Is Low Self-Esteem the Cause of Your Anxiety and Depression?
I have struggled with anxiety and depression for over 25 years. For the bulk of that time, my problems went undiagnosed and untreated. And why would I treat them? My parents and grandparents both struggled with the same issues. They all seemed to be doing well enough despite them. When things got to be too much for them, my mother and grandmother (my father’s mother) would later seek help from antidepressants. After years of bickering over the proper way to raise me, they bonded and laughed over the fact that, unbeknownst to either of them, they had both started taking Prozac to help with their depression at almost the same time.
As an adult, after my own experiences with Prozac and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (or CBT for short), I often question how I got to where I am today. Prioritizing my mental health has been an uphill battle. Fighting this battle has caused me to ask myself the same questions time and time again: Why am I like this? Is it nature? Is it nurture? Or, is it both? And whichever it is, how do I make it stop?
At first, I concluded that my mental health issues were simply a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain. After all, each person in my immediate family suffers from mental health problems. Clearly, I thought, this runs in the family.
My first experiences with a licensed professional counselor taught me that there might be other contributing factors to my mental illness that I had never considered.
What finally caused me to break down and give therapy a try? First of all, my work environment at my job was particularly toxic at that point. I soon found that the only thing that wasn’t toxic about it was the insurance plan. It covered mental healthcare! For the first time in my life, I considered going to therapy. Due to stress from work and life, my anxiety and depression started manifesting in some pretty upsetting ways: anger, irritability, and lashing out at loved ones. As this started happening more and more often (I accidentally hurt myself and even lost a friendship), I finally decided it was time to talk to someone.
After getting to know me and my struggles, my therapist suggested a book called Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem by Marilyn J Sorensen, Ph.D. This book has changed my toxic thought patterns (and my life) in ways I never thought possible. If you can relate, I’d highly recommend this book.
Here’s what I learned:
What is low self-esteem?
“Low Self-Esteem: Believing that I am inadequate (flawed), unworthy, unlovable, and/or incompetent.”
— Marilyn J Sorensen, Ph.D — Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is a large part of overall mental health. Many professionals don’t treat low self-esteem itself because it is not included in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The DSM is basically The Bible of mental health disorders used by the American Psychiatric Association. I never realized until I sought therapy that low self-esteem can negatively affect almost every aspect of a person’s life. It’s a frightening and embarrassing way to live. It’s lonely, too. And it’s not easy to talk about. Your distorted view of yourself causes you to feel unsafe everywhere you go because, no matter what you do, you never feel good enough. While anyone can suffer from low-self esteem, research shows that it seems to affect women more often. The reasons behind that, well, that’s for a whole other article. :)
How is low self-esteem formed?
Take a moment to imagine your feed on your favorite social media platform. Better yet, imagine your profile on that platform. Social media is often referred to as the “highlight reel” of a person’s life. But, what if, instead of the highlights, your profile showed the world all of your failures, mistakes, and embarrassing moments?
If you have low self-esteem, you probably don’t have to try very hard to imagine this because it’s usually what the inside of your brain looks like every single day.
But how does this happen?
Dr. Sorensen says that it starts early:
“Self-esteem is first developed when as children we are taught the difference between right and wrong, good and bad — when we begin to develop individual skills and a picture of who we are. When a child receives consistent feedback that [they usually do] things ‘wrong,’ [they] begin to question [their] own competence. If [they are] neglected, [they feel] unimportant; if [they are] laughed at, [they feel] foolish. [They] may feel like a failure, become discouraged and lethargic, losing [their] willingness to initiate and try.”
— Marilyn J Sorensen, Ph.D — Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem
This feedback can come from many sources: excessive criticism from parental figures, physical or emotional abuse, bullying from peers, or some combination of these things. This can be painful to consider, especially if these events happened a long time ago. But, the pain you feel doesn’t necessarily mean that blaming your parents or guardians, hating them, or cutting them out of your life is the solution. In fact, thinking back to my mom and my grandma, I mostly just feel sympathy imagining what their pasts subjected them to and how it damaged their self-esteem. I guess you could say that, in generational time, I’m still feeling the negative effects of hurtful comments made to my ancestors.
Many parents have low self-esteem themselves. Many are doing the best they can to work hard and provide the life to their children that they never had growing up. As cliché as it may sound, it’s important to remember that none of it is your fault. Now that you know the root of the issue, you can hit the reset button.
What are the symptoms of low self-esteem?
The book goes over these in more detail, but here are a few:
- Self-defeating behaviors
- Irrational thinking patterns
- Stagnancy in life
- Avoidance of problems
- Noisy or quiet reactions to triggering situations
- Under-achieving or over-achieving
- Superiority Complex or Inferiority Complex
If you’re curious about the health of your self-esteem, I would highly recommend this quiz. It’s an interactive PDF version of the quiz included in Dr. Sorensen’s book.
What is a “self-esteem attack” and how does it compare to a panic attack or a depressive episode?
“Those who have experienced self-esteem attacks describe them as tidal waves of despair washing over them unexpectedly and instantaneously. Some characterize an attack as falling into a deep, dark hole or experiencing a dark cloud descending upon them.”
— Marilyn J Sorensen, Ph.D — Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem
Sounds a lot like panic attacks or depressive episodes, right?
The key difference is that, for people with low self-esteem, these attacks aren’t random. These attacks almost always follow an incident that triggers their feelings of low self-worth. These triggering incidents are unpleasant for just about anyone who experiences them, but to a person with low self-esteem, they are usually the beginning of a terrifying downward spiral. In fact, according to the book, seemingly mundane instances can be so traumatic that they can cause memory loss or the inability to speak.
These incidents can include real or perceived slights. Sometimes a reprimand at work will cause an LSE sufferer to imagine that they are about to be fired. Seeing a person staring into space or laughing in public can cause someone with low self-esteem to think that they’re being ridiculed. Being interrupted, ignored, or disrespected used to trigger my self-esteem attacks. Most times, these thoughts have no basis in reality. But for a low self-esteem sufferer, it’s hard to distinguish between the world outside their head and the world within.
While there may be situations that can trigger panic attacks or depressive episodes, they aren’t always as clear.
How does a person build self-esteem?
If you’re beginning to realize that you have low self-esteem, there are things you can do to start over. It doesn’t have to be this way forever.
To start out, it helps to think of situations from your past that may have caused your low self-esteem. This can be painful so it’s important to approach this process at your own pace. Your triggers will likely be situations that remind you of your past in some way, even if you don’t realize it at first.
Start to recognize the thoughts that come up when you feel a self-esteem attack coming on. Personally, when I’m having an attack I start to silently berate and insult myself.
Once you start noticing these patterns in your thinking, it becomes easier to replace them with positive ones. How do you do this?
It’s easier said than done. A good start is to make a list of all of your positive qualities and accomplishments — this can be as simple as “I stopped to help someone whose car broke down.” If your self-esteem is severely low, you may not be able to think of anything. That is okay. Seek help from someone you trust like a friend, partner, or therapist who can help you build your list.
Once you have your list, read it every day for a couple of months. If you have time, read it multiple times a day. It may feel silly, but it can also help to read your list out loud to yourself in front of a mirror. You will feel even sillier if you live with people. But through this process, you’ll begin to learn that feeling silly won’t kill you. Plus, you’ll begin to associate these positive things with the sight of your face.
When you get an answer wrong in class or say something incorrect in a meeting at work, your brain might automatically tell you you’re an idiot. But with practice, you’ll have something constructive to say in retort. Take it from someone who never would have even had the courage to post this article a year ago.