Self-esteem and feelings of guilt

[EaglesJuju]

I have been working on my self-esteem lately. My self-esteem  has always fluctuated, sometimes I could boost my self-esteem independently, other times it has been reliant on people pleasing and helping. When I stopped my codependent behaviors, my self-esteem plummeted. I have been gradually working on building it by myself.  I have had some issues with working on my self-esteem lately.

I had a positive self-image the other day. I looked in the mirror and thought that I looked attractive and was happy about my appearance. Almost immediately, my positive self-talk was replaced with feeling that I was narcissistic and vain for thinking that. 

Then I received some incredible news about something that I have had anxiety about for a very long time. I momentarily was ecstatic, but then I felt guilty for being so happy and excited. I ended up getting upset over something that was so positive in my life.

I have no idea why I am feeling so guilty for having positive thoughts about myself. 

[vortex of confusion]

I don't have any answers or insights. I have struggled with some of the same and would like to follow this thread to see if I can gain any insights.

[fromheeltoheal]

Esteem is respect and admiration, so self-esteem is respect and admiration for yourself.  So self-respect and self-admiration are required to have healthy self-esteem.  I've had low self-esteem plenty in life, but at least now I know what causes it: if I did something I 'shouldn't' have, or didn't do something I 'should' have, and now I feel guilty as a result, it's because I'm disappointed in myself and did not respect my self.  So it's about rules: I'm a perfectionist by nature so I need to be easy on judging myself, develop rules that make it easy to feel good and hard to feel bad, like going out and partying too hard on the weekend is disrespecting my self, but buying M&M's at the supermarket checkstand as I pay for groceries?  Screw it, lighten up, I'm going to decide that that is nothing to feel guilty about, because I say so. And admiration?  Well we can admire ourselves for creating and living by rules that make it easy to feel good and hard to feel bad about ourselves.

My self-esteem  has always fluctuated, sometimes I could boost my self-esteem independently, other times it has been reliant on people pleasing and helping. When I stopped my codependent behaviors, my self-esteem plummeted.

To me that's rules again: you developed the belief that in order to feel good about yourself you needed to be in service to others, not a bad belief really, maybe a tweak would include adding yourself to the list of people it's OK to help, and that might avoid the plummet?

I had a positive self-image the other day. I looked in the mirror and thought that I looked attractive and was happy about my appearance. Almost immediately, my positive self-talk was replaced with feeling that I was narcissistic and vain for thinking that.  

You had a thought before you had a feeling.  What specifically did you say to yourself as a replacement for the positive self-talk?  Was it your voice or an old script you got from somewhere else?  When I catch myself defeating my feel-good with negative crap, I don't care where it came from, I repeat the negative crap over and over to myself in a squeaky cartoon voice until it sounds completely ridiculous, and keep my mood playful and upbeat while I'm doing it, and that scrambles the crap pretty well.

Then I received some incredible news about something that I have had anxiety about for a very long time. I momentarily was ecstatic, but then I felt guilty for being so happy and excited. I ended up getting upset over something that was so positive in my life.

Same as above, a thought came before the guilty feeling, what was it specifically?

I have no idea why I am feeling so guilty for having positive thoughts about myself.

 

Because of the negative thoughts you replaced them with.  What does it mean to have positive thoughts about yourself?  Is there a critic in there saying that's not OK?  It's fun to make the critic 3 feet tall and squeaky in your mind's eye, with circus music playing in the background, takes all the power away immediately.  

A consciously directed mind is a powerful thing, takes a lot of work sometimes, but it does work.

[eeks]

I had a positive self-image the other day. I looked in the mirror and thought that I looked attractive and was happy about my appearance. Almost immediately, my positive self-talk was replaced with feeling that I was narcissistic and vain for thinking that.  

Then I received some incredible news about something that I have had anxiety about for a very long time. I momentarily was ecstatic, but then I felt guilty for being so happy and excited. I ended up getting upset over something that was so positive in my life.

I have no idea why I am feeling so guilty for having positive thoughts about myself.  

To me, this sounds like a self-protection.  Nail yourself before they nail you.  So it's not necessarily that you actually believe you are narcissistic, vain, or that happiness is worthy of guilt, but you have these loaded statements pop up to cause you to back off from hanging out in that "danger zone" of happiness, self-esteem and other good stuff.  

You would have to look at your own personal history to see what exactly it is that you fear.  I would imagine in one way or another, your parents or caregivers were not able to "be fully present with" your exuberant expressions of joy, celebration, etc. as a child.  So you concluded there wasn't room in your relationship with them for these feelings.

