How do you learn to respect yourself?

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I have not been treated well throughout my life. In psychology, you learn you teach others how to treat you. I cannot blame some people for making fun of me. I made a spectacle of myself often. I usually do not stand up for myself anyways. I am much older now, I am tried of being the easy target for criticism. Every now and then, I do stick up for myself, but I have endured the behavior quietly for so long, most people are shocked when I do say something. It is often the wrong time. Maybe they honestly do not think I care. How do you learn to respect yourself? I have no clue. I am being serious.
 
For what my experience is worth (and yes, I’ve had the same background as you), the best place to start is stop hating on yourself for anything you do.

If plenty people already do that in your life, no point adding to the pile yourself.
 
CRATUS said:
I have not been treated well throughout my life. In psychology, you learn you teach others how to treat you. I cannot blame some people for making fun of me. I made a spectacle of myself often. I usually do not stand up for myself anyways. I am much older now, I am tried of being the easy target for criticism. Every now and then, I do stick up for myself, but I have endured the behavior quietly for so long, most people are shocked when I do say something. It is often the wrong time. Maybe they honestly do not think I care. How do you learn to respect yourself? I have no clue. I am being serious.
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Can you get some counseling? Counselors can help you tackle each of these issues, one at a time.

You are not the first person to have this and probably won’t be the last.

However, they say what can be learned can be unlearned, but it will probably take some work.

Sometimes, much of what we do, we are even unaware of. Often, the simple act of bringing this up to your awareness can help change things.

Many times, the way we act comes from our families…how our families treated us, beginning first with our mother and father. If we happened to grow up in a family that had a lot of dysfunction, we generally inherit that, learn to internalize much of this, usually without even being aware of that.

If we were mistreated by parents, especially, it can cause a lasting negative impression, which can even tend to repeat in every future relationship.

I’m told that this CAN be overcome to some degree.

Sometimes, when we have low self esteem, we can transmit that to others without saying anything, just even by the way we carry ourselves…the way we sit, stand.

People with low self esteem typically hunch over a bit, have difficulty making eye contact, try to take up little space, speak too softly, possibly figit. Whereas, someone with a lot of self confidence tends to take up more space, stand up straight, speak clearly and loud enough.

They say 80% of communication is non-verbal.

Often, when we have low self esteem, we are often the first ones to put ourselves down. We will often say, “What an idiot I am!” A person with confidence generally won’t do that.

If we have been put down a lot in our past, it can more easily become a pattern into the future.

You remind me of me!

You sound like you also have issues with boundaries, that people chronically violate them with their constant criticisms.

A good counselor should be able to help you work on many of these issues, but it would take work. This didn’t all happen overnight, and it probably won’t be resolved overnight, either, but if you work at it, you should be able to see some improvement.

Do you have health insurance? It will often cover a few visits.

With college, they often have counseling including in one’s student activity fees.

For anyone not in college, some places offer counseling on a sliding scale, as well.

I have trouble standing up for myself, too.

You might need to even role play to learn how, since you may have never had anyone to model that for you in your family. A counselor could teach you how to be assertive without being aggressive.

Anyway, good luck to you and God bless and God speed!
👍
 
CRATUS said:
Dressing in particular in ways to gain me attention. Making a fool of myself. Acting stupid. Much more.
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Be more gentle with yourself. Try not to call yourself, or your actions, names, from here on out.

There was once this movie I saw, “The Great Debaters”, and one of the debaters, in his debate class called himself some name…“stupid”, “dumb”…I don’t remember, something like that, and the teacher told him NEVER to ever do that again. He said it was the verbal equivalent of punching himself in the face!

So, if you want others to respect you, start by respecting yourself. If you don’t want others to put you down, then don’t do it yourself. When you do it, first, it’s as if they think it’s okay, that they even have your permission. That would be a good starting place.

Instead of using words like “fool” and “stupid” to describe either yourself, or your actions, talk about this all more gently and objectively.

