Long term self-esteem and parental upbringing?

[Belmar2009]

I am not a psychology major, but I think how your parents treated you growing up (e.g. were they loving and supportive or were they negative, physically and emotionally abusive) has a huge affect on your self-esteem regardless of how good-lookingi/ugly, intelligent/stupid, cultured/uncultured, athletic /unathletic you may be etc......

Yet I know someone who is lacking in certain areas in his life yet his self esteem is great because his parents have always and still kiss his ass.

My mom was always very negative and never said anything positive when I did something good and always focused on the negative. I have heard over and over again, "you can't do anything right, you are not smart enough to do that, you are not this, not that"

I almost feel like the psychological damage to a person in these cases is irreversible even if that person is/or becomes very successful.

Anyone else agree?

 

[Nimm]

Agreed... its the same thing with my mom... I bet your parents are divorced?
When my parents got divorced, my mom got main "custody" of me.
Well my mother is a "negative" person imo. So i also heard some of the same **** ( "What have you done wrong now?" "What is wrong now again?" Your not that handsom") all ways engage in a conversion with me, with the mind set "Something is wrong"
And she wonders why i rearly talk to her anymore?
Stuff like that takes a toll on you.

 

[Kerpal]

Definitely true. My parents divorced when I was little, were neither positive or negative, they just didn't care about me, never gave me any kind of advice or guidance, and I never saw them very much. My self esteem, social skills etc. are greatly stunted partly because of that.

 

[Maxtro]

I agree 100%.

I completely believe that my parents getting divorced and me and my brother being raised by a single mom is the primary reason my life has been the shit it was and still is. Even at 28 I still don't have any self-esteem or self-confidence.

Now I'm going through therapy so I can hopefully become a "normal" person...

 

[Nygard]

It matters the most, actually. It's all about upbringing and how stuff happened in your early life. Let me bring this case up :

KID A : He's the older brother. His family is indiferent to the way he grows up. Yes, they provide for him, but they don't care if he's pushed around at school. His dad and mom never give him any advice for his problems and he comes with his own (wrong) answers.

KID B : He is born 4 years later. He instantly becomes daddy's pride. One of his uncles loves him so much that he takes him as a son. Said uncle is the perfect role model and tells him he always has to be a man and behave like one. Said uncle was and still is a huge badass. The kid has some trouble in school as well but his parents advice him and he finishes school without any problems.

Fast forward a decade and some years and we got this:

-KID A is almost 22 years old and has never been emotionally involved with any woman.

-KID B gets a box of 100 condoms for his birthday and the family finds the empty box on the trash can five months later. They are pretty much sure he didn't inflate them with hellium to make baloons.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[MetalFortress]

Ya, not such a fan of my mom. She was positive enough but thanks to a misdiagnosis of autism and her own special ideas of what else I had as a kid (tourette's, add) which she still thinks I have, I'm her 'special' child. Oh and the autism diagnosis was reversed but she thinks she knows better than the docs.

So yeah. I am her special one. I was also subject over the years to lies and brainwashing regarding my dad, which lead to a severed relationship with him for a LONG time.

After proposing to my now wife, and with her nudging, I got back in touch with my dad and stepmom a couple years ago, and since then the truth has really come out. I got out of my mom's world and stepped back into reality. I now have a very good relationship with my dad and stepmom, and stepbrothers as well, and the relationship with my mom is all but severed.

My mom lied to me and damaged me with her using of me for emotional clinginess and (attempted use of me for) social security money. I have always had confidence issues. I was a videogame addict (we're talking gaming 8 hours a day) growing up. My social skills were held back heavily. I was morbidly obese as a teen. Even now I still struggle with the psychological impact and some depression. The process of finding the truth was very painful but it has definitely been for the better.

 

[MacBlast]

i can't touch a peanut butter sandwich to this day because of my upbringing. kids are bad and sure they deserve to be punished but my parents took it to a whole different level. if i was bad, i was grounded in my room for 2 weeks at a time on nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and water. prisoners get better treatment then that...at least they get variety. i would say that wasn't a grounding...that was torture.

once in a blue moon when i bring it up to my parents, they act like they never did that but why would i make something like that up.

my dad cheated on my mother and living in a small town had a great effect on me because it was in the newspaper because he was a doctor and the girl was a patient. try going to school walking down the hallway with everyone looking at you talking and whispering. teachers that hated me read the paper in class holding it up so i could see it while it was study time. talk an=bout rubbing it in your face.

my wifes parents sound just like yours. actually they sound like alot of peoples parents. but you can't let that hold you back. its hard being a parent...it truly is because i am a dad and sometimes i do stupid things to. some people just don't express their feelings and if they do all they know is the negative because thats what their parents were like. maybe life has been rough on them and they have been let down so they don't want you to get your hopes up.

but you can't let that stop you from living the life you can be living. nobody can tell you how or what to do when your out on your own. life becomes on your terms. you don't need anyone telling you who you are or what you can be. if you need someones opinion to be happy then you might as well dig a ditch and jump in and bury yourself.

i think thats why when we fall for a woman that is great. it makes you not only energized but they can make you do things that you never did before. i used to be afraid of rollercoasters and i didn't want to look like a wimp so i got on and i had the time of my life....i wished i had of done it sooner. i think thats why when they exit our lives its hard to get over them sometimes. because that person brought out the best in us.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I find psychology very interesting as well. I used to write my ex-wife's papers for her in her graduate psych classes. She is a counselor now.

I am yet to meet a cage fighter without daddy issues. It might be the same with boxing, but all I know is mma. Dad usually ran off and left. If he is present, he has probably run off in the past and returned.

Another thing I have noticed is that a lot of men who are attracted to careers with positions of power like police or prison guard have often been abused as children.

 

[Jules Verne]

Interesting ^.

 

[r0cky]

Abuse does affect your childhood, not only that but you often imitate your parents personalities. My parents are very reserved, specially my dad, and I blame him for raising 4 introverts. Luckily i'm an ever self-improving guy who has been able to rebuild most of his own personality.
One thing I have learned from my parents and other parents is that the advice you give your children is less important than how your children see you live life and treat others.

 

[ArcBound]

My family is weirdly distributed, there are four kids in the family. My dad's way of getting us to get good grades was to: give us $1 everytime we got 100 on a test or quiz, which was a lot to us. However if we procrastinated on the hw or got low grades he would beat us and call us retards. What are the results? One sibling in community college, I'm in one of the top 20 universities in the world, another brother heading for ivy league and one more for community college. So I don't think parents can seal the whole deal though they are influential. I mean in a family with four kids we are all very different..