CORE SYMPTOM 1: by PIA MELLODY

DIFFICULTY EXPERIENCING APPROPRIATE LEVELS OF SELF-ESTEEM

         Healthy self-esteem is the internal experience of one’s own preciousness and value as a person. It comes from inside a person and moves outward into relationships. Healthy people know that they are valuable and precious even when they make a mistake, are confronted by an angry person, are cheated or lied to, or are rejected by a lover, friend, parent, child, or boss. The sense of worth can be felt even when their hair has been cut too short by a barber and even if they are overweight, experience bankruptcy, lose a tennis game, or realize that they have been insulted or gossiped about. Healthy individuals may feel other emotions, such as guilt, fear, anger, and pain in these circumstances, but the sense of self-esteem remains intact.

         Codependents experience difficulty with self-esteem at one or both of two extremes. At one extreme self-esteem is low or nonexistent: you think that you are worth less than others. At the opposite extreme is arrogance and grandiosity: you think you are set apart and superior to other people.

WHERE LOW SELF- ESTEEM COMES FROM

         Children learn to self-esteem first from their major caregivers. But dysfunctional caregivers give their children, verbally or non- verbally, the message that the children are “less-than” people. The “less-than” messages from the caregivers become part of the children’s own opinion of themselves. Upon reaching adulthood, it is almost impossible for those raised with “less-than” messages to be able to generate the feeling from within that they have value.

WHERE ARROGANCE AND GRANDIOSITY COMES FROM

         Arrogant and grandiose behavior arises out of one of two distinct situations. In the first, a family system teaches its children to find fault with others. The children thus learn to regard others as inferior to themselves. Such children may be criticized and shamed excessively by the caregivers, but they can usually rise above the resulting sense of being “less-than” by judging and criticizing others.

         On the other hand, some dysfunctional family systems actually teach their children that they are superior to other people, giving them a false sense of power. Such children are treated by the family as if they can do no wrong. They are neither confronted and corrected when they make mistakes nor guided into acknowledging and being responsible for their own imperfection. This kind of treatment is known as “empowering” abuse- these children receive a false sense of superiority over others in terms of value or worth, which sabotages relationships just as much as the message of being less than others does.

OTHER-ESTEEM

         If codependents have any kind of esteem, it is not self-esteem but what I call other-esteem. Other-esteem is based on external things, including some of the following:

         How they look

         How much money they make

         Who they know

         What kind of car they drive

         How well their children perform

         How powerful and import or attractive their spouse is

         The degrees they have earned

         How well they perform at activities in which others value excellence

Getting satisfaction or enjoyment from these things is fine, but it is not self-esteem. Other-esteem is based either on one’s own “human doing” or on the opinions and behavior of other people. The problem is that the source of esteem is outside the self and thus vulnerable to changes beyond one’s control. One can lose this exterior source of esteem at any time, so other-esteem is fragile and undependable.

         I have four children. If any one of them starts to “fail” in some task, project, or relationship at any time, my life can quickly become unmanageable. When I base my esteem on their levels of success, I am only experiencing other-esteem. And yet other-esteem is all many of us have.

HOW DIFFICULTY EXPERIENCING APPROPRIATE 

LEVELS OF SELF-ESTEEM LOOKS IN ACTION

         Frank is a very wealthy forty-five-year-old architect who never developed self-esteem, never learned how to value himself from within. He has consequently gathered esteem from the outside and bases most of his other-esteem on the fact that he has a lot of money and influence. When Frank lost his money through an unavoidable slump in the real estate market, he lost his whole sense of esteem and self-worth. Frank came into treatment profoundly depressed, believing that he was now absolutely worthless because he no longer had the money and power he had before. Since he did not have any experience with true self-esteem, he felt inadequate and lost.