Low Esteem Quotes

If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.

Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.

Staying silent is like a slow growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself. You may not win every battle. However, everyone will at least know what you stood for—YOU.

There will always be someone willing to hurt you, put you down, gossip about you, belittle your accomplishments and judge your soul. It is a fact that we all must face. However, if you realize that God is a best friend that stands beside you when others cast stones you will never be afraid, never feel worthless and never feel alone.

Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.

A coward talks to everyone but YOU.

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

If a man, who says he loves you, won’t tell you the details of a private conversation between him and another woman you can be sure he is not protecting your heart. He is protecting himself and the women he has feelings for. Wise women simply see things as they are, not as their low self-esteem allows.

Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.

Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.

A Mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually VACCINATES her daughter against low self-esteem.

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.

Chasing a man is not winning. The only thing you win is the loss of your dignity. Confidence is knowing your value, instead of expecting a man’s love to provide you with value.

Go try your charming act on some tramp with low self-esteem, because I'm not falling for it.

Bitter people are not interested in what you say, but what you hide.

Society. The same society, I might add, that dictates that little girls should always be sugar and spice and everything nice, which encourages them not to be assertive. And that, in turn, then leads to low self-esteem, which can lead to eating disorders and increased tolerance and acceptance of domestic, sexual, and substance abuse." "You get all that from a pink Onesie?" Leah said after a moment.

No boundary or barrier surrounds the heart of a person that loves their self and others.

When you lose your ego, you win. It really is that simple.

Those who mistrust their own abilities are being too wicked to themselves, discouraging themselves from doing what they should have been excelling in. If you are good at discouraging yourself, you can't be a good leader because leadership is built on inspiring others to face challenges.

Hypocrisy /hi pakrise/ noun 1. The moment you tell someone it is not important to be right, in order to look right to everyone else.

Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.

Often people that settle in life are those that only do what they can with what they have and where they are. Never settle for someone that didn't know your worth from the beginning, or build a life without God in it. Live beyond your low expectations.

She sighed, annoyed at her restlessness. “So,” she said, disrupting Wolf in another backward glance. “Who would win in a fight—you or a pack of wolves?” He frowned at her, all seriousness. “Depends,” he said, slowly, like he was trying to figure out her motive for asking. “How big is the pack?” “I don’t know, what’s normal? Six?” “I could win against six,” he said. “Any more than that and it could be a close call.” Scarlet smirked. “You’re not in danger of low self-esteem, at least.” “What do you mean?” “Nothing at all.” She kicked a stone from their path. “How about you and … a lion?” “A cat? Don’t insult me.” She laughed, the sound sharp and surprising. “How about a bear?” “Why, do you see one out there?” “Not yet, but I want to be prepared in case I have to rescue you.” The smile she’d been waiting for warmed his face, a glint of white teeth flashing. “I’m not sure. I’ve never had to fight a bear before.

I approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.

I don't understand women that call themselves a "bitch". It doesn't empower a woman. Rather, it reveals to everyone that you were deeply hurt at one time. Because of the pain your still carrying, you will continue to hurt anyone that reminds you of those moments when you let your guard down and were fooled. Sadly, it sends a clear message to the observant that you are still hurt. If only women would realize that "we all" have moments of stupidity then they would stop comparing themselves to the masses.

The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.

By creating an image of low self- esteem within ourselves, we bomb and terrorize our true self. When we refuse to forgive, we create an insensible war from old grudges. When we allow stress to impede our healthy flow of energy, we create the weapon of destruction that kills humanity.

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the face of sparkly vampires/great evil/low self-esteem.

Do not share your thoughts with people who think that what you are thinking is not worth thinking.

Sometimes people with low self-esteem will try to punish you for caring about them.

Don't waste your time trying to provide people with proof of deceit, in order to keep their love, win their love or salvage their respect for you. The truth is this: If they care they will go out of their way to learn the truth. If they don't then they really don't value you as a human being. The moment you have to sell people on who you are is the moment you let yourself believe that every good thing you have ever done or accomplished was invisible to the world. And, it is not!

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.

Never let the thoughts of self-unworthiness re-arrange your prepared passion for failure. You can do it even if others say you can't. But you cannot do it if you tell yourself you can't.

Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.

