Tag Archives: self-esteem

Not a Perfect Ten..but Close. (A Teen Story of Self-Esteem)

Posted in Girl Talk: Boys, Bullies and Body Image, Self-Esteem by

I am the rare eight out of 10 on a scale of self-esteem. About those missing two points… It’s a visual thing, you know? People tell me, “Oh you have such a great figure!” or, “Oh you have such long legs!” or, “Oh, you’re so skinny!” and part of me believes them. But then I get a bad case of the “yeah buts…”

So I have long legs. Yeah, but… I have hairy arms. I think I get them from my dad, and I hate them so much!  I just want to shave them or wax them or something, but my mom says I’ll just make it worse and that my arms are beautiful the way they are.

So I am skinny. Yeah, but… I am TOO skinny. While some of my classmates starve themselves, I eat to gain weight. But I have a fast metabolism and it never quite works.

So I have a nice figure. Yeah, but… I have NO boobs. The media says I should have BIG boobs. Sometimes I look at other girls and think, Why can’t mine be like that? 

The “yeah buts” keep me from a 10 out of 10.

So where do the “yeah buts” come from? The media, I guess. Think of all the beautiful celebrities: Hourglass figures. Voluminous hair (on their heads and not their arms, of course!). White teeth. Blue eyes. No wrinkles. I know these are unrealistic expectations. I KNOW that. But sometimes I still want to experience what it feels like to have people look at me and think, Wow, she’s perfect! 

Other than the visual thing, I have good self-esteem. I have no idea where it came from. My mom and brother have anger issues and my dad just kind of goes with the flow, you know? I think looking at life positively and surrounding myself with a strong support system of family and friends helps. I try to hang out with positive people too. A lot of girls I used to be friends with were always saying things like, “Oh, I don’t have a boyfriend because this or that is wrong with me,” or, “Oh, I need a boyfriend.” Every conversation. I tried to tell them they were amazing just how they were, but some of them kept complaining. I can’t hang out with them anymore. Listening to them, I started feeling bad about myself too. It was hard, you know?

I don’t just ignore someone if they need help though. Like my friend who was depressed about her weight and contemplating suicide. Oh my God. What do you do when someone tells you that?  I asked her mom and she said she was out of ideas; nothing ever helped. So I got a group of girls together to talk to my friend and make her feel better. We’re not as close anymore, but I think she’s okay now. Another time, I asked a friend why her arm was bleeding, and she said that she cut herself over her boyfriend. I told her it wasn’t worth it; he wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth her time. I think she actually stopped for good. It’s just so sad, you know? That a girl would do this because of a boy.

There’s what girls will do because of a boy, but then there’s what they’ll do for a boy, right? I think boys put a lot of pressure on girls sometimes. They’ll say things like, “We’ve been dating a long time now. Things are getting boring so we need to try something new.” Or, “Well, so-and-so would do it,” and then the girl starts to feel bad if they don’t do it too. Or, “That’s the way to show affection if you really love me.” One girl in my school even sexted a naked picture to her boyfriend because he asked for it. Then he showed it to the whole school. Can you imagine? THE WHOLE SCHOOL. I felt so bad for her. It was horrible, just horrible.

I’ve had my run-ins with peer pressure too, what with my great figure and nice legs and all. Like the time I was dating this guy for only two weeks, and out of nowhere, he asked me for a blow job! Can you believe it? I told him he was crazy. And, he had texted it to me! That’s just CRAZY, right? I was like, “I don’t even know you!” I broke up with him the next day.

I am seventeen. I am a senior. I am 100% Mexican. I am more artistic than scholarly. I run track and go to work. I am an eight out of 10. Yeah, but…

Yeah, but… I would really like those other two points.

Is it Self-doubt or Low Self-esteem?

Posted in Self-Esteem by

Everyone has those moments.  Moments in which you’re not certain if you’re doing the right thing or making the right choice.  Moments in which you think back to that thing you said at the party and wish you could take it back, but you can’t.  There are times when you question whether or not you used good judgment or acted too impulsively due to anger or fear or something else.   All of this questioning is a sign of self-doubt.

Self-doubt is present in every person’s life and it can mean a moment’s hesitation before making a decision or it can be a paralyzing force that keeps you from taking action.  For teenage girls, who may feel particularly susceptible to what others are thinking about them, self-doubt can be a daily intruder into their thoughts or a shadow that whisks certainty away from almost every decision.  Sometimes girls express their self-doubt as a way of bonding with friends, either by not appearing to be too arrogant, i.e. masculine, and forthright with their decisions, or, by using self-doubt to consult with a BFF at all times.  But what might seem to be second-guessing can have deeper consequences in terms of a girl’s self-esteem.