For example, instead of I behaved like a “fool”, you can say more specifically what the behavior was…I used to do a lot of things to call attention to myself, but stop short of calling yourself, or your behaviors, names.

I would discourage you from calling others, or their behaviors, names, and I would likewise, discourage you from calling yourself, or your actions, names.

Even when you have made mistakes, you had your reasons. So, please don’t be so hard on yourself.

When you make a mistake, forgive yourself and stop beating yourself up!

:slapfight:

It’s funny, because I do this EXACT same thing to myself!

I tried to get into a relationship, and it fell flat in a big way. Man, I called myself names, upside down and backwards…I literally said, “What a fool I am!” and other things I would NEVER, EVER say to anyone else in a million years!

So, I’ve since asked myself, why I will do this to myself, then. Don´t I deserve equal treatment? So, I’m going to try to turn over a new leaf, try to work on stopping calling myself names, number one.

I would like to try to defend myself, because generally, I NEVER defend myself when attacked. I am just like a doormat, and that’s really not okay.

Of late, I am just beginning to try.

I think that years ago, I DID try to defend myself, but it didn’t work. However, that was then, and this is now.

It’s like the analogy of the elephants in India. When they are little, they can tie them up with a rope, and the elephant will pull and pull, realize he can’t get away, resign himself to that fate, not even try to escape.

Later on, you have these humongous elephants going about with these itty bitty ropes, but the elephants have learned to not even try to escape. Maybe when they were little, they couldn’t do it. Now, they probably could snap that, but they have a kind of learned helplessness.

Years ago, you may have learned some ways of behaving, but the same way you learned them, you can unlearn them, or so they say. Again, I hope you will consider outside help, because this pattern will probably repeat unless you do something to break it.

Oh yeah, and in the meantime, you can begin reading self-help books on things like self esteem, assertiveness and see if you can pick up some things that might be of help.
 
Don’t do whatever you have done in the past anymore. Act different and people will eventually treat you differently, but do keep in mind that people who shared your past can and will probably mention it.

If your friends get stuck in the past, (even after you changed your behaviour around them for a long time) then maybe it’s time to find some new friends to share your new you with. As for family, a serious talk might be in order.
 
You speak positive words.

*I am proud of our own identity and their own values.

I am self-esteem, are known to act worthy of his good qualities.

I am a special person, because no one in this world is exactly like me.

Finally, I will definitely be the winner.*
 
The problem may be that you don’t know what they think, because you don’t know where they’ve been, and you don’t have the proper decoder rings to see through their particular masks.

People can be unclear what they want and snippy through violent upon getting an honest answer to a question that may or may not be what the person intended.

First, it isn’t because of your lack of intelligence, but lack of “calibration” that there is this problem. It’s hard to find people who can help you gain experience in dealing with people who are motivated by feelings rather than thoughts, because if others don’t seem to know how I think, then they come across inappropriately to me. All the way to attacking you or locking you up.

So yes take it as a learning challenge. Say things in slightly different ways and see if you can tell a pattern that one elicits more anger than another.

Another thing I’m working on is learning to make irrefutable statements. They really may not mean much, but for example if I say “most Catholics agree with me,” then I’m opening myself to a challenge, “oh yeah by what study do you derive your figures.” Now I have to defend or lose face. Instead if I say “many Catholic agree with me,” and in fact it is challenged, then I can just say “hey I talked to 10 guys after Church and we all thought that.”

The opponent can fret and fume, but cannot pick open your innocent and accurate account because you have admitted that you haven’t done research but still not retracted your statement – instead backed it up with evidence that you have special insight compared to him, and he can never tell you that you are wrong. Then you get the point because then he initiated a fruitless bicker and since he didn’t win the point he is seen by onlookers as less smart.

I recommend an old book that I wish hadn’t gone out of print and that I do not recommend any sequel because I saw one sequel and it wasn’t as good.

Anyway it gives you a way to view a verbal interchange as sort of a prize fight, and examines what the various verbally abusive statements are implying and how to deal with them.

The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Elgin

There may be others but I like this first edition and it’s apparently available used.

MS
 
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