How Does Self Esteem Affect Anxiety?
Anxiety problems are usually directly related to a person’s self esteem. Low self esteem, or poor self image, contribute to many different personality disorders. A person’s self-worth, however he or she sees himself, will ultimately define what that person feels and even accomplishes in life.
If you are hard on yourself and constantly criticize your own efforts before you even get started in a project, then how will you ever expect to succeed in your personal and professional life? That may be the plan-a person with low self esteem retreats from the world, afraid of the evaluation of others, and seeks comfort in privacy. Whenever new challenges or new possibilities come up, a person’s poor self image will remind him or her that it probably can’t be done, and that failure is predictable. Anxiety results from all these conflicting thoughts and the person will usually avoid any object or situation that requires a measure of self-worth.
People with low self esteem do not like themselves and so expect and maybe subconsciously ensure failure so that their self-defeating attitudes can be reinforced. Once a person develops a major anxiety disorder, conquering that disorder becomes all the more difficult because of low self-esteem. Feelings of low self worth and anxiety eventually become linked together, and difficult to separate one from the other.
For example a person may develop a social anxiety disorder, which is the fear of meeting other people and of public humiliation. It would be practically impossible to teach a person who has low self-esteem to enjoy the process of meeting other people and speaking in front of small groups, without first dealing with the internal issues. In fact, it’s likely that the person developed this disorder because of low self-esteem and perhaps a past traumatic incident that reinforced that attitude. Therefore in psychotherapy, or even in self-help, the goal would be to treat both the low self-image and the anxiety disorder.
The first step to improving a person’s self-esteem, which will eventually lead to a decrease in their anxiety, would be to eliminate self-destructive behavior. A person must learn to love him or her self before their life’s ambition can begin. This attitude is usually taught to us in youth, but often times various incidents in childhood can hinder that natural process and rob a person of confidence. This type of treatment is not overnight; teaching a person to love him or her self will take time or persistence.
Professionals suggest simple treatments in the beginning of the process, such as being kind to yourself, treating yourself to the things you enjoy. Giving credit to the accomplishments you have completed and not ruling out the things you could hypothetically accomplish in the future. The second stage will involve reasoning with yourself in relation to others. Would you be so critical and demanding of someone else, even one of your loved ones, if they exhibited the same anxious behavior? Another technique would be to ask yourself to think of the words you would use to comfort others, and apply them to yourself.
It sounds simple enough, yet few anxiety sufferers actually take the time to treat themselves, the object of their dislike, with the smallest amount of affection. Before anxiety disorder can be treated, the sufferer has to love him or her self and truly want relief.
Tags: self esteem, anxiety
