About Self-Esteem...

A low self-esteem child will play arrogant simply because someone said she was arrogant A low self-esteem child will play crazy simply because someone said she was crazy. A low self-esteem child believes everything she is told, believes she's all of these terrible things that others say she is no matter how far removed from the truth it is. And then she tells other people that she is these things and they believe it too because people believe everything they hear. This is even more likely if she to be believed is referring to herself. She must know the truth about herself. She knows herself better than everybody. Or does she? Even though this is true for many things, it is not true for many psychological things. The way people live their lives is a peculiar thing that ingratiated itself into the understanding of the liver. They see their poverty and can describe their poverty. Others cannot. They see their family problems and can describe their family problems. Others cannot. But the way people see themselves is not objective.

I once heard another say about herself, "I'm the dirtiest, filthiest, most vile and terrible person around." Reason would hear that and think that person must have really low self-esteem; lack of reason would hear that and take it on face value. Gosh, that person says she's the dirtiest, filthiest most vile and terrible person around so it must be true. The concluder did not think much about the situation. The conclusion was not reasoned. It was not based in reason. It's just another case of people believing everything they hear. If the legal system just believed everything that was said as opposed to everything that was tactically proven then the legal system would be handsomely messed up.

The big girl with the little girl in her eyes was pretty messed up, too. The low self-esteem little girl lived in her unhappy smile. This low self-esteem child was very insecure, shy and sensitive and she didn't talk to anybody. Didn't talk to anybody, eh? The failure to reason's immediate response: "She must think she's something - too good to talk to us." When really she didn't think she was good enough to talk to them. And trying to express those complex feelings about herself without sounding self-centred was almost impossible. So they often went unexpressed. And those in the shadows of the low self-esteem child continued to believe whatever the hell they wanted to believe even though they knew absolutely nothing about her. They knew nothing about the cool clothes she never wore and the decent food she never ate and the sense of family security she never had. They knew nothing of her poverty and dysfunctional family - dysfunctional being a dirty word she never uses.

But the only person she ever told lies about was herself. And even that was unusual, and that was years ago. That was because she had no self-esteem. Today she has a pretty healthy self-esteem that acknowledges that she's just as good as anyone else. She can do things others can't do. Others can do things that she can't do. And she respects that.

Elaine 06