I don’t really know where to ask this.
I need to work on my self-esteem issues, a lot of which are caused by my home life. I’m “not logical”, clumsy, dumb, not smart, etc.
But they call me smart when it comes to my schoolwork as in, “You’re smart, you can do your work.” When I’m stressed.
My family wants me to be perfect and I’m just not.
They make jokes when I’m upset, and when I’m upset or try to tell them, I’m “too sensitive” and they go on about how insecure and how weak I am.
I broke up with my partner. They said I was too sensitive and insecure because I was upset about having to block the person. One of them laughed and said “You’re still upset?” When it happened 30 minutes before they said that.
Even my sister puts me down or calls me names sometimes to fit in.
First bit of advice I can give is stop labeling yourself with such strong negative adjectives. A quick lurk through your post history shows a level of introspection that dumb/stupid people do not have.
I don’t care how accurate you think you are, self denigration like that has major impact on your self esteem.
If you have some aspect where you feel deficient, improve it. Improvement is like steroids for your self-esteem. You are not clumsy, you need to work on your spatial awareness. If you think you’re dumb, educate yourself. Everything you listed can be improved.
Once you start fixing your self-esteem you’ll be less sensitive to the barbs of others and you’ll be able to digest feedback in a healthier manner.
There’s something to be said, about people that only come up with problems. Instead of presenting solutions. (Im talking about them, not you)
I’m not going to say i can relate too much. I was very much the opposite of you as a child. But I was also supposed to be perfect, Most things came easy to me. I was smart, I got top grades, I was active in acrobatics, but sometimes when I didn’t know things. Instead of politely explaining it to me. I was often met by “WHAT!? You don’t know this?? They don’t teach you this? We were taught this at a much younger age than you”. Ok. Cool.
Which obviously made me feel stupid. No matter how good I was. It was never enough. No matter how well i built something, it was never good enough. And no matter how far i could run. It wasn’t far, or fast enough.
If I couldn’t do to it on my own, no one was going to help me either. I was praised for being independant. But the reason I were, was because I learned early on, very early on. That no one is ever going to help me. I need to be able to do everything on my own. Otherwise nothing will get done. And that came back to bite me in the ass many years later.
So my advice to you. Try to see of you can seek professional help, ask your school if they know of any resources for mental health. Because trust me on this one. It would be so much better if you could get help now. Rather than 15-25 years later.
They can’t fix the problems with your family. But they can help you find tools to deal with it. And it also feel pretty nice to talk to someone that can listen and understand.
I grew up with a family like this. They were extremely emotionally abusive. I was told every day that was disgusting, too sensitive, a liar, a manipulator, a failure. I was told that I could never make it on my own and even though I tried to get out, they’d say that no one would take me in as a roommate because no one can stand being around me.
After decades of being told this I believed it and my depression got worse. I stopped taking care of myself, my physical health tanked, and I lost a lot of friends by lashing out at them.
They started getting physically abusive and finally after being choked and smothered I escaped from that house and realized nothing they said was true. They were saying all that to keep my self esteem low and to keep me emotionally stunted and dependent on them. Eventually, my depression, and 95% of my health problems went away when I moved elsewhere.
My point is, they’re keeping you down on purpose. They are manipulating you and chipping away at your mental health. please try not to take their words to heart. Grey rock them if you can, and try to look for places to move to if possible. Once you find a place away from that madness, go no contact or low contact.
I can fully understand having low self esteem because someone is telling you you’re no good all the time. It’s hard to not be affected by it. But just know that you are not the problem here.
I hope you are able to find a peaceful living situation soon. It will do wonders for your mental and physical health, I promise you that.
Your parents are emotionally immature, is what it basically comes down to. Try to reframe everything in light of this information and you can begin to heal, by building emotional maturity on your own in spite of them, and by discarding the false role-self(ves) they’ve imposed on you due to their inadequacies. That’s a very condensed, overly pithy way to put it all. These ideas need space to unfold, but I can’t write a lot at the moment.
That’s been my journey, and a lot of what I’ve been through echoes your struggles in the home. If you want a book that covers all of this with better clarity, I can recommend one that’s on Anna’s archive, free to download.
You can survive. It’s not always the most fun option but it’s a very valid one. I was in basically the exact same boat as you. I had to put up with their crap long after I wanted to because it was truly the only option I had short of being a high school dropout living on the streets.
I made it through college and then began cutting them off as much as possible bit by bit. I’m now full no contact.
What I did was focus on myself and my interests. I focused on the things I could control. I couldn’t control their garbage attitude towards my hobbies, saying they’re useless and a waste of time (which, yes, they’re hobbies, that’s kind of the point) but I did them anyways (I watched So… Much… Anime…)
When I went to college I for the most part knew who I was, my flaws and strengths, and made more supportive friends.
You’ve got this. Just remember you’re in high school now but that isn’t forever. I started living my best life well after high school.
