Have you ever thought of questioning your worth? Or had a very low opinion about your personality? These are the signs of low self-esteem. However, before diagnosing yourself with any sort of disorder or illness you should look out for the symptoms.
Symptoms
If you want to help out someone to overcome their low self-esteem you have to make sure that they possess its symptoms. Otherwise, there is no purpose in investing your time in the wrong place. Following are some of the clear indications that your friend or loved ones might be suffering from low self-esteem:
- Being highly critical about themselves
- Having a negative opinion
- Considering themselves worthless
- Settling for the less just because they think they don’t deserve better
- Don’t know how to deal with compliments
- Fear of failure
- Making fun of oneself
- Unable to accept criticism and disapproval
- Being anxious, ashamed, and depressed about oneself
- Blaming themselves for every mishap
- Being ignorant about the achievements and focusing on downfalls
These clear indicators tell you to check on your friend. If they are being despicable then they need your help to overcome. Because this can lead to serious damage. It’s very common to have suicidal thoughts in this condition too. According to NASE, which is the association for self-esteem, despicable behavior in teens can affect academic results, dropping out of educational institutions which might strike your resume in the future. Your personality will show it even if a Custom CV tells another story.
Aside from that, it also takes hold of sanity and provokes self-harm, drug abuse, criminal behavior, and develop eating disorders.
Causes of Low Self-esteem
Since we know the symptoms and results precisely, it’s also crucial to know the reasons behind this sort of behavior. Following the rule of you gotta know the complete history of patients before you treat them.
It might be the result of traumatizing childhood for some and others, it can simply be an inferiority complex. But because medical professionals have stopped using the term so it’s just low self-esteem now.
- The reason for low self-esteem is the wrong and unacceptable behavior of your very close ones.
- Parents have a prominent role in developing a child’s personality and when they neglect their duty, it causes consequential self-esteem issues. Having a rough childhood not only affects mental health but is also most likely to evoke split-personality disorder. A Nursing CV writer UK came across this person who had two completely different personalities and the irony, he was a health professional himself. The reason for mentioning this was to let everyone know, a person who seems perfectly fine and functional can still have a mental illness.
- Any sort of abuse whether emotional, physical, sexual, or mental. It can easily damage your self-esteem if you are vulnerable.
11 Ways to Help Someone with Low Self-Esteem:
Let’s try to figure out how we can help them to overcome this self-pity and low self-esteem. Below down are the 11 ways to help your loved ones out!
“It is going to be alright”
It will be fine, you are going to be alright, have patience. These are the things that a person with low self-esteem doesn’t want to hear. Do you know why? Because they know it already. Tell them that you are going to be with them through thick and thin no matter what instead. Assurance is all they need. Coming out of a past that still haunts them isn’t easy. They will make it apparently but they might need someone beside them.
Stop encouraging the negativity
Whether they are the ones who started a negative conversation or not. Never engage in it or encourage it in any way. Resist. If you need to leave the room, do it. But don’t let them be comfortable talking about it. No one needs negativity. It can easily drain anyone emotionally. So if you can’t stop them, just leave the space so that they understand it is not a wise thing to do!
Be positive
At least one person has to be positive in a room full of negativity. If they are unable to do that, why don’t you try it? People tend to adopt the behaviors of their friends or anyone they spend most of their time with. It is the most effective way to help someone out. Once they experience positive energy more than negative, they’ll try to adopt it.
Tell them what they mean to you
It’s not like they don’t know but there’s no harm in expressing your emotions to them now and then. Because of all the suffering, they have been through, sometimes it gets hard to trust anyone. Despite that, if they are willing to make a change. Support them and tell them how much it means to you,
Encourage self-importance
As much as you can, let them know how important is it to prioritize oneself to pass the hurdles. And if you don’t value yourself, no one is going to do that for you either. So it’s better to know and understand self-worth.
Ask them not to bottle-up
People with low self-esteem have a certain habit. They bottle up everything and suppress their feelings. They can’t gather the courage to call out if someone wrongs them. So they keep it all in their heart and then one day it explodes. If you assure them that they can speak up in front of you, nothing would be much better than that. But be mindful that when you listen to them, do it with pure intentions of listening and do not judge!
Be a little kinder
Try to be kind. It’s a process. Every process takes time. And it is going to be worth it. Inferiority complex is a serious thing and we, as a society cause it. So we cannot blame it on the person who’s going through it. They will be harsh, rude, might shut you down sometimes. All you have to do is to be a little kinder. It costs nothing.
Help them to improve
You cannot control everything. Many factors influence the idea of low self-esteem. Go through each factor and see if you can help them improve some of them. There’s always room for improvement.
Appreciation
Appreciate them whenever you see them improving. On small things, efforts. Because it’s the effort that matters the most. The result comes after that but you don’t need to wait for the result to appreciate efforts. So tell them that you are proud of them.
Stop the comparison
This has to be the most crucial thing. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others because everyone is different. Everyone was born different, every thought processing is different. So this comparison needs to stop! At any cost.
Insists them to take that risk
Tell them to take that one risk they are most afraid of. They can do it. You need to face your fear if you want to overcome it. Once they start improving, it should be the next step. Let them know that they can conquer the world if they want to.
Summing it up!
We won’t say that you don’t have to worry about it because it’s a serious problem. But you are not alone in this.
Many individuals feel this way. Apart from the fact that Self-esteem is the basic essence of your personality, many people out there are lacking it. You face a lot of hurdles in life due to low self-esteem. It’s pity that society still thinks being contemptible is a choice when it’s not!