I'm always angry about the death of people who are still alive, their eyes are opened, yet they can't see anything...the spell of ignorance

She's a baby," Maggie told me. "Babies wear pastels." "Says who?" I asked. ... "Society. The same society, I might add, that dictates that little girls should always be sugar and spice and everything nice, which engourages them to not be assertive. And that, in turn, then leads to low self-esteem, which can lead to eating disorders and increased tolerance and acceptance of domestic, sexual, and substance abuse.

While you were busy trying to prove God stands behind you, God was before me lighting the trail, so he could lead us both.

Always remember, no matter how big you get in life, God is still bigger; when you feel to be at your lowest point, Satan is still at the bottom.

Being shy is a symptom of a low self-esteem.

The average person’s self-esteem is so low that they are way less frequently surprised that they love someone than they are surprised that someone loves them.

I don't have low self-esteem. It's a mistake. I have low esteem for everyone else.

Many Christians... find themselves defeated by the most psychological weapon that Satan uses against them. This weapon has the effectiveness of a deadly missile. Its name? Low self-esteem. Satan's greatest psychological weapon is a gut level feeling of inferiority, inadequacy, and low self-worth This feeling shackles many Christians, in spite of wonderful spiritual experiences and knowledge of God's Word. Although they understand their position as sons and daughters of God, they are tied up in knots, bound by a terrible feeling inferiority, and chained to a deep sense of worthlessness.

The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can’t be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you’re passionate about. When you let go of what you can’t control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.

When you’re comfortable and content with who you are, the voices of others who try and define, control or direct you are not important.

Most people are about as happy as their self confidence will allow them to be.

If nothing lasts forever, then I am forever nothing.

When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced.

Good! Hang in there! It's normal! [Low self-esteem] Often it's a sign of intelligence (but don't let that go to your head haha)

Satan will tempt you with many things in life, but the most powerful is the temptation to be grateful for what you have, when it is not the best life God had to offer you.

I made mistakes like this all the time, seeking affirmation from the very worst people, so that what I must have been after deep down was confirmation of the fears instead of their dismissals

More often than not, people who are obsessed with their desires and feelings are generally unhappier in life vs. people that refocus their attention on service to others or a righteous cause. Have you ever heard someone say their life sucked because they fed the homeless? Made their children laugh? Or, bought a toy for a needy child at Christmas time?

If they keep coming back to you, it isn't love. It is because you made yourself and easy option. The moment the thing they truly want becomes less difficult to obtain is when you will realize that your worth was on sale.

What Harry found most unusual about life at Ron's, however, wasn’t the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul: it was the fact that everybody there seemed to like him.

materialism takes root in early childhood, and is driven mainly by low self-esteem.

With relationships, I always had a reason why some time in the future would be better for me than it was that day. When I was fat, I thought I'd feel pretty when I was thin, and when I was thin, I thought I'd be happier if I was more toned and muscular and had more money to look more coordinated. I wasn't comfortable in my own skin unless there was a man there to tell me just how radiant that skin looked. I was a victim of low self-esteem and had the Soon syndrome bad. I was running toward a brighter future, unaware of the mirages I'd created in the distance.

Perfectionism is searching for faults to justify low self-esteem. It is a guaranteed failure and fantasy.

I have this thing where if someone likes me, I feel like I tricked them into it. Like I can't trust it. I'll fuck it up somehow, like with Hudson.

The Victim was a chronic fuck-up. People Like her always seemed to hang out with The Poisonous Cunt. In turn, she kept their self-esteem low and made sure that they stayed in psychic immiseration. She was a curator of dead souls.

Putting someone down with name calling reveals your own low self-esteem.

In low intelligent ignorant societies, the clever are denigrated and the stupid are belauded; the brainy are stoned and the dull are held in high esteem!

Hide in the mirror. No one will look for you there.

I hate when counselors and teachers blame everything on low self-esteem in teens. Some of us actually have self-esteem, believe it or not. And when we make mistakes, it's not because of a defect in our psyche. We screw up just because.

God can allow you to pass through storms and get to your success. But what the devil loves to do is to make you not to realize it that the storm is over. He wishes to keep you in condemnation even at the time you have to feel liberated.

I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down.

Saying thanks to the world, and acknowledging your own accomplishments, is a great way to feel good and stay positive.

