Self ESTEEM:
Our esteem is affected by our self image; if we see our self image, and we don’t like it, our esteem is going to be low. Our esteem is our opinion of ourselves on how we look, our personality and how others speak or see of us etc. our esteem can grow and deteriorate through life, a lot of people wear fashionable clothes and cosmetics to help with their esteem; because if we think we look better with make up, we will wear to make our esteem higher. Not many people have high self esteem, the few that may have are likely to be happy with the way they look; this does not mean they were born the way they look; some people have surgery/wear make etc to higher this but once they are happy with a look they feel confident in, their esteem is at a high. When esteem kicks in as a young child, this is when you start to question yourself and the way you look, sound, speak etc. sometimes you evaluate your self for the things that are wrong and fail to notice their own unique traits.
IDEAL- self:
Your ideal self is who you aspire to be/ want to be or who you would like to be for example you might seek to be like a celebrity some people may start to dress like this celebrity etc. your ideal self and real self are two completely different things; unless you are one the few lucky people who completely like your self; this is very rare. Some people who seek to be their ideal self seek it through wearing make up, having surgery, dressing how they would like and some people who desperately don’t like the way they look can have what is called body dimorphic disorder. Ideal self is not just how we want to look it is also how we would like our personality to be, or our voice, also our lifestyle, our career etc and also ideally how we want others to think of us. For example when your little you might say ‘’I want to be a princess in a castle, with a handsome rich husband, have lots of children and work as a ballerina’’ although this is not very real, at that stage in life that would be your ideal self.
Aspects of one’s ideal-self are:
-Looks/Personality/Voice etc
-Ambitions & Dreams
-Career
-Future (Kids, Husband etc)
5 Positive or Negative Things that could affect Self- Esteem:
Using Lilly from my previous assignment I will now give five positive or negative things within Lilly’s life that could affect her self-esteem. I will use at least one example of positive and negative.
Negative affect:
At ages 4 to 7 Lilly was bullied for having freckles, this affected her badly and she started to not want to go to school, she started to compare herself to other girls and she felt what she said was ‘ugly’. There wasn’t a lot I and her father could say that would make it better because she wanted to hear from other people to assure her that I and her father were not just saying it because we have to, as her parents. Lilly became very introverted through the bullying and when we’d take her shopping she would ask for make up at such a young age, she also tried really hard to impress people with way she dressed. This low esteem stayed with her for a long period of time, it was very worse at the beginning of the bullying and she asked me (her mother), if she could have her freckles removed, as time went by she began to be able to accept that she had freckles and even embrace them as marks of beauty.
Positive Affect:
At age 16 Lilly got her first proper boyfriend; this dramatically improved her self concept. Lilly’s boyfriend helped her to feel pretty and loved, he told her she was beautiful everyday and it made her feel beautiful. Lilly and her boyfriend were together for a long period of time, in the early days of their relationship she was glowing and always had a smile on her face; she was truly happy. Her self concept had never been better. Because her boyfriend complimented her everyday she believed it and also her and her boyfriend went out everyday and they met both of each others friends and they liked each together friends and she said she felt very lucky because her boyfriend was handsome and his friends and he said that she was pretty and he was lucky to have her visa versa she felt lucky to have him. Her image of herself became better because he said her boyfriend said he liked her without make up and even said he liked the freckles that she was bullied about all those years ago.
Negative Affect:
At age 20 Lilly got made redundant from her first job. This affected her self concept because she felt she wasn’t good enough for the job and started to feel she wasn’t clever enough; she was ‘dumb’ in her mind. Lilly started to worry about her future because she was in her ‘dream job’ and felt happy so when they fired her she felt that she wasn’t good enough for the job. Lilly went through a lot of training for the job so she felt it was waste and she wouldn’t be good enough for another job in that area of expertise. Lilly was very upset by being made redundant because she thought she was a credit to the company she worked for and that she’d got to know the site manger; so when they fired her she felt conned and that they didn’t think she was good enough. Being fired made her feel she wasn’t good enough and clouded her judgment of what people’s opinions of her were.
Positive affect:
At age 26 Lilly had an un-planned pregnancy, this surprisingly over- joyed her because she knew she had a better job than when she was younger with a good wage that she could depend on, she owned her own home and had recently married her long term fiancé. Lilly knew she could afford to and manage to have a child within her current situation; she was able to work around caring for a child, this would complete her family unit. She glowed during her pregnancy and she said it gave her something new to concentrate on and live for. Lilly’s pregnancy went fine and she felt more beautiful than ever; she embraced the changes that were happening to her. She and her husband both made brilliant parents and managed to take having a baby, in their stride.
Negative/Positive Affect:
When Lilly’s daughter turned age 5, she and her husband decided to mutually separate. This had an impact on Amelia, seeing her parents separate made her think it was her fault, Lilly felt bad for this and so did her father. It had an impact on them as a family because they had to make arrangements for them to see Amelia in an equal way and something that would not only suit Amelia’s needs but also fit around their work schedules. Although the separation had an impact on their daughter and also their daily life Lilly and her separated husband felt they were better of separated because when they were together they would argue; this was affecting their young daughter. Lilly and her husband both admitted to missing each other and getting lonely; but they both knew it was for the best. After a while they both began to make suitable arrangements that suited the both of them and they managed to stay friends for the sake of their daughter, their selves and their family’s.
