by Maria Papadopoulou

Created on: July 14, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

Low self esteem can have detrimental effects on relationships with other people. Lets see how a chain of events is set:

People with low self esteem, have to live every day of their life with the fear of rejection hanging over their head. They constantly want to feel reassured that they are loved and cherished. They constantly need to feel they are in control of every situation. Trying to ensure that will happen, they become too needy and possessive. At the first sign of possible rejection they snap. They start playing the victim card, trying to make others feel guilty for hurting their feelings and they keep pushing and pushing until they finally succeed. When they don't succeed, they start making threats, plotting for revenge, intentionally trying to inflict to others some of the pain they have felt themselves after all, pain shared, is pain less. Ironically, they end up getting the very thing they were trying to avoid in the first place: Rejection. The others finally reach their breaking point and decide it would be best to leave that dysfunctional relationship behind them once and for all.

Low self esteem can also make people become withdrawn and distant, unable to deeply connect with others since they don't feel they can measure up.That results to poor communication skills, which make an already dysfunctional relationship even more dysfunctional. Plenty of misunderstandings are likely to occur, since it looks like people are speaking a whole different language and each party is convinced that he understands what the other party ''really means'', which in turn results in people drifting part even more.

People with low self esteem tend to search for people who can be their saviors. They need to feel protected, so they are subconsciously attracted to people who can ''guide them in the right direction''. The thing is, they end up being patronized into being something else than they really want to be by hiding their deepest feelings, needs and thoughts, just so that they can be likeable enough and their saviors will not abandon them. So in that case, even though they are not rejected with the typical sense of the word, they are however essentially rejected since they have to deny who they really are so as not be rejected.

Also, people with low self esteem are especially vulnerable to all forms of abuse, whether the abuse is physical, mental or emotional. They passively tolerate being insulted, accused, made fun of, threatened, blackmailed, and ultimately

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