patterns lead me to having these episodes and using mental arguments to oppose this self imposed doubt. It's a very handy technique when it comes to coping with it when used alongside other methods, such as meditation. Though regardless of how good they are with learning to deal with it, they aren't capable of grabbing the problem by the roots and removing it from my psyche like the mental weed that it is.

Outside that, I have not been able to find any help. Professionals have left me with a feeling of distrust for a great part of my life. Mainly because of faulty diagnoses that were given to myself, my mother's boyfriend, my grandmother, my best friend's ex-husband, my ex-girlfriend's grandfather and several other people. The aftermath of these mistakes leads to worsening all these situations to some extent, ranging from muscular issues to death.

To address the last point of your reply; during my childhood I've had to deal with a lot of bullying and social anxiety. Due to the anxiety I had difficulty reaching out for help, which made me experience the bullying a lot more intense. Some of the memories that I have of being picked on range from having a knife aimed to my throat when I something around 11 or 12, I think. As well as being pushed against brick walls when we were running laps during gym class. While not all the abuse was of such grave nature, it is mostly the biggest incidents that remain somewhat vivid in my imagination.

When I finally did start to open up to somebody, my trust got quickly betrayed, which lead to more emotional abuse until I closed myself off from everybody that I came in contact with. Having no release for this anger and negative energy it came out by turning into a severely anti-nationalistic approach to people who shared my nationality. Which is still a part of me today. While that started to surface, the depression sat in when I tried to open up again to a girl I went to school with. After she shot me down, it just escalated more and more until I dropped out of high school, which was in 2006.

I guess along the way I started to believe all the verbal abuse that was being thrown my way. My best friends managed to fix much of this damage and I honestly owe my life to them several times over again. It really is because of them that I am able to type this right now, instead of being a memory in the hearts of my loved ones. These friends are the only ones who proved to me that it's okay to open up to somebody and did not hurt me when I did. Which is something that I was unable to do with my own family, because of how badly damaged my way of thinking was, and to an extent, still is.