Some possible reasons I can imagine why parents can't be with children's joy:  

- pessimism ("Expect little, and you'll never be disappointed" or the closely related bitterness ("yeah, that's nice, you're going to learn what the real world is like soon enough"

- fear, specifically their own trauma defenses kicking in on a reflexive level when they see the child expressing something that wasn't safe for them to express around their own parents

- grimly religious

- their own parents' attitudes and treatment about failure/rubbing it in when the child is optimistic but things later go wrong ("see, I told you so"

- perfectionism

Could it be your own emotional reactions to past experiences of success and subsequent disappointment and failure, trying to insulate yourself from further pain, not just your parents' influence?  It's possible, but from what I've been reading lately about attachment theory and relational approaches it seems to me that even significant losses and rejections do not have to be traumatic if there is "space" for all the emotions in the relationship with your caregivers.  Test it out for yourself, though.  When I notice that my inner dialogue suddenly becomes sharply critical or shaming, if I observe and investigate, I usually notice that underlying that is a fear that this mistake I have made will cause me to lose all of my important relationships.

Answers for how to stay in "happy" while anxiety and shame are pulling out all the stops to try to get you to move back into the "safe" zone?  I've recommended elsewhere Bruce Tift's audio series Already Free (I believe it's coming out as a book this summer) where he talks about this "survival level panic" (which can happen even from emotional rejection; again it's that thing how crucial the parent-child bond is to survival), and his answer is to slowly learn to tolerate it.  It is difficult and takes a lot of repetition and practice.  

First, you ask yourself whether this sensation of panic is actually harming you.  (Me, I am not even past that stage yet.  Ha.)  Then, you start to be able to be more and more present with the feelings... .eventually getting to kindness towards yourself and your own experience.  What I like about this is that he recognizes that "kindness to self" is actually an advanced practice, I always thought it was kind of flippant when someone says "Love yourself!" or "Give your inner child what she didn't get at the time!" or "Be gentle with yourself!" as though one could do this on command with no experience or model from one's caregivers for being kind to oneself with respect to this particular emotion or experience.

Anyways, that's what you can do on your own.  In theory at least, a relationship with a therapist can help in the sense that the therapist doesn't feel disgusted, fearful or abandon you when you are feeling attractive, celebrating good news etc.  (Hasn't happened for me yet, my reflexive shut-down response to joy, spontaneity seems to be very strong)  Also a healthy intimate partnership.  If you're not in one of those, I believe friends can help too.  

I personally do not have any negative reaction to you looking in the mirror and thinking you are attractive.  Why not feel good about yourself?  It doesn't steal joy from anyone else.  And you got some good news to celebrate... .again, you being happy doesn't steal anything from anyone else and might even make them feel better (emotions are contagious).  

[Grey Kitty]

I have no idea why I am feeling so guilty for having positive thoughts about myself. 

Mindfulness is one of my 'universal fixes'; In your shoes I might try to apply it like this... .

Next time you have a positive thought about yourself... .and then follow it immediately with some other thoughts/feelings that shut it down, try to really experience your thoughts and feelings. Yes, the negative ones you just had. Approach it with curiosity and interest as to what is actually going on in your head and heart there.

You probably won't figure out immediately WHY you are feeling guilty... .but you will gain more understanding of WHAT is going on, and some of how it is working.

[EaglesJuju]

To me that's rules again: you developed the belief that in order to feel good about yourself you needed to be in service to others, not a bad belief really, maybe a tweak would include adding yourself to the list of people it's OK to help, and that might avoid the plummet?

This belief was reinforced by my FOO.  I am the offspring of narcissistic parents.  There are typically two outcomes for the children of narcissistic parents, becoming narcissists themselves or dependents. I ended up being the only dependent in my family. I have two family roles, the needy and helpless child and the pleasing caretaker fixer. As a result, I have codependent traits and suffer from DPD. Both roles are conflicting and contradictory, but  dually serve the same purpose to my family.  

I was the only child raised with the belief that it is selfish to put yourself first.  I constantly self-sacrificed and people pleased to curry favor from my parents and family members.  I associated people pleasing and helping with self-views of me being worthy, lovable, and important, thus building my self-esteem. Through therapy, I started establishing boundaries and working on my codependency.  The plummet resulted in me actually breaking many codependent traits.

At the other end of the dependency spectrum, is my DPD. I am overly dependent on certain people. Similar to my codependent traits, I self-sacrifice and people please, but for the purpose of "preventing" abandonment. Essentially, I allow people to take control of my life and make decisions for me. My family viewed me as incapable of taking control of my life.  Concurrently with working on my codependent traits, I have been working on my DPD.  

