SELF-ESTEEM SCALE
This is the scale I use for most everything I teach. At first glance you should see where you are on the graph. You can not be on both sides at the same time, ever. You either feel and demonstrate SELF-LOVE or SELF-HATE.
The numbers represent degree of love or hate you feel. If you are a +10 in self-love, which is something we usually don't get to until we are in our latter years, you have accomplished a lot in self-discovery, knowing who you are, having gotten what you wanted out of life, and so on.
However, if you see yourself on the left side of the scale, you may need help and support from those individuals in your life you trust. It's imperative that you know where you are on the scale in order to get the help you need.
I know what it is like to be on the left side of the scale. When I was very young, under six years old, I was easily at -4 or -5 without knowing much about life. After I had be placed in a foster home, at first I was excited. I was nowhere on the other side, but I was going to live in a house and that was exciting. That was until my new dad, my foster dad, laid down the law to my brother, sister, and I. In uncertain terms he explained the punishment we would receive if we stepped out of line would be to be taken back to the place from which we came, an institution for juveniles, not orphans.
Even though I felt a sense of security because I was getting my basic needs met (food, shelter, and clothing), I felt afraid that if I did anything wrong I would be taken back to the place that had a chain-link fence with razor or barbed wire strung across the top around the three sides of the courtyard . I never wanted to go back there, ever again. So what this new dad told us sent me further down the scale.
I felt so much fear, there was no way to feel love if any love had been given love, but it wasn't. My brother and sister were apparently further down the scale than I was, I think, because the two of them, my sister no older than four years old, were scheming to fight against the rules.
Having lived on the streets, slept in cars, and in the alley against the dumpster, getting food however we could, running the streets days and nights, my brother felt a lot of resentment at being given orders. He was used to freedom and didn't want rules. And what made it worse for him was that this new dad told him that he and his wife didn't want a boy but he was part of the package. I looked at my brother, saw very sad eyes and nearly cried for him.
In my teens, life was even more difficult. I had friends at school who went to dances, football games, parties, sleepovers, and had a lot of freedom. Most of the girls were either cheerleaders or colorguards or majorettes. I desparately wanted to do those things but didn't get to do any of it, not even one time. When asked why I couldn't do whatever it was at the time, I was always given the threat of being taken back to that place if I didn't like things the way they were there. Told how grateful I should be that I had a place to live always followed the threat. I was grateful. But I wanted to do some of the things other teenage girls did for fun.
Worse yet, I was being sexually abusing me on a regular basis by my foster dad. That started at age 13. At first I had to "service" him. But once I had a bedroom in the basement, which I welcomed because I was away from everyone, especially him, he started coming down to my bedroom in the middle of the night three, four, sometimes five nights a week. The first time he pulled my covers back and woke me out of a deep sleep, I was appalled, stunned, and furious, but too afraid of him to open my mouth and say anything.
That went on until I left there.
I'm telling you this, becuase I want you to know that I, too, was on the left side of the scale. I know what it is like to feel hopeless.
My foster dad wasn't the only one who sexually abused me. I had already been sexually abused by older cousins who threated to tell my foster mom that I asked to do what they were making me do, if I didn't do it. Everyone knew about my foster parents' threat and because I believed they would say something and I would be taken back, I did it. (See the article on Learned Helplessness)
So, the far end of the scale was looking good to me. I didn't do anything self-destruction to my body, but I did go to sleep every night, wishing I wouldn't wake up in the morning. That's pretty far down the scale. The left side of the scale.
So what happend to my brother and sister? My brother was taken back to that place when he was 14, and then ended up spending most of his teen and adult years in prison. My sister became a prescription drug addict and committed suicide at age 35.
I took a different route. I moved 1500 miles away from where I grew up and started a new life at age 25. I learned that no matter what I accompished in my "hometown" I was then and would continue to be seen as that girl that was a nobody.
In the life I created for myself by becoming a psychologist I was well respected for the work I did and still do. I taught hundreds of women how to build their self-esteem through Building Self-Esteem and many other classes. I gave lectures in both Houston, Texas and surrounding areas, and Santa Monica, California. I got a Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor (CADAC) license, was co-owner of a center that worked with women who had been abused, took Domestic Violence classes and volunteered to help women in domestic violence situations, and took Spiritual Psychology classes .
