[siempre nada]

How do you build confidence and the ability to love yourself? I always hear "you can't expect someone to love you if you don't love yourself", and now I've realized the heavy truth in that statement. All of my relationships with others have been strained because of my low self esteem and self hatred. I find myself wondering why people talk to me at all, being so unfit for conversation, to look at, or be around in general. These realtionships become so awkward that I end up antisocial and bitter because of my inability to communicate with others without looking like the loser/fool/creep that I feel that I am inside. I do know that many of my problems would dissapear if I could learn to love myself, but I don't know how. Where do i start? Any tips from people who have felt what I do now?

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by siempre nada

How do you build confidence and the ability to love yourself?

Stay here on Psych Central and soak up the love and support you get here.

[NuckingFutz]

At the bottom of the forum list is a forum on self-esteem. Many of us did not have good role models to teach us to have a healthy self-esteem. That is really sad because we have to "book learn" a behavior that is natural for our spiecies to thrive. The whole situation got turned around somehow.

[Perna]

Feel sorry for the "loser/fool/creep" and talk to him yourself. All he has is you. Practice helping and encouraging him and doing things together and you'll realize he's not that bad :-)

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2009/15-...e-distortions/
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sel...9/METHOD=print

[lynn P.]

Hi siempre nada - I read your 'about me' on your profile and I see you're young. I think it's possible to learn confidence and increase your self esteem. I was very shy as a child and had trouble with confidence. I also found my confidence improves greatly as i got older. Try to expose yourself to various social situations so you can practice. Surround yourself with nice people who aren't judgemental and don't care about the ones who are. Rehearse in your mind before a social gathering and just be yourself.

I often talk about this Iraqi war veteran who was severely burned in a bomb blast. He's severely disfigured, with no hair, no ears and severely stretched skin. Too most people he's very unattractive perhaps even hideous to some. When I saw his interview within minutes, I was oblivious to his disfigurement - his personality was so nice and he had intense charisma. His eyes were beautiful and he had a great smile. He even acted on a famous soap opera. So the moral of this story is, you don't have to be perfect is order to be received well, by the right people. Accent the best things about yourself and just be a nice, person - don't listen to your critical inner voice. Good luck

[shezbut]

siempre nada,

I have struggled with that throughout my life as well.

One thing that happened recently is allowing myself to fully express my feelings towards myself in T. No one ever wants to hear the words that were coming out of my mouth, and a lot of feelings get stuffed away. Kind of invigorating to say, " I HATE myself. I am ugly. I am stupid. I suck..." My T allowed ther words, and feelings to expressed, but he also followed with q's to understand my perspective a little better.

Knowing how I feel, my T is better-able to forsee patterns. He also reminds me that I will keep going on with my life, despite the self-hate, because there are good things that I experience too. Allow those negative feelings and thoughts to come, but don't allow yourself to become overwhelmed and stuck in that frame of mind. Because those good times will come back again. It's just a matter of time.

Hope that helps you feel a little bit better. You can hate yourself sometimes, but don't focus on that thought. Just let it go down the track, and onto the next thought and emotion/s. Very best wishes!

[purple_fins]

I think what others have posted to you is very good advice/ideas.

I'm sorry you feel so low about yourself

It's up to you, as I do like it-- but-- ummmm... well your screen name could maybe hold you down too-- as a reminder of how your rate-- siempre nada(always nothing)....... maybe-- "siempre algo"(always something) would help lift you up?? just an idea....

wishing you peace and sunshine

fins

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by siempre nada

How do you build confidence and the ability to love yourself?

I say you had them to begin with and still do, but other stuff gets in the way for you. For instance:

I end up antisocial and bitter because of my inability to communicate with others without looking like the loser/fool/creep that I feel that I am inside.

I've found that the harder I try not to look like a loser, fool, or creep the more I end up acting like one. See if you can focus on whatever's up for you to say or do; say or do it the best way you know how; and let what you "look like" take care of itself.

I always hear "you can't expect someone to love you if you don't love yourself"

For me it was more like "Don't show the doggie you're afraid or it'll come over and bite you." For Ray Charles it was, "Them that's got is them that gets -- and I ain't got nothin' yet." Advice best ignored, I call it.

Keep doing what it would be OK to love yourself for. Then do it some more. Isn't that exactly what you'd want to do if you did love yourself?

Good luck, siempre!

[spider__]

Here are a few things I've learned about confidence and the lack of it:

What you have is your uniqueness. No-one else looks, talks, moves, sounds just like you. You can be open, alert, animated and free to be yourself or you can be quiet, subdued, motionless and silent. You have a choice. Watching someone animated and bright, expressing themselves freely and happily is to watch something special, a person manifesting him/herself. That person is probably very interesting and attractive to others, if she/he doesn't hide their light under a bushel.

You might have blue eyes and wanted brown eyes. Your hair might not be the colour or type you wanted, and so on. But there are people out there who love your hair and eye colour. They might not say so, because people don't tend to comment on these things, but those things you see as ugly or uninteresting are interesting to someone. I always wanted to have blue eyes, thought they were so striking and pretty, then I met someone who loved my brown eyes enough to say so ... then I remembered others had commented on them in the past, noticed them, mentioned how dark they were. I was stunned to realise that this feature I thought boring was of interest to some. The moral of this story is that you can be pretty sure people are not thinking about you the way you think they are.

You might not realise this, but someone, somewhere wants the talents you have, those talents you probably take for granted. They are special and unique to you. Don't assume they are valueless.

People will want to spend more time with you and be closer when they realise you are happy with that. The more withdrawn and cool you are with them, the more afraid they will be of taking a risk to get closer to you. Other people fear rejection too and you have the power to reject them. Let them know you are open to them and want to get to know them and you'll be surprised what happens.

Those 'it' people who you think are so great and attractive that you don't bother with them because you think they wouldn't be interested ... well, they are probably wondering if anyone is going to talk to them. If you are cool or uninterested in them, as a form of self-defence because of your shyness, they will think you don't like them. Be warm and friendly, talk to them, make sure they know you like them at least enough to have a brief chat with. Strangely enough, the 'in crowd' also need to feel loved.

We spend most of our lives following rules. Rules are there for a reason, of course, but some pertaining to our personal lives are rubbish. Why shouldn't you risk rejection in order to get talking to that girl/guy? Because they might say no? So what? Life is short and about being daring and breaking the rules. Be proud of yourself for being the exciting person you can be. Look at the rules and think whether they are relevant to you. I'm not talking about a law-breaking issue here, but those petty rules that people set up for puritanical reasons. (I love Paulo Nutini's lyrics "Who are you answering to?") Why can't you tell someone you like them? Why can't you get chatting to that person at the bus-stop or in the shop, just because it's not the done thing? If they reject you, well at least you can congratulate yourself for living life in the moment. When you are older and can no longer do these things, what will you regret? Take emotional risks while you can. Re-evaluate every rule and decide which rules are good for your soul and which aren't. It should give you a fresh look on everything.

Finally, decide what you need from friends, what qualities you like and admire, how you want them to treat you, then choose your friends accordingly. Do not involve yourself with people who don't treat you well. This should give you a baseline for relationships and will help you to realise you are selecting friends too; it's not just the other way round.

Some thoughts for the day!

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by spider__

You might not realise this, but someone, somewhere wants the talents you have...

The question is, where are they???

Darn! There is always a catch.