
Originally Posted by
lestat1
safado, not picking on you personally, but I do want to address the often-quoted phrase that I've bold-faced. I hear this a lot, and it's true...for people with healthy or normal levels of self-esteem. It is so absolutely not true for people with low self-esteem. Hearing/reading it so often has turned it into a pet peeve of mine.
When a person with normal self-esteem encounters a setback, such as a rejection from a potential employer or potential significant other, it stings, but you eventually "bounce back." Your self-esteem takes a temporary hit of varying, but usually brief, length, and then it returns to the normal, healthy level. You really don't have anything to lose by trying, and maybe you even learn something along the way, or at the very least answer the question "what if?"
When a person with low self-esteem encounters a similar setback, their self esteem takes a hit, but it's not temporary. It can be long-term or even permanent. People with low self-esteem don't "bounce back" from setbacks the way healthy people do. These setbacks are obsessed over, over-analyzed, replayed over and over again, and provide fuel to the fire of negative thoughts in one's internal monologue. Those failures (and yes, they are absolutely seen as failures) contribute to the lack of confidence, low self esteem, and downward negative spiral.
Personal example: I always saw online dating as a last resort, my "if all else fails" backup plan. "Try it, you have nothing to lose!" I tried it. I lost most of my hope. It was my backup plan, and now I have nothing. I lost so much by "just trying." In short, we have everything to lose.
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