For the four and a half decades (starting in high school) that I struggled with chronic depression, I believed my low self-esteem was caused by that depression. Or maybe my self-esteem contributed to the depression. I didn’t know which way it went, but they had to be connected.
I don’t know why my self-esteem was so low. Maybe it was messages from my mother or seeing her regularly criticize herself harshly. Maybe it was not getting any messages from my father that would have counteracted what I got from my mother. Maybe it was ingesting society’s messages about Mexicans and skin that isn’t white. Or maybe I was born with bad feelings about myself, absorbed through the placenta or from a previous experience, if you believe in life before life.
However it happened, I grew up not believing in myself beyond my ability to get good grades. For doing well in life itself, I was crippled by not thinking good things could happen for me.
When a therapist identified me as having depression, I was in my 20s and in a tough graduate program that had undermined even my academic confidence. That was the first time I longed for death. Death seemed like the perfect solution to everything. Academic problems, loneliness, trouble with my boyfriend, and unhappiness with my new town (Ithaca, New York) would all disappear if I did. Man, getting accidentally killed in a car accident or natural disaster looked good! After that, accidental death looked appealing to me frequently.
Thirty years later, I worked with a practitioner to take a holistic approach to my healing. My depression, startlingly, began to ease, so that in 2020, my psychiatrist and I weaned me off my anti-depressants. Since I stopped taking any prescriptions at all, my mood disorder has continued to improve, so that when depression symptoms come, they don’t stay long and don’t go as bleak. My chronic depression has effectively been eliminated from my daily life. But the low self-esteem has stayed.
I no longer call it low self-esteem. I call it what it really is: self-hatred. I hate myself. It’s completely irrational and has no attachment to reality. If you look at me and my accomplishments, what I do for a living, my relationships, and my general life in Chicago, I look like a confident, capable, maybe-a-little-too-smart, maybe-a-little-too-candid, well-liked person. My professional resume is impressive. The number of people who would say one of my activities/projects (from self-help groups to movie nights to this blog) helped them is pretty big. Yay, me. But as with depression, very little outside evidence touches the inside.
For a long time I expected that if I ever found a cure for my depression, happiness would follow. I thought getting rid of depression would also get rid of the self-hatred and belief that nothing good could ever happen for me. I’m very disappointed that this hasn’t happened.
Two nights ago I met someone at a networking event who said things to me I’ve heard many times before. She told me to believe in myself, that incredible things happen all the time if you just believe, that she herself had an instantaneous healing from cancer so she knows miracles happen. I told her I don’t know how to get to that point of believing.
She suggested I read Think and Grow Rich, and Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself (I’ve blogged quite a bit about Dr. Joe). I told her I’d read Dispenza’s books and seen him in person and worked his meditation practice, but they didn’t work for me. She impressed on me the importance of believing in it.
I said, “But how do I get to that point where I believe? People tell me all the time I need to believe, but I ask how and they don’t have an answer.”
She didn’t answer, so I went on. I said, “Steve Martin used to have a routine where he said ‘I’m going to tell you how to be a millionaire. This is what you do. First, get a million dollars. Now…’ That’s what it feels like when people tell me I need to believe. They’re skipping some steps and I don’t know how to get there!”
She gave me more book titles to read and I said, “And what is the benefit of reading these books?” She said, “You’ll see all the stories of people who healed themselves and changed their lives, and you’ll see the evidence that it’s possible.”
I said, “Oh, I believe it’s possible. I believe Dr. Dispenza healed himself from his car accident. I believe you healed yourself. I believe all the stories of all the people who’ve had these kinds of incredible recoveries and had amazing things come true. I believe all of it. I just don’t believe it’s possible for me.”
My new friend said, “Ah. You know what that is?”
I said, “That’s self-hatred.”
She said, “That’s low self-esteem.” She used the polite term, but we were talking about the same thing. (Then we got interrupted by another networker at this event and this conversation ended, but it was just as well.)
Since my 20s I’ve read relationship self-help books and taken prosperity courses and (in my 50s) followed the YouTube gurus on happiness and manifesting. I’ve been bewildered by how well these things have worked for friends and acquaintances and others in these classes and workshops. Why haven’t I gotten similar results?
I don’t know about anyone else, but I now see that my bedrock of self-hatred has kept all those exercises, dream boards, and affirmations from taking root. No wonder what works for the majority doesn’t work for me: the majority doesn’t hate themselves or think they should die (my go-to fantasy solution for any problem is still accidental death).
I’m now working with a healer I call my spiritual coach and we are working on this self-hatred with metaphysical chisels, explosives, earthmovers, everything possible. We are determined to get down to this self-hatred and get underneath it and move it OUT. One more time, I am holding onto hope that this time (despite all the other times) what I’m doing will work. I’m a hard worker, so I’m applying determination to my problem again.
At the age of 56, I’d love to achieve some contentment with my life, but just stopping the constant desire for death would probably be an improvement.
12 November 2022
Regina,
You are so brave to publicly log this confession of self. Even though we are eternally lonely, feeling your plight, just for a moment, made the pain go away. Thank you for this deeply personal expression of seeking to solve the riddle of emptiness. A nihilist would call this Tuesday.
Regina, I am grateful that you wrote this post. I am, at age 60, in a transition period again.
Only recently did I summon the courage to google the term, “Chronic Suicidal Ideation”. What I learned became a path away from that habitual getaway from discomfort. Understanding a psychological term didn’t change my life, but it fit neatly into my daily practice of unraveling of inner deficits.
I am receiving many gifts at this time of my life. One of them is encouragement to share my gifts publicly. Thank you for yours.
You’re welcome, Leilani. Thank you for your comment.