The Student Room Group

I have low self esteem and I need to fix it quick

So basically I have this very deep and troublesome problem that one day will ruin me. I'm not sure whether you would call it a personality problem or a personal issue or what, but anyway I'll give a short backstory to set the scene. In November last year I accidently dropped a hamster and was beating myself up about it for a week and was hating myself because I thought everyone would hate me for it. After about a week I made another mistake when I accidently called my friend a chav (equivalent of white trash or trailer trash in the UK). I was just getting over beating myself up for the hamster mistake when this happened. What happened next was that it all piled up and I was stuck in this endless cycle of beating myself up and being anxious about what would happen next. So then next my gf- who was the owner of the hamster I dropped, dumped me. Before this happened though I had a psychotic experience as a result of not having any sleep at all the night before, and this was when I went back to uni. So, what happened was that my personality sort of changed (took me a few days to notice) and I also hated myself and remained depressed. I was horribly insecure and was scared about people hating me and finding out the 'real' me (whatever that is).

So fast forward a couple months and i still have sleep deprivation and I'm still drifting and drifting further down and not able to be myself. It's got to the point where I hate the person I am so much that when I speak I ask myself what the real me would say here, just so I can have something vaguely genuine to say. I also am convinced everyone hates me and have dangerously low self-esteem.

So, now to the business. An hour ago I posted something I thought was funny for attention in a group chat, that was actually a bit racist and quite out of line. I posted it to get attention in any way (childish I know) rather than just taking it in my stride and learning from it positively like I usually would I don't feel any mechanism of that. I just feel dull bad guilt feelings from it. So the reason for this is that I hate the person I am now, the person I have become as a result of the psychotic experience which changed my perception of uni and myself and who I am. So why can't I just say what want to say now and be the person I am now? Because I hate that person and I don't want anyone to see the person I am now. I have an issue with one of my friends from uni that can easily be sorted but I'm just so overwhelmed and I can't cope. This post is gonna go south from here so I'll end it now but- I don't know what to do at this point because I desperately need to somehow regain my confidence, find my old self, fix all my issues and then be me- the real me. Please ask any questions about this and I will defo elaborate. I just need serious help quick before I do something so awful I cannot cope with it. It's looking bleak from here.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by greengiant123
So basically I have this very deep and troublesome problem that one day will ruin me. I'm not sure whether you would call it a personality problem or a personal issue or what, but anyway I'll give a short backstory to set the scene. In November last year I accidently dropped a hamster and was beating myself up about it for a week and was hating myself because I thought everyone would hate me for it. After about a week I made another mistake when I accidently called my friend a chav (equivalent of white trash or trailer trash in the UK). I was just getting over beating myself up for the hamster mistake when this happened. What happened next was that it all piled up and I was stuck in this endless cycle of beating myself up and being anxious about what would happen next. So then next my gf- who was the owner of the hamster I dropped, dumped me. Before this happened though I had a psychotic experience as a result of not having any sleep at all the night before, and this was when I went back to uni. So, what happened was that my personality sort of changed (took me a few days to notice) and I also hated myself and remained depressed. I was horribly insecure and was scared about people hating me and finding out the 'real' me (whatever that is).

So fast forward a couple months and i still have sleep deprivation and I'm still drifting and drifting further down and not able to be myself. It's got to the point where I hate the person I am so much that when I speak I ask myself what the real me would say here, just so I can have something vaguely genuine to say. I also am convinced everyone hates me and have dangerously low self-esteem.

So, now to the business. An hour ago I posted something I thought was funny for attention in a group chat, that was actually a bit racist and quite out of line. I posted it to get attention in any way (childish I know) rather than just taking it in my stride and learning from it positively like I usually would I don't feel any mechanism of that. I just feel dull bad guilt feelings from it. So the reason for this is that I hate the person I am now, the person I have become as a result of the psychotic experience which changed my perception of uni and myself and who I am. So why can't I just say what want to say now and be the person I am now? Because I hate that person and I don't want anyone to see the person I am now. I have an issue with one of my friends from uni that can easily be sorted but I'm just so overwhelmed and I can't cope. This post is gonna go south from here so I'll end it now but- I don't know what to do at this point because I desperately need to somehow regain my confidence, find my old self, fix all my issues and then be me- the real me. Please ask any questions about this and I will defo elaborate. I just need serious help quick before I do something so awful I cannot cope with it. It's looking bleak from here.

Hi. First things first- if you don't like how you act/ what you say I.e being racist- you can change that- it's not something out of your control- and don't blame it on a "psychotic experience" you say you had (people don't call it that btw) because that marginalises people who suffer from psychosis and your kind of saying that people with psychotic illness are offensive/racist (which their not!). It is down to an individual to educate themselves about what is offensive and what isn't (I really don't want to sound rude btw because that's not my aim at all- I just think first thing you should do is recognise that it's in your control).
Also, I don't want to upset you- but people who are diagnosed with a psychotic illness don't call it a "psychotic experience"-it sounds a bit like you slightly made it up? If you did have a psychotic episode- you most likely would have recurring episodes- and it would't be because you missed a night of sleep. These things don't suddenly happen overnight, they build up for months and months and you struggle with other mental/physical health issues before a psychotic episode. You would be diagnosed with an psychotic illness afterwards most likely too. It just seems like you don't really know what to call it and thus are blaming it on something you made up because it's too embarrassing to not accept the blame yourself.
Now, on the plus side- this is something you can sort out- to help with saying offensive things you can educate yourself on what to say and what not to say- read about how to be anti-racist and what you can do to help the BLM movement, learn what terms are misogynistic/ homophobic / islamaphobic etc etc. This will help your self esteem.
Also, obviously don't self diagnose but maybe look into talking to someone about how you struggle to read social cues- perhaps you have a developmental disability like ASD etc (again talk to a professional about this to get the diagnosis)- it might explain a few things and there may be methods you can use to understand people better.
I hope these suggestions are somewhat helpful? (And I really didn't mean to cause offence) Perhaps you can elaborate on specific issues that are making you have such low confidence x

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