But when I go to my "hometown" to class reunions I'm still treated as though I'm still that victim I was a long time ago. But I knew who I was as a person. I had used my time to learn about myself, undo much of the damage that was done to me, and help those individuals who are struggling with many of the issues I dealth with as a young woman. I was coined The Self-Esteem Expert by several of my class members while teaching a Building Self-Esteem classes series in CA, a name I decided to keep.
Working your way down the scale in the other direction is a tough road, I know, but whatever the situation, there is help to be had. I looked at my life and how I went from A to wherever, and made a program out of it......many programs out of it, actually. (See Class Schedule).
That doesn't neccessarily mean I made it to the other side, although I did make it to +5 at one point in my life, but I easily slid back to the other side when I was faced with certain life issues, such as cancer. I worked out every day, and took really good care of myself, so when I was told I had cancer, my negative core beliefs kicked in and I was again berating myself for not being good enough, not having done enough good things, and so on. There I was, right back on the other side of the scale. Being bald didn't help the situation.
But I knew what I was doing to myself and once I got through the anger at about -3 or -4, I stopped. I stayed in that place for several months until I had a bone marrow transplant. Just like I went back to work 10 days after I had my son, I went back to work 10 days after I got home from a month-long stay in the hospital for my transplant. I could feel myself moving back in the right direction again.
So..... you can go back and forth on the scale. Know, that just because you're happy one day, or one week, or even one month, you're not necessarily on the other side of the scale. New relationships, a relocation, a promotion or better job all can make us feel elated. But that's not what determines where you are on the scale. It's how you feel and react in difficult times.
During my many years of working with women I've heard so many stories of hard times. Living with an abusive husband, taking care of a sick parent, having an illness, loss of a loved one, being in a car accident. natural disasters, violent attacks or accidents, military combat, sexual assult, and physical abuse.
Situations that seem like they are not important, may be very important to the individual experiencing it, such things as loss of a pet, financial or legal troubles, and being bullied are some of the most common ones.
An individual on the right side of the scale can most likely handle a given situation, maybe with sadness and grief, even anger, but they can handle it. Or any one of the situations mentioned above and 1000 others can throw the individual into turmoil that send them running to the left side of the scale.
Take an adult who has had a wonderful life. Grew up in a wonderful family, graduated, went to college, married and has two children, a boy and a girl, a beautiful home and a beautiful life. The way her life was going you would swear she was a +10.
But then she was in a car accident became paralyzed from the waist down and her right arm and hand were mangled. She couldn't walk, or raise her right arm, or use her right hand to write or type. She went into a deep depression. A certrain amount of sadness or depression is expected from such an occurance, that's what grief is all about. But she remained in the depression........ for years. She became bitter and rageful, shouting at her kids and husband, cussing and throwing whatever she could that was within reach. She refesed to have a normal conversation. This once happy woman went from what appeared to be at the far right end of the scale to -9.5. It would have been a -10 if her suicide attempt suicide had been successful.
However, another young woman who had grown up in a very dysfunctional home with many siblings, all younger than herself. She took care of her siblings most of time because the fathers were absent and the mother was an alchoholic who was gone most of the time drinking and prostituting herself for money to pay for more alcohol. Even though she was intelligent and got good grades, she didn't get to graduate or have friends. She was far too busy taking of whatever sibling was sick and couldn't go to school.
All of the money came from welfare. She managed the household with only what her mother didn't take for alcohol and cigarettes. One evening she had to run to the pharmacy to get medicine for one of the kids. On her way back she was attacked, dragged into an alley, and raped. The rapist smacked her around, and then he ran off. She managed to get herself up off the pavement, home, and to the bathroom where she cleaned up. She didn't want the younger kids to see the bruises that already started to form. She gave the medicine to her little brother, put him to bed and went to bed herself.
The next morning, as difficult as it was, she got up and got the kids off to school. During the day she put ice on her bruises. She left the apartment and took a walk to see if she saw the guy who raped her. There he was, a few street corners down, talking to her mother who she hadn't seen for several days. A few days later, she learned that her mother owed the guy money so he took it out on her. Saddened by what happened, but not bittler or spiteful, she was grateful he didn't hurt her worse than he had and went about her business.
Some indiviuals who have been in an accident, lose their ability to walk and other losses, handle it remarkably well, and other individuals who have been raped are never the same again. Each individual and how each deals with their circumstance is as personal as the person themselves.
Where are you on the scale?