Usually if this is a very serious personal problem, one knows what has been the likely cause of it. There can be a number of profound causes and there are a number of ways of improving it, achievable by self-help.
Looking at some of the causes, child abuse can be one of the most likely causes.
Now you may imagine that I mean any one of the following causes: total abandonment, severe neglect, beatings, sexual abuse, and unbridled cruelty. Each of the violent examples I have just given unfortunately do happen, are unforgivable, and do have devastating effects on self-worth and self-esteem.
But I mean abuse in a much wider and less obvious context than that. The effects of non-violent, insidious and unrelenting verbal abuse, criticism and damning comments are in many cases worse.
Such constant verbal abuse and criticism from parents and teachers can have a deep seated and long-lasting impact on one's sense of self-worth and self-esteem. It eats away at one's confidence and beliefs, particularly when important people in our lives deliver this abuse upon us. We don't question it enough, because we believe they should know whether it is justified or not!
Parental divorce or separation can be another significant source of self-abuse in some sense. It can strip away much of one's sense of self esteem and self-worth. I see that as self-abuse in some cases because often as children, we look for and then find cause to blame ourselves for the break up of our parents. This can be a ridiculous and totally unfounded charge against ourselves, yet it can still have profoundly damaging and lasting effects on us.
One less obvious but equally significant cause can be the impact of a serious workaholic, alcoholic or drug addicted parent in the family. The extent and intensity of guilt and shame in the children associated with this can endure for many years after, if no help is sought. Now known as co-dependency, it is a well recognised cognitive condition seriously affecting other members of the family and not just the addict.
Excellent books are available from good booksellers which could be helpful to you in any of these circumstances. These guide you on how best to reframe the patterns in your mind which sustain the low esteem from which you are suffering. There are some good cognitive goal-setting programmes available too.
It is almost ridiculous to remind ourselves what complex and even mysterious beings we are! What is significant is the scale of quality research findings which are emerging, increasingly stripping away more of that complexity and mystery. Each week we can learn more and more.
Aslo effecting a cure for you of your cripplingly low self-esteem, self help can help to a degree. But I would suggest that at the very least you spend some time to commit to writing out the causes as you see them. See and feel yourself delivering the whole experience to the page and letting it rest there.
If you are still deeply troubled and constrained by it all - and you know it, then try this. Imagine yourself as you best friend, weighed down with the fearful history of what you suffered. How then would you advise your best friend obtains help. If you would say that counselling would be best, then take your own advice.
And remember be totally open and honest with the counseller as to all the detail. You want a cure and not a postponement of your pain. Unburden yourself and allow professional help to help you find the reserves of strength and true worth that have always been resident within you.
I wish you well on each journey you take along the various paths you choose to improve both your self-esteem and the world around you.
Sir Gerry Neale has lectured and trained under-graduates and post graduates at the University of Westminster in cognitive thinking. He has mentored courses for corporate strategic planning and how to position the organisation's and the individual's thinking in relation to them. He has conducted counselling and life coaching programmes with individuals in person and on-line.
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