Raising Self-Esteem - Dealing With Contamination

“What’s happened in the past needs to be undone so we can look forward. Sometimes if we don’t resolve certain things in our lives we get stuck in the past, even if we think we are moving forward, and it could be contaminating our self esteem right now. If it’s not resolved, it still has power over us.”

Nip and Tuck: My Big Decision, BBC3

These were words uttered by a psychiatrist during a programme which followed two teenagers who wanted to have plastic surgery because they were so dissatisfied with their bodies.

I can’t even remember the exact context from which they came, but they were as important to me then as they are now.

Raising self-esteem levels is vital to my progress.

So, I need to address the issues from the past that made me loathe myself so much that I needed to starve my body by way of punishment.

Was it really just a passing remark about my bottom being huge? Or was it the finality of the rejection by a boy who had been the constant source of my unrequited love throughout the years as I moved from little girl to young woman.

Could it have been more to do with the rejection of Daddy not letting his little girl look after him when he clearly needed caring for?

Perhaps it was my mother running away – more rejection.

Because, even three decades on, I remember those things and I still don’t deal with any perceived rejection well – my Husband’s refusal to save our marriage being a case in point.

My overactive sense of insecurity makes me think that people don’t like me or are deliberately moving away from me to the point where I can become almost paranoid about it and have to take myself outside for a good talking to.

It isn’t all about me. The world does not revolve around me being the centre of attention at every opportunity.

Instead of focusing on the perceived lows, I need to redirect my fragile self-esteem towards the jar of love that I have accumulated. Allow the compliments to go into the jar, rather than letting them bounce off and be discarded in favour of less enthusiastic reviews.

I need to stop letting the rejections of the past colour my perception of the future and move forward.