You had a thought before you had a feeling.  What specifically did you say to yourself as a replacement for the positive self-talk?

I said to myself, "It is arrogant, vain, and narcissistic to think I look amazing."

Was it your voice or an old script you got from somewhere else?  When I catch myself defeating my feel-good with negative crap, I don't care where it came from, I repeat the negative crap over and over to myself in a squeaky cartoon voice until it sounds completely ridiculous, and keep my mood playful and upbeat while I'm doing it, and that scrambles the crap pretty well.

I am sure that it is an old script that I got from my mother. She has always projected her feelings of her self-image on to me.  

I have been trying to counter balance negative self-talk with positive self-talk, but once certain negative things are stuck in my head it tends to snowball.  

Same as above, a thought came before the guilty feeling, what was it specifically?

I thought it was inconsiderate of me to be so happy with something that I did for myself. The news was a result of something that I have been focusing and working on for a very long time. I think since it was one of the few things I ever completely did for myself, I think that is most likely where the guilt stems from

What does it mean to have positive thoughts about yourself?  Is there a critic in there saying that's not OK?  It's fun to make the critic 3 feet tall and squeaky in your mind's eye, with circus music playing in the background, takes all the power away immediately.  

I can have positive thoughts about myself, but they are not always sustainable.  Besides the guilt, I do have a tendency to doubt myself about certain things. Doubting myself results in pessimism.  

It is a vicious cycle for me: positive thoughts... .guilt... .self-doubt... .pessimism.

[EaglesJuju]

Mindfulness is one of my 'universal fixes'; In your shoes I might try to apply it like this... .

I have been practicing mindfulness for awhile now. It has worked wonders for my anxiety and abandonment fears. 

Next time you have a positive thought about yourself... .and then follow it immediately with some other thoughts/feelings that shut it down, try to really experience your thoughts and feelings. Yes, the negative ones you just had. Approach it with curiosity and interest as to what is actually going on in your head and heart there.

GK, you suggested this last time with my abandonment fears. It did work.    I do not know if I can truly experience the negative thoughts and feelings.

When I get one negative thought about myself, it almost poisons my entire mind. It eventually snowballs into anxiety. With mindfulness, I can assuage the anxiety, but I cannot stop the cycle in it's beginning stages.  I am assuming that is what I would need to fix and work on first, stopping the cycle of guilt... .self-doubt... .pessimism... .anxiety.

[Grey Kitty]

GK, you suggested this last time with my abandonment fears. It did work.    I do not know if I can truly experience the negative thoughts and feelings.

When I get one negative thought about myself, it almost poisons my entire mind. It eventually snowballs into anxiety. With mindfulness, I can assuage the anxiety, but I cannot stop the cycle in it's beginning stages.  I am assuming that is what I would need to fix and work on first, stopping the cycle of guilt... .self-doubt... .pessimism... .anxiety.

You might like one of my teacher's mindfulness techniques. While meditating you are trying to maintain your focus on your breathing (or other anchor), and a thought comes up, and you get lost in the thought, and eventually notice, and then try to get your focus back. It is a constant process... .anyhow... .when a truly persistent thought or feeling like that shows up, my teacher suggested this:

In your own head, say to yourself/that negative voice gently: "Thank you for sharing that. You may go now."


The really cool thing about this kind of practice is that you can try it both ways... .you can try to lean into those difficult feelings with some genuine interest and curiosity... .or you can try to shift your focus away from them. You can see which one works for you today. You will probably find that your capacity to stay with these feelings increases over time as you practice it.


My teacher described this in her practice once... .she was experiencing a feeling (I think her example was anger)... .she managed to stay interested in what this feeling was, what the experience of being angry was... .and then as she was observing it... .the anger went away. She was even a bit disappointed (!) then because this interesting thing she was observing went away before she was done watching it!

Rather than trying to 'stop' the snowball of negative self-talk before it becomes anxiety... .try to be interested in the transition. It is so quick that it's gonna be hard to watch before it is all done... .and then the part you get to experience is the anxiety, which is old hat to you now 

[fromheeltoheal]

You had a thought before you had a feeling.  What specifically did you say to yourself as a replacement for the positive self-talk?

I said to myself, "It is arrogant, vain, and narcissistic to think I look amazing."

It's good that you know exactly what your thoughts were.  As I mentioned, you can say that over and over again, out loud with a squeaky cartoon voice and imaging circus music playing, until it sounds completely ridiculous, which will scramble it and make it lose it's power.  It may sound silly but try it, really go there, and see how you feel.

Or, as Grey Kitty says, you can say

"Thank you for sharing that. You may go now."