THE MYTHS ABOUT ABUSERS 1. He was abused as a child. 2. His previous partner hurt him. 3. He abuses those he loves the most. 4. He holds in his feelings too much. 5. He has an aggressive personality. 6. He loses control. 7. He is too angry. 8. He is mentally ill. 9. He hates women. 10. He is afraid of intimacy and abandonment. 11. He has low self-esteem. 12. His boss mistreats him. 13. He has poor skills in communication and conflict resolution. 14. There are as many abusive women as abusive men. 15. His abusiveness is as bad for him as for his partner. 16. He is a victim of racism. 17. He abuses alcohol or drugs.

The childhood sexual abuse taught me that my value came from sex. In adulthood, I was driven to have sex since I always felt worthless. I felt important and desired until it was over and then I felt like garbage—the same way I did after the abuse. I desperately needed to feel valued again, which led to more sex. My sex addiction only stopped when I believed that I’m valuable apart from anything I do.

When believers have a low view of God, everything focuses on meeting felt needs within the body of Christ. When the church adopts such a perspective, it often offers people nothing more than spiritual placebos. It centers on psychology, self-esteem, entertainment, and a myriad of other diversions to attempt to meet perceived and felt needs.

People with low self-esteem fear love. (Yep. Psychology degree rears its head again.) They doubt another person’s ability to appreciate them, because they don’t see the worth in themselves.

Often people that tell others they are "extremely polite" when the situation calls for tact and bluntness are not actually polite people. Instead, they hide behind the word “polite” because they have low self esteem or hidden agendas. Sadly, they impolitely confuse the hell out of everyone, send mixed signals, which then makes people question their sanity and motives.

the problem with self-esteem – whether it is high or low – is that, every single day, we are in the courtroom.

Confidence is a life ingredient that is essential to success and wholeness. It is perhaps the single most important trait that enables seemingly average people to do and become all that they can. And the good news is – it can be learned. No one has to suffer a lifetime of low confidence.

Those who work shit jobs tend to be the object of indignities; they not only work hard but also are held in low esteem for that very reason. But at least they know they’re doing something useful. Those who work bullshit jobs are often surrounded by honor and prestige; they are respected as professionals, well paid, and treated as high achievers—as the sort of people who can be justly proud of what they do. Yet secretly they are aware that they have achieved nothing; they feel they have done nothing to earn the consumer toys with which they fill their lives; they feel it’s all based on a lie—as, indeed, it is.

People with low self-confidence and self-esteem often feel nervous about antagonizing others and tend to rate others’ needs more highly than their own.

I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good…Maybe you're not the best, so you should work a little harder.

What I am in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

Our self-esteem – be it low or high – has its influence on our thoughts, relationships, profession, and social life. When it is channeled in the right direction, you will find enough confidence to move out of your comfort zone and explore new possibilities.

Depression can be a form of self hatred. We don't feel comfortable in our own skin.

Feeling LOW? Go on mountains.

The first secret of success: Believe in Yourself. Nothing changes in your life until you believe you can do things that are important to you. And if you have a low opinion of yourself, nobody else is likely to raise it.

My personality has not once altered under outside influence." "Then I'm genuinely appalled, and your childhood nannies have my intense sympathy. You've got a bit of a nerve, don't you think, accusing other people of vanity? You make Mr. Darcy look like the poster child for low self-esteem.

Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You’re not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest.

Genuine self esteem – please understand this – genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isn’t expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying to make yourself superior to everyone else, or diminishing others in order to elevate yourself. Arrogance, boastfulness, the overestimation of your abilities, reflect low self esteem, even though we’re often encouraged to believe the opposite. In human beings, joy in the simple fact of existence is a core meaning of healthy self esteem. Thus understood, how can you possibly have too much of it?

First of all, accept that something is wrong with you. It’s a good start. Something has always been wrong with me, too. We’re in a club of sorts, the lunatic fringe who are proud to band together. There’s a joyous road to ruin out there, and if you let me be your garbage guru, I’ll teach you how to succeed in insanity and take control of your low self-esteem. Personality disorders are a terrible thing to waste.

Falling in love for the first time is a completely transcendent experience. It’s like eating pizza-flavored ice cream. Your brain can’t even process that level of joy. Love makes people do crazy things like kill other people or shop at Crate & Barrel. I think on some level it makes us all delusional. Deep down, our whole lives, no matter how low our self-esteem gets, we think, I have a special skill that no one knows about and if they knew they’d be amazed. And then eventually we meet someone who says, “You have a secret special skill.” And you’re like, “I know! So do you!” And they’re like, “I know!” And then you’re like, “We should eat pizza ice cream together.” And that’s what love is. It’s this giant mound of pizza-flavored ice cream and delusion

My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a "superior position" that she wouldn't need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don't, nothing will work out the way they want.

Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself.

Jealousy is the ugliest stepsister. Like Cinderella's ugly stepsisters whose jealousy of Cinderella caused their family's demise, a woman who is jealous of the success of their sister, sister-in-law or friend is showing their ugly insecure, low-self-esteem side. Get over it, get a makeover, and focus on developing yourself so you're happy with who you are rather than who they are. - Strong by Kailin Gow

Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned.

Frankly, fictional people appeal far more to me than real people do. In fiction, the choices have to make sense. The timeline proceeds rationally. Emotions are explained to me. Characters feel the way they are supposed to feel in response to the actions of others. Nobody stays in a bad situation because of inertia or low self-esteem. That would make for a truly shitty story. But in real life . . . God, in real life people so rarely behave in ways that improve their circumstances.

One thing that happens when you have an alcoholic for a parent is you grow up the child of an alcoholic. ... For a quick trip around the bases, it means you blame yourself for everything, you avoid reality, you can't trust people, you're hungry to please. Which isn't all bad: perfectionism makes the straight-A student; lack of trust begets self-sufficiency; low self-esteem can be a terrific motivator; if everyone were so gung-ho on reality, there'd be no art.

... there are other proud people who have low self-esteem. They feel they haven't lived up to their potential. They feel unworthy. They want to hide and disappear, to fade into the background and nurse their own hurts. We don't associate them with pride, but they are still, at root, suffering from the same disease. They are still yoking happiness to accomplishment; it's just that they are giving themselves a D- rather than an A+. They tend to be just as solipsistic, and in their own way as self-centered, only in a self-pitying and isolating way rather than in an assertive and bragging way.

Anger is like water. No matter how hard a person tries to dam, divert, or deny it, it will find a way, usually along the path of least resistance. As I will discuss in this book, women often ¨feel¨ their anger in their bodies. Unprocessed, anger threads itself through our appearances, bodies, eating habits, and relationships, fueling low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and actual physical illness. The harms are more than physical, however. Gendered ideas about anger make us question ourselves, doubt our feelings, set aside our needs, and renounce our own capacity for moral conviction. Igrnoring anger makes us careless with ourselves and allows society to be careless with us. It is notable, however, that treating women's anger and pain in these ways makes it easier to exploit us—for reproduction, labor, sex, and idealogy.

feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our power to clarify and change our own selves. The old anger-in/anger-out theory, which states that letting it all hang out offers protection from the psychological hazards of keeping it all pent up, is simply not true. Feelings of depression, low self-esteem, self-betrayal, and even self-hatred are inevitable when we fight but continue to submit to unfair circumstances, when we complain but live in a way that betrays our hopes, values and potentials, or when we find ourselves fulfilling society’s stereotype of the bitchy, nagging, bitter, or destructive woman. Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.

I wish I'd been accepted sooner and better. When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes--and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history. We choose our own lives. It is not simply that we decide on the behaviors that construct our experience; when given our druthers, we elect to be ourselves. Most of us would like to be more successful or more beautiful or wealthier, and most people endure episodes of low self-esteem or even self-hatred. We despair a hundred times a day. But we retain the startling evolutionary imperative for the fact of ourselves, and with that splinter of grandiosity we redeem our flaws. These parents have, by and large, chosen to love their children, and many of them have chosen to value their own lives, even though they carry what much of the world considers an intolerable burden. Children with horizontal identities alter your self painfully; they also illuminate it. They are receptacles for rage and joy-even for salvation. When we love them, we achieve above all else the rapture of privileging what exists over what we have merely imagined. A follower of the Dalai Lama who had been imprisoned by the Chinese for decades was asked if he had ever been afraid in jail, and he said his fear was that he would lose compassion for his captors. Parents often think that they've captured something small and vulnerable, but the parents I've profiled here have been captured, locked up with their children's madness or genius or deformity, and the quest is never to lose compassion. A Buddhist scholar once explained to me that most Westerners mistakenly think that nirvana is what you arrive at when your suffering is over and only an eternity of happiness stretches ahead. But such bliss would always be shadowed by the sorrow of the past and would therefore be imperfect. Nirvana occurs when you not only look forward to rapture, but also gaze back into the times of anguish and find in them the seeds of your joy. You may not have felt that happiness at the time, but in retrospect it is incontrovertible. For some parents of children with horizontal identities, acceptance reaches its apogee when parents conclude that while they supposed that they were pinioned by a great and catastrophic loss of hope, they were in fact falling in love with someone they didn't yet know enough to want. As such parents look back, they see how every stage of loving their child has enriched them in ways they never would have conceived, ways that ar incalculably precious. Rumi said that light enters you at the bandaged place. This book's conundrum is that most of the families described here have ended up grateful for experiences they would have done anything to avoid.

