When You Don’t Love You

Hello all,

When I did Ask Judge Lynn one of you asked me a question about women and self esteem – or more accurately the lack of it.  I thought it was a good idea and told her I would do a post on it. As the day went on and I received more comments from other women  – and one guy  – who felt valueless I decided it was not only a good idea but a very necessary one.

Problems like this are rarely simple to address. Even though they are common they have different sources. What I am going to do here is address as many common themes as I can.

I won’t be able to say all I have to say today. My response to this will be ongoing.

But let’s start here:

HOW YOU FEEL – A description of the varied ways in which people love the love of self.

1. The loss of self esteem usually occurs over time. It is like water on a rock. When you are the recipient of ongoing criticism (especially from a significant other) you begin to believe bit by bit, day by day that you are indeed the ongoing error the person you are with claims you are.

If your circumstances, money, kids, opportunity, neighborhood are all difficult. If you are under pressure underfunded and under attack at all times you start to feel under value and always at the edge of disaster. It wears on who you are and how you feel about yourself.

If you are with a domineer partner, one that sees any opinion other than theirs as an assault on them, and responds accordingly you begin to feel like the fact that you like blue makes you a bad person if s/he prefers green.

If you are isolated. If you have a life that has become very small.  If you only have one source of information by which to judge your worth. That happens often with a domineering partner or an overwhelmingly negative circumstance when you have or at least feel like you have very few options and all of the feedback you get is negative every which way you turn.

If you live with a nuclear responder a person who threatens to leave the relationship if you bought the wrong kind of ketchup, you’re likely to feel worn down. If there is yelling and screaming over the smallest thing the smallest things don’t seem worth the battle.  The next thing you know you you get none of your wants fulfilled n an effort to keep the peace.

These are the things I am seeing and the ones I intend to address. If YOU have an issue like this or you feel undervalued for other reasons please stay with me here and comment as we go along.

THE FIRST THING YOU HAVE TO KNOW:

You are not alone. Read the other comments here. Knowing how not alone you are will make you feel better.

There are things you can do.  My next blog on this will be about

Finding Your Little Piece of Sunny Sky During the Storm

It could happen to anyone… therefore it didn’t happen to you because you do not have any inherent worth.

Believe it or not … it happened to me …