I don’t know your home life in detail at length, but you clearly don’t sound like you feel supported and I’m sorry you’re experiencing that. It’s perfectly fine for you to seek out friends and mentors that DO make you feel heard, seen, supported, understood, important, etc. - also know that you’ll eventually start your own life and those around you throughout childhood and your 20s will one by one all go away, for the most part, in one way or another. For the better or worse. Just appreciate and foster the good you experience from them while it’s here, and if you can try to ignore or work around the harmful or less helpful stuff. It’s not worth wasting your valuable youth and life in general on people who have abusive tendencies or who even just don’t add value to your life. That’s not to say everyone should benefit you personally, that’s how narcissists and bpd individuals think and behave, that also is problematic, but you can definitely work to cut out people who make your life harder, that’s not only fair, it’s necessary if you are to grow and be healthy as possible later in life.
why thank you!! i understand. just got out of a toxic relationship with someone who has bpd.
My wife had a bad family life and a bipolar best friend. It was really bad for her, decades later she is much better.
Ultimately what helped her is a ratio thing. She introduced more people in her life that are not assholes. Her father to this day is verbally abusive as an adult, but a lot of the things he says now that would have made her break down as a teenager, now brush off her. This js only possible, because she has plenty of people around her that tell her the opposite.
Building up a community of support is the foundation to a better life. She rarely interacts with her family anymore by choice, but she has plenty of people around her who love her.
A lot of great advice here that can be helpful. I’d like to add/emphasis that people making “fun” of others like this are almost always projecting or are the most insecure people. Realising this made me just feel sad for anyone who makes fun of me, and it stopped affecting me as much as you described, like it used to. I know it’s not about me, it’s 100% about them.
Sadly I grew up in a similar situation, my father was emotionally abusive to me and the rest of the family joined in with him to keep him from turning on them as well, I think. I was fat, stupid, lazy, untrustworthy liar and a bad person. When I was bullied at school, they told me it was my own fault. I didn’t go on to college because they had me so convinced I was too stupid to understand the classes.
This was many years ago. Basically, I escaped them. I left home as soon as I could, like 17-18 and never went back. It wasn’t easy. There were brief periods where I was homeless. However those times helped show me that they were not only wrong, but that how they treated me was wrong (this was long before the internet existed).
I earned my associates degree in a stem field when I was 48 and have a really good job now that I am proud of. I’ve gotten farther than I ever thought I would. And I can truly say that I did all of it, with zero help from anyone. I sometimes wonder what I could have been if I had a loving, supportive family.
It damaged me emotionally in some ways ngl but overall it taught me the value of persistence and not to give up on myself.
I have gone out of my way to make sure they can’t find me. Someone found me about 10 years ago. To ask me for money.
Get as much support out of them as you can stomach. Try to at least graduate a trade school if you can (some trades will let you get started in high school and be halfway done or even graduate with your qualifications). Say and do whatever you have to (within reason) to use your shitty family to get to a point where you can reliably pay your own rent and other bills needed for daily life. Then move to a new address and change your number and don’t tell them the new ones. Un-add and block them on all social media, email, etc. Pick somebody you actually like and trust to make your emergency healthcare decision maker and beneficiary on any life insurance policies or bank accounts (just don’t pick a romantic partner, you’re too young to know who is and isn’t an idiot in that context). Then go to therapy and stop talking to people that are mean to you.
How old are you?
Can you afford to move out?
Generally speaking, you can’t make other people change, you can only change how to treat with them.
That’s true. Unfortunately, I can’t move out. I don’t have a job and I’m a teenager still in high school.
I’m a lot older than you are, and I’ve never met anyone who told me they were happy in high school.
Here’s something that might help. When I was almost thirty I was on workers’ comp after a job related injury. I’d never liked any job I’d ever had, and thought it was because I was some kind of misfit.
Someone pointed me at a book called ‘Discover What You Are Best At’ by Linda Gale.
It’s a series of self tests you can knock off in an afternoon. The rest of the book lists all the jobs that your skills are goodfor.
For example, a hair stylist, a paramedic, and a product demonstrator all need good dexterity and good people skills. Three completely different jobs with the same skill set.
Also, they list jobs with different levels of training. You can become an Emergency Medical Technician in a few months, a nurse in a couple of years, and a doctor in eight years.
Having a job where you fit in amkes a lot of life’s other problems a lot more manageable.
Good luck.
You may have heard this a thousand times, but if you are not a fit person, physical exercise can also strengthen your psyche.
I’m not suggesting this as the only thing you should do, but maybe in addition to better suggestions.
A regular run once a week together with some body building is amazing.I don’t really know where to ask this.
You may consider contacting a helpline.
You’re obviously going to have doubts about the validity of your feelings under a roof with that much ignorance. People can be dismissive for many reasons, but I think language can sometimes be important. If you don’t exude confidence it tends to be treated as affirmation of your views not mattering.
If you state plainly that you’re upset, you’d like some of their time, advice, and attention, and you still receive this type of response, it’s reasonable to write them off and lean on friends instead. Highly recommend therapy.
There’s a pretty good chance that you aren’t any of those terrible things you think you are. I don’t know, maybe you are, but based on how much everyone seems to dismiss you and put you down, I’d bet you have a lot more going for you than you think.
I’m really sorry that this is how your family treats you. Learn from them all the things you’d never want to put your own family through, and don’t believe them when they put you down. Sounds like you don’t feel comfortable speaking up for yourself, which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that in general, but that might be why they keep doing it.
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