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Self-esteem is widely regarded as a component of good mental health. However, while the benefits of being confident and limiting self-deprecating behavior might seem obvious at first glance, the truth is that these traits could be a sign of positive well-being. Why is self-esteem important? An appropriate sense of personal worth points to strong mental health. Conversely, self-esteem issues are linked to unhealthy mental states.
While being able to laugh at your unique foibles or quirky behavior is a positive personality trait, constantly making self-deprecating statements about yourself can hurt your self-esteem and overall mental health. Luckily, there are things you can do to give your self-worth a little boost. Here’s what to know about self-esteem and mental health, along with some actionable tips.
What Is Self-Esteem?
Self-esteem refers to your sense of personal worth or value. In other words, it characterizes your perception of your abilities, potential, and importance. Your self-esteem can have a profound effect on parts of your life, including how you treat yourself and how capable you feel of attempting new or difficult things.
High self-esteem often manifests as a feeling of security, a sense of belonging, or a feeling of competence. On the opposite end, self-esteem issues can lead to doubt, low confidence, and negative self-regard.
Self-esteem isn’t a fixed trait. For most people, self-esteem rises and falls throughout life in response to changing situations, experiences, and interactions. For example, adolescence is sometimes (but not always) a low point for a person’s self-confidence; but for many, it rises to a healthier level as they age into adulthood.
Why Is Self-Esteem Important?
Self-esteem is important largely due to its effects on mental health. Relationships, decision-making abilities, motivation, and response to setbacks are all, in part, influenced by a person’s perception of themselves. A strong self-regard can help an individual maintain a healthy and positive outlook on life, which in turn can strengthen their emotional well-being and inspire them to take on new challenges that can ultimately make them feel more fulfilled.
Is Low Self-Esteem a Mental Illness?
We’ve all met people who constantly put themselves down by making fun of their appearance, behavior, or character traits. Low self-esteem, fear of not meeting expectations, and feeling helpless about their ability to control their life path are some primary signs of low self-esteem.
However, low self-esteem in itself isn’t a mental illness. Though it can be closely influenced by and reflective of mental health, and while self-esteem issues may arise in response to a mental disorder, low self-esteem isn’t typically considered a disorder on its own.
What Causes Low Self-Esteem?
Low self-esteem is clinically associated with multiple psychological and personal problems, such as major depression, anxiety disorders, borderline personality disorder, and substance addiction. However, damage to self-esteem can begin as far back as childhood, including situations that involve parental rejection, dysfunctional parenting styles (such as authoritarian, verbally abusive, or physically abusive), or lack of positive reinforcement by parents or parental figures.
Though a direct link between genetics and low self-esteem remains unproven, genetic predispositions to behavioral and panic disorders could make a person more susceptible to confidence issues that are often linked to those conditions. People with low self-esteem might provide the following explanations when asked about potential causes:
- They fear rejection, abandonment, or ridicule.
- They fear change or the unknown.
- They desperately seek approval and acceptance by making fun of themselves (which they wrongly assume seems like “praise” to another person).
- They think they can hide real or imagined faults by immediately pointing them out using humor.
- They think they can prevent people from attacking them first for their faults.
Who’s Most at Risk of Developing Low Self-Esteem?
Low self-esteem is commonly found in people with anxiety, depression, panic disorder, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. One of the driving forces behind the development of these types of mental illnesses can be low self-esteem.
When people feel good about themselves, they aren’t chronically worried and depressed about whether they’re good enough to be someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend, take a new job, live up to expectations as a parent, or earn a college degree. For teenagers with eating disorders, damage to their self-esteem can usually be traced back to overly critical parents who placed much of their value on outward appearances and were held in high regard by others.
Unless a drug addiction is fueled by dependence on pain pills due to surgery or illness, many people with addiction learn as teens or young adults that alcohol, heroin, meth, cocaine, and marijuana suppress overwhelming feelings of anxiety, sadness, fear of abandonment, and inferiority. Interestingly, people with schizophrenia don’t tend to suffer from low self-esteem. Researchers think this is due to psychotic disorders being highly genetic and susceptible to “stress triggers” affecting individuals with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia.
Tips for Improving Self-Esteem
When people with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or substance addictions receive counseling, much of their treatment program is devoted to helping them resolve feelings of low self-worth and fear of failure. Self-deprecation only serves to reinforce a person’s low self-esteem. Mental health counselors rely on cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, and other psychotherapeutic techniques to improve a client’s self-esteem and stop self-deprecating behaviors.
Raising self-esteem is difficult. Adults with normal self-esteem rarely have problems with low self-esteem since this trait, like many other traits, develops and solidifies in childhood. When low self-esteem is accompanied by chronic depression, severe anxiety, or a substance use disorder, professional counseling may be necessary to address self-esteem issues as well as serious mental health problems. Here are some things you can do to improve your own sense of self-worth:
- Stop trying to please everyone. Your life isn’t wholly about meeting or exceeding others’ expectations.
- Understand that strong emotions can distort the true nature of reality. In stressful situations, remain as objective and calm as possible. While it’s easy to think less of yourself when your thoughts are clouded by anger or fear, feelings are temporary.
- Keep a running list of everything you’ve accomplished in life. Start the list as far back as you like. If you won a “student of the day” award in second grade, write that down — that’s an accomplishment! Other accomplishments include graduating from high school, growing a small garden, moving into an apartment and getting a B in a college algebra class. Acknowledging how far you’ve come can help you put things in perspective.
- Volunteer to work for a nonprofit organization. The sense of meaning and satisfaction experienced when helping others who are less fortunate is a great way to improve self-esteem.
- Start taking small risks. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but feared you might not succeed at? Now’s the time to give it a try. Your small risks might include smiling at a stranger in the grocery store or saying hello to an elderly person shopping alone. Take tap-dancing lessons, or paint a sunset using watercolors. Work up to bigger risks you never thought you could do, such as completing an online business course or asking your boss for a promotion.
Seeking Help for Low Self-Esteem
Having healthy self-esteem is essential for defeating substance addictions, overcoming depression, and controlling anxiety. FHE Health provides comprehensive addiction and mental health treatment programs for people who need help achieving healthy self-esteem and regaining control of their lives. Contact us now to start your recovery journey.
