Do you remember going to the grocery store and buying your cooking supplies for the week? You look at the labels and try to make the best decision to save money and eat healthily.
This is since we want to take care of our bodies and whoever we might invite over on Friday night. But what if there was something wrong with the food… you would try to find out what it is right? We don’t want anyone to get any stomach problems.
For me, I am totally for not only having great healthy food, but also good emotional food for our self-esteem. These are damages that having lower self-esteem might produce in our lives that we might not be aware of or grown accustomed to.
I want to go ahead and uncover the silent harms of low self-esteem that we might not see.
1) Consistent Discontentment & Feeling Unloved
I don’t think I have to elaborate on the desire to want to be loved. It’s in movies, novels, and music. We all desire to be loved, but how is it that people having low self-esteem don’t feel that way? It’s because they don’t feel they deserve to be loved.
Have you ever rejected a compliment?
Have you ever downplayed a success you had?
I mean it’s hard to feel good about ourselves when we reject the things that are supposed to make us feel good. Even when we spend time with our friends, we suppress the feeling when we feel loved.
If our innate tendency is to reject love, the most love we’ll feel will be only a fraction of the ones we have actually received. That is what low self-esteem does to us.
2) Harsh And Critical Arguments
If we are critical of ourselves, we will be critical with people close to us. If we are still nice to them, that just means they are not close enough yet. This happens especially when a mistake or a disaster happens. When something goes wrong, all hell breaks loose.
If we already feel bad about ourselves, it’s hard to handle another mistake. It makes us feel even lower as a person, so the first inclination is to deflect or blame others instead. I’m not saying people having low self-esteem are malicious, but they are deeply hurt already and can’t take another blow.
This is hard because it’s impossible to live in a mistake-free relationship. Heck, I can’t even go through a day without making some kind of mistake, not to mention two people trying to work together. Perfection does not exist and trying to obtain it is a losing cause.
3) We Constantly Think People Won’t Like the Real Us
This links with the feeling of being unlovable as a person.
“If you feel like you’re unlovable, why would other people like you?”
That’s the thought.
This is a pretty detrimental thought. If we think people won’t like the real us, we’re not going to try our best because it shows who we really are.
We’ll deliberately create situations where we know we’ll fail, so we have an excuse for when we do fail. We'll find ourselves in harmful relationships. Always settling for less than we deserve. This is an ingredient that will make any recipe a disaster.
4) If People Actually Start to Like the Real Us, We Start to Like Them Less
This is a very distinct trait to people with low self-esteem. We usually like the people who like us. We want to be around people that like us because it’s fun and enjoyable.
However, having low self-esteem means we either reject other people for liking us or we like others less for liking us.
Why? When we feel like we’re are unlovable, so if our friend likes us, who is unlovable, then… something is OBVIOUSLY wrong with our friend right? This just shows how much we’ll actually reject love. I mean when we feel and know that we are unlovable, we will try to reject love at any cost even if someone has convinced us that they love us.
Acceptance and love are things we will desperately seek but never get.
5) Revolving Door Relationships
This all leads to the final conclusion that no one stays in our lives. Everyone in our life comes and goes, because low self-esteem hinders our ability to create relationships.
If the other person doesn’t feel like we are trying to befriend them, they’ll eventually move on. This situation breeds the feeling of loneliness in midst of people. Everyone is kept at a distance while we are suffering from loneliness. It makes us feel invisible and disposable. No one wins here.
First Step -
Can you relate with any one of them?
- Augustus
Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]
- Understanding the 5 CAUSES for an emotional wall between you and everyone else.