This is where low self-esteem gets built into the core of the machine. For Aristotle, a person had innate potential and was naturally moving towards perfection. But for the Christians, a person was born in a state of sin and falling towards hell. God, not the individual, was where perfection lay. This meant that a person wanting to become more perfect would have to engage in a constant war with themselves – a war, not with forces out in the world, but with their own soul, their conscience, their mind and thoughts. And because perfection only existed outside the human realm, that struggle would always be hopeless. The Christians had given the Western self a soul, and then begun to torture it.

How to identify love by knowing what it's not: love doesn't use a fist. Love never calls you fat or lazy or ugly. Love doesn’t laugh at you in front of friends. It is not in Love’s interest for your self-esteem to be low. Love is a helium-based emotion; Love always takes the high road. Love does not make you beg. Love does not make you deposit your paycheck into its bank account. Love certainly never, never, never brings the children into it. Love does not ask or even want you to change. But if you change, Love is as excited about this change as you are, if not more so. And if you go back to the way you were before you changed, Love will go back with you. Love does not maintain a list of your flaws and weaknesses. Love believes you.

24. (fr) Psychologists use the term "socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. 25. (fr) The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a nonmoral origin. We use the term "oversocialized” to describe such people. 26. (fr) Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations.

To the accomplishment-oriented mother, what you achieve in life is paramount. Success depends on what you do, not who you are. She expects you to perform at the highest possible level. This mom is very proud of her children’s good grades, tournament wins, admission into the right college, and graduation with the pertinent degrees. She loves to brag about them too. But if you do not become what your accomplishment-oriented mother thinks you should, and accomplish what she thinks is important, she is deeply embarrassed, and may even respond with a rampage of fury and rage. A confusing dynamic is at play here. Often, while the daughter is trying to achieve a given goal, the mother is not supportive because it takes away from her and the time the daughter has to spend on her. Yet if the daughter achieves what she set out to do, the mother beams with pride at the awards banquet or performance. What a mixed message. The daughter learns not to expect much support unless she becomes a great hit, which sets her up for low self-esteem and an accomplishment-oriented lifestyle.

Many survivors of relational and other forms of early life trauma are deeply troubled and often struggle with feelings of anger, grief, alienation, distrust, confusion, low self-esteem, loneliness, shame, and self-loathing. They seem to be prisoners of their emotions, alternating between being flooded by intense emotional and physiological distress related to the trauma or its consequences and being detached and unable to express or feel any emotion at all - alternations that are the signature posttraumatic pattern. These occur alongside or in conjunction with other common reactions and symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem) and their secondary manifestations. Those with complex trauma histories often have diffuse identity issues and feel like outsiders, different from other people, whom they somehow can't seem to get along with, fit in with, or get close to, even when they try. Moreover, they often feel a sense of personal contamination and that no one understands or can help them. Quite frequently and unfortunately, both they and other people (including the professionals they turn to for help) do misunderstand them, devalue their strengths, or view their survival adaptations through a lens of pathology (e.g., seeing them as "demanding", "overdependent and needy", "aggressive", or as having borderline personality). Yet, despite all, many individuals with these histories display a remarkable capacity for resilience, a sense of morality and empathy for others, spirituality, and perseverance that are highly admirable under the circumstances and that create a strong capacity for survival. Three broad categories of survivorship, with much overlap between them, can be discerned: 1. Those who have successfully overcome their past and whose lives are healthy and satisfying. Often, individuals in this group have had reparative experiences within relationships that helped them to cope successfully. 2. Those whose lives are interrupted by recurring posttraumatic reactions (often in response to life events and experiences) that periodically hijack them and their functioning for various periods of time. 3. Those whose lives are impaired on an ongoing basis and who live in a condition of posttraumatic decline, even to the point of death, due to compromised medical and mental health status or as victims of suicide of community violence, including homicide.