Having low self-esteem can be a serious result of too much self-doubt.  If you don’t hold yourself in high regard, or keep a strong base of emotional resilience stored against how things might turn out, you’re likely to question your decision-making skills and if your instincts are right about things.  Fundamentally, self-doubt is a contributor to low self-esteem, rather than the same thing.  Doubting yourself constantly, whether by engaging in comparison with others, or holding yourself to an idealized and impossible goal, is a recipe for lowering your self-esteem, because you aren’t staying true to the conviction that you know what’s best for you.  Building up a stronger reservoir of self-esteem will help battle those self-doubt demons when they go on the attack.

But, how do you do this?  Or help a teenage daughter or friend to do this?  Encourage girls to be in touch with what they really want, not what they think they should want.  Do this by (as much as possible) shutting out the media’s messages to girls and going inward to think through what your inner voice most calls out for.  Meditate, create a vision board, or trace out the paths of other strong women and think through what decisions got them to the place you admire.  Imagine the stresses they endured, but overcame, and think about how it’s possible to do that as well.

Draw on supportive friends who will affirm your decisions, and back you up if you feel you’ve made a wrong one and need to make a change.  Practice telling yourself you know best for yourself and shutting out negative voices that tell you otherwise.  Learn to be confident that you’re acting with your own best intentions as your top priority and can be ready to face whatever consequences might come.  This will help bolster your self-esteem and work to erase the voices that can question every decision you make.

Teen Girls and the Illness I Call Pleasing

Posted in Peer Pressure, Self-Esteem by
“Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of.”  Have you heard this rhyme before?  It’s an oldie, but one that is still repeated.  It’s probably fair to say that everyone likes sugar and spicy food is pretty popular these days, but the idea that girls are still meant to be “nice” at their very core is clearly different from the message about what boys are made of (“snips and snails and puppy-dog tails”).
How this translates into contemporary life is that girls still carry the burden of always feeling like they need to please others, a habit that can then carry over into adulthood and keep girls from fully realizing their potential. Another offshoot of this is the intense pressure of trying to be “perfect” – an impossible task.  Pleasing others means avoiding conflict; pleasing others means making your own needs second to what someone who you might not even care that much about wants; and pleasing others means means diminishing your individuality to fit a model of sweetness that denies you have a right to feel anger, to own your choices, and to speak up about what’s bugging you.
What many people don’t realize is that always pleasing others and not prioritizing your own needs has long-term repercussions for self-esteem and for leadership skills.  If you are taught that it’s more important to put others’ needs first and to be liked how will you learn what you really want?  And feel that it’s valued?  How will you run a big corporation one day as CEO if you’re worried about making a decision that might cause others to dislike you?  It’s impossible to do both – and that’s where girls suffer from contradictory tensions that can’t be resolved without breaking the model of what girls “should be” — people who put others’ needs first.
It’s time for a new rhyme – one that lets girls realize that their own voices need to be heard, and while meanness is never a positive value, recognizes that anger, respectfully expressed, is okay.  By figuring out what your own individual needs are, and speaking up about them, rather than pushing them down in order to please others, you are tapping into an inner power that can reframe the picture of how girls are “supposed” to be in our society.  Not being “nice” doesn’t mean being unkind – sometimes, it just means being your honest self – and allowing your individual needs to be heard and seen.
The next time you hear yourself going along with what someone else wants, despite feeling a wave of discomfort in your stomach (or anywhere else in your body) because you know it’s not what you want, try speaking up.  You can be friendly and you can be kind, but be honest.  You might be surprised by how good it feels to put your needs first and how glad a friend or family member is to really hear what you want.  Take a deep breath and focus in on what you really want and then say it without apology.  Start small and remember this feeling of asserting yourself.  Think about how your mom or another woman you know says “no” when something else is clearly more important.  Being involved in your school’s debate team is another way to practice debating and even have fun while learning the art of arguing well.  Pick a cause that means something to you and work on its campaign.  Expressing your passion about this cause to others is a great way to speak up for something you believe it, then translate that to your own personal needs.  Remember every time you say “no” to some one else it also means there’s a “yes” saved for your own priorities.