Confidence, insecurity, self esteem - peer support forum

I am always afraid, always afraid to fail. When I do something wrong at home, my parents always say: you are good for nothing, you are stupid etc..

I always feel so worthless... I also always think I might as well die, better live in heaven. But my parents are normally very sweet and they always say I am the prettiest girl. But at school they helped my very often with this fear of failing but it doesn't have any effect on me and I just driv myself crazy..

In class I always think about how much time the teachers spend.. they shouldn't... I am anyway worthless and a waste of time..

Plz tips on how I can feel better

I feel regularly insecure
- Insecure about if I am good enough....
- Insecure about if I do my work good enough
- Insecure about if I am nice enough, if my boyfriend will not leave me.

I have this already since I was young. I was good at athletics. When I won the second prize, then I thought I was not good enough. And when I won the first prize, I pretended like it was nothing and could not be proud of it.

I would like to feel more confident.

Before I started therapy, I was depressed and suffered from a lot of insecurity. I did not even dare to go into a supermarket without spending an hour in front of the mirror to make sure everything was in place.

I did 5 psychotherapy sessions now and I feel already a lot better and stronger. I understand better what the insecurity is about. That brings a lot of relaxation!

I am scared to express my opinion and often retreat myself from conversations. Although often I do have an opinion.

I work on it now together with my therapist and I already made some small success stories!

When I just started with my current job, I had a female colleague that seemed to dislike me. Whatever I said, she always had an opinion about it and always disagreed with me.

It drove me crazy and made me insecure. I was smart enough to realize that I did not something that she could respond to, but I could't put my finger on it.

Until one day that she again said something to me that triggered me immensely and I went to the restrooms to calm down a bit.

There I realized that I was triggered as a grown up man, but that it was actually the child in me that was touched and although I did not know at all how to do that then, I gave comfort to my inner child and from that moment on, I never had a problem with her anymore.

Insecurity, something that I had to deal with a lot outside my house. As a child I was bullied. They were always keeping an eye on me, the bullies, so that they could get me with what hurt me the most, and the teachers to help me.

It caused a lot of hindrances on the social level, as well with going out as with enjoying work. I always wanted to be invisible. For many problems I am still in therapy.

One problem really got much better: the insecurity when I enter a room where there are already people. I was always sure that everybody was looking at me as soon as I entered the door. That I would be judged and especially be judged as weird or unwanted.

I got a very practical assignment: when I would enter a room, I would not look around to see how people respond to me and what they would think of me. No, I would use a certain posture (that I practiced), walk in the room, look around and focus on who would be interesting, nice or important for me.

I would go to that person and introduce myself. I would be aware on my handshake, eye contact, how I put my feet, my back, my shoulders and my chin. There would be good chances that I would get into a conversation and that other people would also start to talk to me. And guess what... it worked!

By now, I got over this inhibition and I go out regularly, both private as for work, without a fearful beating heart and without cancelling the last minute with some excuse. I met a lot of nice people because of this.

I have doubts about everything, especially with personal things, I just cannot choose....

I am also insecure about weather I will make the right decision when I make one... I hope this can be solved, this doubting. Often I leave the choice to others. ..

Does anybody know what to do about this and where it comes from?

It took quite a while, with the help of a counselor, before I realized why I had so much trouble at work with my boss.

Whatever I did and however hard I worked, everytime he had some comment, it seemed never good enough and I was everytime scared to make mistakes.

It started to dawn on me that it looked like what had happened in my youth between me and my father, was repeating itself with my boss. I was always tiptoeing to prevent him to go mad and still it happened every now and then, which made me completely go down.

I realized that my attitude in a way provoked his behavior. I was an 'easy victim'. My therapist told me that I 'projected' my father on my boss.

That, and the fact that he once did the exact same funny trick with a colleague I really liked, made that I could take a distance and could see the projection. It sounds almost unbelievable but it is going much better now between us.

I am a student, but I do not manage to study. On highschool everything went super easy and I hardly had to do anything to get high scores. Everybody expected a lot from me when I went to the university, but that makes it only more difficult now.

I make up excuses, postpone work and rather go out with friends or spend the night on the couch gaming then to study. I am scared I disappoint everybody.

Sometimes I have the idea that I leave to do things, because I am scared I will anyway not do them good enough. And I do not want to fail.

How I see it, is that when I do something, I have to do it supergood. I'd rather do nothing then do something that turns out to be bad (according to my own standards)

So my fear to fail is linked to perfectionism. Also that sometimes makes that I do not do something, because I am scared it is not yet perfect.

I have a superstrong fear to fail. When other people have to judge me for something I can completely freeze. And I notice I start to sweat a lot.

It is the most difficult for me when I have to do a practical exam or something or when I have to give a presentation. If I hear anything that sounds even slightly critical I feel like the rug is pulled out from underneath me.