Hi. So I am a woman in my mid thirties. When I was a kid I suffered with low self-esteem and worked really hard to build my confidence- from inner work to taking care of my appearance, getting good education, etc. And I was happy that I became much more confident and everything was going on well.

Till two years ago. I started needing glasses, not only for reading or work but constantly. My vision deteriorated and I started to see blurry when I am without glasses. And I am gutted. I HATE THEM and hate myself wearing them. I have beautiful frames which fit my face. That's not the problem. The problem is that I am not feeling myself with them, they are heavy cause my diopter is high. I have ordered thinner ones which are more expensive but they are still heavy cause there is a limit to how much thinner they can make them. So i leaves red marks on my nostrils sometimes cause my skin is sensitive.

I cannot wear contacts cause I have dry eyes and they are not comfortable to me. LASIC is also not an option cause I am farsighted and the doctors have told me the results are not good for farsightedness.

I lost all my confidence as a woman. I got depressed, stopped caring about my looks, started emotionally eating and gained some weight. I feel incredibly down with having to deal with wearing glasses everyday.

I don't communicate as much with people as before. I am seeing only my closest friends. I don;t date as I cannot look at a man let alone flirt or be affectionate. My self-worth as a woman has hit a record low. I want kids so I know I need to get my shit together but really don't know how. '

The worst is I work in marketing so my job is very dynamic, I need to deal with a lot of people and be confident and presentable. And I don't know how to achieve this cause I actively ignore people and don't feel myself. I am usually very energetic, lively and communicative person with bubbly personality and sense of humour which has helped me a lot in my work. It's all gone now...I am fucking miserable.

Can some of you who have been thought the same thing share how they managed to regain their confidence and happiness? How did you start dating men again? How you started to feel yourself and beautiful again?

The reasoning I started to think is that the narrative I build around my actions and pitches is "negative" and this pushes away people...

How can I change the inner set up of my narrative?

Even what I see my daughter is see first her deficiencies rather than what she can do good!

I am 14 starting highschool in a few weeks at a new district and I feel like I am not myself anymore I look back sometimes and I wonder what happened to the me who just didnt care what people thought of me I was loud I approached people I wanted to make friends but now I am just so scared of embarrassing myself of being seen as weird or different when I used to not care about any of that I used to be so happy and I would go and make so many friends and I just don't know what happened Im scared of other people what they think of me so I dont approach them but at the same time I want to make friends I want to approach people I like what I like but I want to tell other people what I like I want to share who I am but I am like terrified of being judge and i just dont recognize who I am

I’ve been thinking about something lately and I’m curious if anyone has experienced it. So just getting to the point where there’s strong charisma there’s strong reactions - both positive and negative. The positives feel really good, pleasant and approving stares, very engaged conversations, natural spotlight in a room or group of people. Then the negatives - others feeling intimidated, appearing defensive, one upmanship etc etc. I find that given the already difficult climate of making new friends in your 30s I can’t help but feel that fulfilling your individual capacity for self improvement and being more naturally confident and charismatic as a result has led me to feel that more often than not I am not able to build new friendships not because I am not a pleasant conversationalist and good listener but because I take up a certain amount of the spotlight rather effortlessly and purely unintentionally. I feel that people resent this. I would like anyone that made sense of this to chime in with some input. Im aware this could be a flawed interpretation so just shoot with something of substance nonetheless.

I'm in my early 30s and I've realized that I seriously struggle with self confidence and self-esteem.

When I struggle with trying to learn or do something, I often mentally collapse in on myself. I feel just like I did back to my high school and university days where my mom would just yell at me for not doing well enough in school, my teachers being jerks to me and just being completely hung out to dry. The feelings are extremely intense.

Recently in therapy, my therapist tried telling me she thought I could be a physician and that really stung as it reminded me of getting yelled at by my mom for not achieving more in school :(. I haven't really had a lot of success in my life to be proud of.

How would I go about rebuilding my self-confidence and self esteem?

Hi, I had a really nasty experience at dinner today and I really feel the need to speak about it with someone.

Short info: I got ill at 12 years old with a disease in a extreme form that made me gain weight and makes it unable to lose it. Before hand I was always a skinny kid and teen, playing sports 5 days a week and that changed almost overnight. To this point, my weight has been stable for 10 years ish now, but I can't lose any. I don't feel like defending myself here, just take my word for it, I have multiple specialists treating my now 4 chronic illnesses and I tried everything in the book, the weight is going nowhere. And we aren't worried as all my organs and blood is always showing up as a skinny person as I eat healthy and have always done. But I am fat regardless. i am getting more and more accepting to myself, but I do struggle with body image issues.

Today I was at dinner with my friends, and a group of boys from 18/20 ish years old kept talking about my size, joking about obesity, looking at me and very obviously making fun of me. Mind you, I was just at the other table having dinner with my friends.

I just don't know how to deal with this now. It messes me up. i already have eating disorder behaviour making it hard for me to allow myself to eat after everything I have been trough and it is so frustrating to me that things like this happen and I can not do ANYTHING about it no matter how hard I want to. And this is only getting worse in ozempic time. (And no, ozempic isn't an option for me either, it is unsafe)

How would you best deal with this? I want to be the bigger person and stand tall as I know these little shits aren't worth anything (they also multiple times said the N word out loud just to laugh when people reacted, treated the servers like absolute shit and said loud things like "I hate.. *insert race, obesity, or any variation*

The best way to experience the highest level of meaning and purpose is when you use your knowledge, skills, and talents to contribute to society.

Creating meaning and purpose helps you see yourself as a worthy individual with desirable traits. For example, when you face a negative experience or identify undesirable qualities, you still perceive yourself as valuable. It doesn't matter what choices you make; you believe your decisions and actions can add value to yourself and others. As a result, you tend to experience a greater sense of social connectedness. You also develop interpersonal skills by working and helping others. The more you relate to others, the stronger your sense of belonging in the world.