Living with bipolar disorder can damage your self-worth. Here are 8 ways to start feeling like yourself again.
Key Takeaways
- Low self-esteem creates a cycle that can trigger depression and undermine emotional stability.
- Documenting daily successes and positive traits shifts focus from perceived failures to personal strengths.
- Practicing positive affirmations and accepting compliments helps separate your identity from your diagnosis.
- Staying socially active and pursuing hobbies prevents the self-image damage caused by isolation.
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“It’s easy for me to buy things for others, but hard for me to accept gifts. I really don’t deserve anything.” Or, “It’s not worth it. I just can’t seem to get my act together these days.”
Sound familiar? If you’ve ever found yourself speaking or thinking along these lines, you may experience low self-esteem. Many of us who live with bipolar disorder do. We have a hard time heeding Shakespeare’s famous advice from Hamlet: “To thine own self be true.”
When you look in the mirror, do you like the person looking back? How you see yourself, in part, defines your self-esteem, as does what you think about yourself.
The Impact of Low Self-Esteem on Bipolar Disorder
Self-esteem transcends the usual “ups and downs” associated with situational life changes and goes beyond the mood swings of a brain-based disorder. It is far more fundamental: It shapes your reality and significantly impacts the overall quality of your life.
Managing bipolar disorder is tough enough, but when it coexists with low self-esteem, a vicious cycle can occur, with each aggravating the other. The shame and helplessness often associated with bipolar symptoms can deal a heavy blow to your self-esteem. And poor self-esteem has far-reaching consequences.
Not only does it create anxiety and stress, making stability more difficult, but it also increases the likelihood of a prolonged depressive phase.
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Furthermore, your vulnerability to drug or alcohol use can increase. Significantly, relationships can become impaired, perhaps with the very people who could help you the most.
Recognizing Signs of Low Self-Esteem
At one bipolar disorder support group, 88 percent of those in attendance reported experiencing low self-esteem with challenges such as:
- Indecision about what is wanted out of life
- An inability to make decisions
- Worrying excessively about appearance
- Feelings of rejection
- Over-sensitivity
- Withdrawal
- Pressure to do everything to perfection
- Unwillingness to try new things
- Engaging in negative self-talk
- An inability to accept compliments
All of these challenges negatively impact your stability and bipolar wellness.
Why Healthy Self-Worth Is Essential
Let’s look at the reasons for achieving — and maintaining — a stable sense of self-worth:
- You can assess yourself accurately and value yourself unconditionally.
- You are more in touch with your instincts and intuition than the input of those around you.
- You avoid being anchored down by past baggage or tormented by anxious thoughts about the future.
- You solve problems more creatively and assertively.
- You are more self-disciplined and patient in your decision-making, not reckless and impulsive.
- You possess an overall sense of power and capability, even when anxious or fearful.
How to Rebuild Self-Esteem While Managing Bipolar
Repairing your self-esteem helps create a more solid foundation from which to manage bipolar and maintain stability. The first step may seem simple, but it’s important: You must be willing to admit there’s room for improvement.
Are you willing to start with that acknowledgment? Good. Let’s get to work on your self-esteem. First, here are some general principles to keep in mind. To improve your self-esteem, you need to:
- Process your past and accept yourself for who you are. Therapy can help you work through that.
- Learn to break old, destructive habits, some of which may be deeply entrenched and difficult to abandon.
- Be willing to make mistakes — they are learning opportunities, not failures.
- Stop comparing yourself to others.
- Overestimating others often leads to underestimating yourself.
- Choose your friends wisely and spend time with people who have healthy self-esteem.
- Identify your essential purpose in life.
- Be willing to make changes that move you in that direction.
- Build upon your strengths, existing talents, and skills instead of dwelling on your limitations.
- Be willing to seek help from others. (This can be difficult if you keep telling yourself you don’t deserve it.)
Improving self-esteem is a process; it doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient and be willing to go the distance to live well.
8 Ways to Improve Self-Esteem and Confidence
If you are serious about repairing your self-esteem, here are eight straightforward, hands-on things you can do, starting right now, as in today:
1. Make a List of 10 Past Successes
Don’t discount “minor” victories — small achievements count, too. Refer to this list three times a day for the next two weeks. Fully recreate and experience the positive feelings attached to each success.
2. Make a List of 20 of Your Positive Qualities
Perhaps you’re creative, compassionate, long-suffering, or unselfish. Dwell on your assets, not your inadequacies. Take time each day to stand in front of a mirror, smile, and review your list.
3. Schedule Time for a Hobby
Starting today, schedule at least one hour a day for a hobby or some leisure activity that brings you enjoyment.
4. Track Things You Feel Good About
Before bed each night (starting tonight), list 5 to 10 things you feel good about from the day. For example, “The alarm went off; I got up and dressed.” Nothing’s too insignificant.
5. Write Positive Affirmations
Take a small index card and write a positive affirmation about yourself. For example: “I am a valuable, lovable person. I’m not perfect, but I am perfectible. A mistake is not a defeat; it’s a learning opportunity.”
Use whatever language works best for you. Read the affirmation aloud at least 25 times each day for the next two weeks. Again, be willing to experience the positive feelings that arise as you reprogram your mind for the better. (My therapist had me do this 50 times a day.)
6. Accept Compliments
Make a conscious effort to accept compliments. Don’t reject or downplay the nice things people say about you. You’re worthy of the praise! This exercise is more complicated than it might seem. To make things easier, just say, “Thank you.”
7. Seek Constructive Input
Read a good book, listen to an audiobook, or listen to a podcast on self-esteem. Consider attending a seminar or workshop. You get out what you put in, so flood your mind with positive, constructive input.
8. Spend Time With Others
Commit to joining a social group or doing volunteer work. When you have bipolar disorder, it’s easy to isolate, thinking that others won’t accept you. But isolation can damage your self-image.
Shifting Your Internal Narrative
Only when you face yourself as you truly are — and wholeheartedly work to repair your self-esteem — can you have the rich life you deserve. Results can come faster than you think. Rephrasing your internal dialogue can help foster positive self-esteem.
- Instead of: “It’s hard for me to accept gifts. I really don’t deserve anything.”
- Try: “The next time I receive a gift, I’m going to say, ‘Thank you!’ It makes me feel good to know that others appreciate me.”
- Instead of: “It’s not worth it. I just can’t seem to get my act together.”
- Try: “I’m going to take things one day at a time and not be afraid to let others know my limits.”
The real you is not a bipolar diagnosis. The real you is far more special and infinitely more intriguing. The more you are true to your self-esteem, the more the real you emerges.
As you make progress, keep looking in that mirror. Trust me, you’ll become more and more satisfied with the person staring back at you!
Editor’s note: Longtime columnist and mental health advocate Stephen Propst passed away in 2022; however, his enduring words of wisdom continue to resonate. We share them here to offer support and insight to the bipolar community.
UPDATED: Printed as “To thine own self-esteem be true,” Summer 2005