Those are both ways of taking the power out of a belief.  Another piece is to consider beliefs as software; they are not the computer (us), they can become corrupted, they can conflict with other software, and most importantly, they can be scrambled and/or erased so they no longer matter.  Beliefs are either empowering or disempowering, and they are not us. 

I have been trying to counter balance negative self-talk with positive self-talk, but once certain negative things are stuck in my head it tends to snowball.  

That can work, with positive affirmations at full intensity with strong physiology, and it's also good to obliterate the negative too, before it snowballs; kill the monster when it's little.

I thought it was inconsiderate of me to be so happy with something that I did for myself. The news was a result of something that I have been focusing and working on for a very long time. I think since it was one of the few things I ever completely did for myself, I think that is most likely where the guilt stems from

Selfishness gets a bad rap, but really, if we don't take care of ourselves first we have nothing to give.  Like flight attendants say on airplanes: "should oxygen masks deploy from overhead, put your mask on first before you aid children and others", or something to that effect; we need to fill ourselves up first so we can give.  And then there's the belief that putting your own needs first is "wrong" and results in guilt, to be expected when caretaking needy people; what else can you believe that would replace that one, to be more empowering?

eeks says:

Answers for how to stay in "happy" while anxiety and shame are pulling out all the stops to try to get you to move back into the "safe" zone?  I've recommended elsewhere Bruce Tift's audio series Already Free (I believe it's coming out as a book this summer) where he talks about this "survival level panic" (which can happen even from emotional rejection; again it's that thing how crucial the parent-child bond is to survival), and his answer is to slowly learn to tolerate it.  It is difficult and takes a lot of repetition and practice. 

And as we're slowly learning to tolerate it, as difficult and repetitious as that is, we can control our emotional state in real time.  Life is now.  And now.  And now.  All we ever have is right now, so why not adjust our beliefs, rules, physiology and focus to create an empowered emotional state right now.  And now.  We are in control of that.  I notice when you talk about your family Eagles it's all in past tense, which is cool; the future does not equal the past.  Sure, we brought some beliefs and rules with us, some where given to us without our consent, but if they no longer serve us they really have no place in our empowered future, a future of right nows.  Take care of you!

[adventurer]

I have found Radical Acceptance not just helpful for dealing with my uBPD wife, but also for myself.  I certainly always strive to improve, but at this moment, I am just as I am, and that's ok.

Strangely enough, one thing that has helped me with my outlook has been dieting and exercise. Not because they make me feel better about myself for looking better or doing something positive, but because they are a great example of how skipping a day at the gym, or eating that bag of M&Ms from the grocery store is not the end of the world and not worth beating yourself up about. Overall, progress is still made, so it's helped me to lighten up on myself a lot.

Same thing if I lose my temper a bit, or if I JADE and cause an argument. Mistakes happen along the way but that doesn't mean I'm failing and it doesn't mean that I'm not progressing in my relationship abilities in general.

Self-esteem is a tough subject - great thread!

[talithacumi]

This seems to be such a common feeling among people here on this board that it really begs the question of what role it actually played in attracting/making us attractive to pwBPD in the first place ... .

For me, it was a matter of having been programmed from the get-go with the false belief that I wasn't worthy/deserving of actually being loved - which was the excuse/explanation my undiagnosed rager of an npd mom used to justify her treatment of me and pretty much everyone else in her life as well. My presence could be TOLERATED - and I MIGHT be treated with more kindness, consideration, respect, and love - IF I could consistently prove myself to be of some real use to her in some way. Clean the house, shop for groceries, cook, do laundry, watch my brother/sisters, lie to her creditors, lie to her employers, get a job/give her all the money I made, etc., etc., etc... Alternately, I could also make her look good by excelling at everything I did. The very least I could do, as I was REPEATEDLY told, was not cause problems, complain, or otherwise make life anymore difficult for her than it already was.

For over 50 years, I operated on the unquestioned and deeply engrained belief that ANY worth I had as a human being came from how often/well I satisfied the needs of other people.

Thinking I looked good - was attractive? Come on! How vain! How delusional!

Doing something just for myself? How selfish!

It took me a really long time - with a lot of help from a really good therapist - to get past ALL that self-perpetuating programming of inherent worthlessness.

The one thing that probably helped me the most was mindfully reviewing everything I've actually done over the entire course of my life.

