How can I start believing again?
Took me some time to figure out where in the world to write this ,but here goes...
So a while ago as I was thinking, which I normally do all too much in the evenings, I began to make a sad realization about myself. Sometimes as my thoughts jumble around in my head, a few stand out to me, and this time I began thinking about this one particular guy I know from previous classes. As I thought more about how attractive he was my mind shifted to "what if we could be something?" and then immediately shut down the thought afterwards. I began thinking "No, I'm not the kind of girl men are attracted to." Soon a downward spiral of scolding myself, pointing out all of my flaws, my less than average appearance, and so on started to happen. While this can be seen as typical behavior , for me it stems from a much darker place.
In middle school and high school I used to be severely bullied by all kinds of boys. Not physical bullying, thank goodness, but the type of verbal bullying that could hurt just as much. Over and over again I'd hear them tell me how ugly I was, how I wasn't this way or that way, how I wasn't worth much as a person , how I wasn't cool enough or strong enough. They'd laugh at me for no reason other than to be cruel. They'd pick on me BECAUSE of the fact they thought I was so ugly. And as you are probably aware, once you hear things told to you over and over again, you begin to believe them.
It's been over six years since high school and yet, I can still hear them, I still believe them. I still believe that no man would think me worthy enough or pretty enough. No matter how many times I try to build myself up, those years of bullying always end up on the stronger end, and I lose all hope of seeing myself attractive to someone else.
How do I go about changing this? How can I just let go and ignore all of those awful things said to me? How do I stop believing the negativity when I've been rejected at least three times by other men over the past few years? How do I believe others when and if they tell me I'm worth something or I'm pretty or things like that? I want to believe so badly, but it's oh so hard...
@mimameid
Oh boy how I know that feel. A long lasting period of hearing all kind of negative things about one's self, resulting in a total loss of self confidence, growing self-hate, sometimes even developping into a form social anxiety.
You can heal that back, for sure. It's long. It's hard. And you'll feel like it won't work all along. But if you're determined, you can. And if you're not, let me be determined for you.
Basically, the solutions I know are simple, but to be efficient, they need to be used for months - even years sometimes.
First, associate your negatives thoughts with positive once. Because yes, it's hard to believe, but you're far from worthless - in fact, you're probably great in plenty of things. You have to push yourself. Find something you're above average in, and each time you feel you're worthless, remember there is that, or those things you can do others cannot. Yes, this kind of thoughts will be hard to find, very, very hard, and as soon as they are found, they will instantly be plagued by you thinking "I may be good at this, but i'm not great." But you have to keep these in minds. You're good at something.
It may seem stupid, but it's actually based on the exact same process that threw your self confidence down : you heard over and over things and ended up believing them. It works the other way around, too. Even the tiniest glimmer, the smallest talent, is enough because it's still a talent, and by forcing it into your mind, you can get some self-confidence back up.
Secondly, get people. Yes, people, close friends in fact. They are hard to find, I know. But I'm sure someone on that Earth is willing to tell you that you're awesome. It's fine if you don't believe it, because if they're your friends, they will repeat it. They will point out your successes. And even though you'll probably minimise any achievement, it's once again the process of hearing so much that you'll end up believing in it. And it's much more efficient done by someone else rather than yourself.
There's one condition though. You gotta believe. I know it sounds cheesy, but to get self confidence back, you first have to be confident that this is possible. This is why it's so hard. You probably read what I wrote in mild disbelief, thinking it'll probably never work. But even if you think that, you gotta keep trying, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, again, and again, and again, and my fingers are starting to hurt by I wish I could write again a few thousand more times.
