no self-esteem

[wanderer]

hey everyone, i've been on the site for a while and now i'm back to seek its comforts again.

 

i've always had very low self-confidence and low self esteem, but the past few years its been getting a lot worse. ever since middle school i've had a tendency to feel like a loser or a geek, and i've always been afraid of things that nobody should be afraid of (like scary movies and roller coasters, and flying in planes)

 

now i'm a junior in college, specifically architecture school, and my confidence in my self and in my work has dropped off significantly in the past three years here. i have to work extremely hard just to scrape by in my classes, and i feel like i'm just constantly met with disappointment and indifference from my teachers. my university is a very competitive school, and the whole time i've been here i've felt like i am in the very lowest tier of performance, and i don't "fit in" with everyone who's better than me. since i have to put all my time into schoolwork, my social life has suffered greatly, and nowadays while i know many people, there are only three people i can think of that i feel comfortable calling on the phone and hanging out with. i'm scared that everyone else thinks i'm a loser or that they avoid me intentionally. even now i'm still scared of roller coasters, scary movies and flying, and i have to make up excuses for people so i don't look like a coward. my two relationships have both ended in large part due to my own insecurities. i'm so afraid of failure and rejection that i now just avoid girls as anything more than aquaintences, and i avoid taking any chances in every other aspect of life. for years i've felt like i just don't fit in anywhere, and that i don't deserve to do what other people do or don't deserve what other people have. my life is constantly under tremendous stress because of my schoolwork, which affects my ability to sleep at night and thus makes the work that much harder. i've considered transfering schools or taking time off from school, but now i'm so far into it being a junior with two years left (my school is a 5 year program) i feel like it's too late to "jump ship" now.

 

thankfully, there's been no point in my life where i've considered hurting myself or suicide, which i'm very grateful for. but i'm worried that because of my low self esteem, i'm missing out on the world and will end up living a miserable life. the problem is i don't know where to start to pull myself out of the slump... i've seen therapist after therpatist in the past but all i would really do there was vent for an hour session, which helps for a little while but at the end of the day my problems remain. does anyone have any advice or personal experience that you can share? i feel like i've identified my problem, and now it's time to fight it head on, but i just don't know how to do it.

 

thanks for reading

[girl friend]

Hey there

All i can suggest is just bear it through. Things may be different when you move on from school.

 

I mean, we are who we are, so you're junk will follow you, but it can be situational as well. At school i was bullied daily and my self confidence was zero. When i left at age 16 and went to a college my confidence shot back up from the start, and built up more and more, as i made friends with everyone before finding a permanent place with a group. So it can be situational.

 

The things about yourself like the irrational phobias, they're aren't cowardly, its very real. If you feel they are impacting on your life, you can have behavoural therapy to get rid of them. Systematic desensitisation involves slowly building up to the feared thing, through many small steps. Or more dramatically is implosion therapy which involves forcing yourself to do the feared thing, the body can only keep up a fear response for 2-3minutes at that high arousal, so once you realise you are safe and alive, the fear reaction ceases, and you're ok after that, for e.g. in an aeroplane. It may help to identify where your phobias root from if you can.

 

You do have a lot of positives going for you as well remember. Even if you do struggle with the work, you are still at a very competitive university school, which puts you in about the top 2% of the population anyways. Your young, only 20, and youve had 2 relationships. Thats good!

 

Is there any way you could reduce the stress in your life? Take up a hobby that you love to ''buffer'' the stress? Mb try to sort yourself out into a firm routine which will make you tired to sleep at night, and take care of the day for you.

 

You must be strong because you're seeing therapists and actively seeking to sort your life out.

As for the friends thing, 3 is a lot. And of course you got enotalone. So all in all, i think you're doing ok.

Keep it up.

 

girl friend xx

[fribjits]

For starters, I don't believe that there is ANYthing wrong with being afraid of scary movies, Airplanes, and roller coasters. 9I hate airplanes myself, and they're called SCARY movies for a reason. Having fears of things like these is no reason to doubt yourself, everyone has fears, some are scared of things like death and pain, some are scared of termites and heights, it doesn't really matter much.

 

And about the girl thing, it's true that rejection will happen when asking girls out, but I think the word "rejection" is harsh. Have you ever been TRULY and unforgivingly shot down and rejected. Well any girl that would do that isn't someone you wanna be with anyways. It's mainly a numbers game, just ask out girl after girl without hardly any emotion put into it so you can face a "No" with a smile. The you can move on to the next prospect and when one says yes, then you can start to let your emotions slither back in.

 

But it sounds like your really stressed out about school, there are some calming and stress relief techniques you should take, along with the fact that you should remember to give time to yourself and YOUR hobbies and YOUR desires.

 

Also, the whole, THINKING other people are avoiding you has to stop. I mean seriously, we humans have a tendency to be overly neurotic and think the worst possible scenario when it comes to other people and what they think of us.

 

Unless someone has told you directly that they dont want to hang with you, then just assume that everyone loves you. it's a bit arrogant sure, but it's necessary because you might not be as bad off as you think you are.

 

Hope that helped.

[toshiba]

My first question is be: Do you want to change? If so, read further....

 

 

 

now i'm a junior in college, specifically architecture school, and my confidence in my self and in my work has dropped off significantly in the past three years here. i have to work extremely hard just to scrape by in my classes, and i feel like i'm just constantly met with disappointment and indifference from my teachers.

 

How about taking fewer classes at a time?

 

nowadays while i know many people, there are only three people i can think of that i feel comfortable calling on the phone and hanging out with.

Three people....that's three people more than a lot of people have. What you're seeing as a negative, is really a positive and you need to start looking at it that way.

 

i'm scared that everyone else thinks i'm a loser or that they avoid me intentionally.

 

And what if they don't? Here's a little tidbit of information about people: most people are worried about themselves. The only ones who ARE looking at others as losers are those who have very low self esteem themselves and they do that in order to make themselves feel better. So, if there IS anyone who thinks that, your only conclusion would be to feel sorry for them.

 

 

even now i'm still scared of roller coasters, scary movies and flying, and i have to make up excuses for people so i don't look like a coward.

 

I'm still afraid of rollercoasters and I don't plan to change that. Going on rollercoasters isn't something that people need to do and it doesn't bother me that I don't like them. Some people can tolerate equilibrium changes more than others. It's just differences in physiology.

 

I was afraid of flying until recently and I'm much older than you are. Flying is something that is a good idea to overcome because it's pretty common to do if you want to experience things. You CAN get over it if you set your mind to it.

 

I don't care for scary movies. They're stupid to me and again, they're not necessary and it's just a preference so nothing to feel bad about.

 

my two relationships have both ended in large part due to my own insecurities. i'm so afraid of failure and rejection that i now just avoid girls as anything more than aquaintences, and i avoid taking any chances in every other aspect of life.

 

This is definitely something that you want to work on because it's hindering your life. You need to ask yourself where this fear is coming from. Where did you originally experience it? What goes through your mind when it happens or you think it's going to happen? You need to disect it in order to understand it. Only then can you work on changing it.