Feelings aren't facts. Not for pwBPD, but not for us, either. And the facts, in my case, made it VERY clear that my mom was wrong. Regardless of why I've done all the things I've done - whether it was to please someone else/earn their love or not - I've done a LOT of really good, really remarkable things. Applying again - to myself - the "actions, not words/intent/feelings" rule we're encourage to used to cut through the FOG that keeps us attached to our pwBPD, I had to admit that - dang! - I had to let go of those feelings of worthlessness I've lived with my entire life, and by god ACCEPT that FACT that I'm really worth loving, caring about, mattering afterall - because, under the circumstances, believing ANYTHING else would be sheer madness.

This exercise was the beginning of a whole new way of seeing, and relating to myself. One based on facts, not feelings. One grounded in actions, not words. I'm still plagued by the voice of my inner critic/mom. But I can step back from what I'm hearing now to recognize it for the self-serving lie it's always been, and not let it detract from the pleasure/enjoyment I'm experiencing in the moment.

It IS a lot of work. But it's soo worth it.

What are the FACTS of your life, Eagles? Give yourself the credit you deserve. Start there.

[EaglesJuju]

To me, this sounds like a self-protection.  Nail yourself before they nail you.  So it's not necessarily that you actually believe you are narcissistic, vain, or that happiness is worthy of guilt, but you have these loaded statements pop up to cause you to back off from hanging out in that "danger zone" of happiness, self-esteem and other good stuff.  

I have not thought about it from this perspective, it does make a lot of sense. I have a tendency to self-doubt quite often. The origin of that feeling stems from past experiences. When I doubt myself, it is a way of protecting myself from the possibility of something negative from happening.  Essentially, if I think pessimistically I will not have to get disappointed if the outcome is unfavorable. I pretty much am setting myself up for failure thinking this way.

Some possible reasons I can imagine why parents can't be with children's joy:  

- pessimism ("Expect little, and you'll never be disappointed" or the closely related bitterness ("yeah, that's nice, you're going to learn what the real world is like soon enough"

- fear, specifically their own trauma defenses kicking in on a reflexive level when they see the child expressing something that wasn't safe for them to express around their own parents

- their own parents' attitudes and treatment about failure/rubbing it in when the child is optimistic but things later go wrong ("see, I told you so"

- perfectionism

This is pretty much verbatim of what my parents said to me during my childhood. 

Rather than trying to 'stop' the snowball of negative self-talk before it becomes anxiety... .try to be interested in the transition. It is so quick that it's gonna be hard to watch before it is all done... .and then the part you get to experience is the anxiety, which is old hat to you now 

Interesting, I never thought about it this way. I am going to try this. You are right GK, I will get to experience my life long friend, anxiety. 

It's good that you know exactly what your thoughts were.  As I mentioned, you can say that over and over again, out loud with a squeaky cartoon voice and imaging circus music playing, until it sounds completely ridiculous, which will scramble it and make it lose it's power.  It may sound silly but try it, really go there, and see how you feel.

I am going to try this as well.

Those are both ways of taking the power out of a belief.  Another piece is to consider beliefs as software; they are not the computer (us), they can become corrupted, they can conflict with other software, and most importantly, they can be scrambled and/or erased so they no longer matter.  Beliefs are either empowering or disempowering, and they are not us. 

This is a great analogy.

Selfishness gets a bad rap, but really, if we don't take care of ourselves first we have nothing to give.  Like flight attendants say on airplanes: "should oxygen masks deploy from overhead, put your mask on first before you aid children and others", or something to that effect; we need to fill ourselves up first so we can give.  And then there's the belief that putting your own needs first is "wrong" and results in guilt, to be expected when caretaking needy people; what else can you believe that would replace that one, to be more empowering?

My cognitions of what selfishness means are distorted. I tend to associate selfishness with the actions and behaviors of the pwNPD in my life. Also my definition of selfishness has been so engrained into my cognitions from what I learned in my narcissistic family.  Obviously, there is a difference between taking care of your own needs first and utter disregard of other people.

I do feel that it is important to take care of yourself first before you can help others. I need to truly believe that and actually apply it. 

And as we're slowly learning to tolerate it, as difficult and repetitious as that is, we can control our emotional state in real time.  Life is now.  And now.  And now.  All we ever have is right now, so why not adjust our beliefs, rules, physiology and focus to create an empowered emotional state right now.  And now.  We are in control of that.  I notice when you talk about your family Eagles it's all in past tense, which is cool; the future does not equal the past.  Sure, we brought some beliefs and rules with us, some where given to us without our consent, but if they no longer serve us they really have no place in our empowered future, a future of right nows.  Take care of you!

It took quite a bit of therapy for me to learn to live in the present.     While working on my codependent traits, I learned that I cannot control anything but myself. It is empowering to live in the now. Before I tended to worry about the future and the unknown, which is a recipe for anxiety and catastrophizing.