At one time in my life a had fairly decent self-esteem, granted I was middle school age and things were looking pretty good for me. I had a ton of friends, weekends were filled with dances or fun at the Rec Center. As a change of pace, we would throw in the movies every so often. These were good times.
The good times continued into HS where I still had a bunch of friends and always something to do. No shortage of boyfriends and little to complain about. Then my family moved and I had to switch high schools and that sucked and was the first real hit my self-esteem took. Switching to the rival school! I went from running with the popular crowd to running with no one. It was pretty lonely.
After a few weeks/months, I made a few friends but nothing like I used to have. And my self esteem never grew back to where it had been. This was the point in my life that my mental illness started to come out. At the time, everyone thought I was just being a brat and was whining and moody; and at the time I suppose that's what I believed too. It's only now as an adult who has had hours of psychology testing and treatment, I see that my bipolar and my anxiety were starting to come out during that time.
As life progressed my self esteem would have regular ups and downs like most teenagers and young adults, until, I got married and started having babies! That boosted my self-esteem to amazingly high levels. I had found things I was good at, very good at. I was a great mom, I took care of anything any everything my monsters needed. Meals, laundry, bathes, entertainment, I did it all for them. And I was doing pretty well on the wife front too. I felt good. I knew who I was and where I was headed!
As the monsters grew up, my confidence grew with them. And whenever they got involved in an activity I signed up to help the cause. Once they got into school I joined the PTO. I knew that I could really help their school. Year after year I volunteered more and I got to know a ton of people in the community. I was doing a good job and feeling good about myself. My self-esteem was so high that I ran for an won a local election.
Then it all came crashing down. It crashed hard and fast. My mental state collapsed, physically I was sick, I landed in a psychiatric hospital and then jail. That took some kind of toll on my self-esteem as I'm sure you can imagine.
With each step of this part of my life happened, my confidence and then my self-esteem got smaller and smaller, until there really was none left. Honestly, I knew I was bad off when I was more scared to leave jail than I was being in.
Six months ago I left jail and I can tell you with every once of my being that it would be difficult to have less self esteem. I've tired to jump back in some but it's really tough. It's tough to talk to people(because I'm sure all they see is a felon). It's terrible. And I can't get over that.
I want find that person I was before jail, before becoming a felon. I want so much to hold my head high and go and serve my family and my community but I'm stuck. I'm paralyzed by fear, rejection, judgement and equality. I want to get back to when I was reliable and willing to serve. That's how I need to grow my self esteem. But How?
To imagine I would ever care so much what others say and thing about me is bizarre! I never saw myself as a person that needs to be accepted, but I am. I need to feel worthy of helping and serving others, and my family. I need my self esteem back!
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