Surviving Other People's Self-Esteem

A book about how sometimes other people only feel good about themselves when they feel better than others. Not just how they convince themselves they’re better than you, but the lengths they go to convince you you’re inferior. With some personal examples of devaluing, undermining, passive aggression etc this is a book about other people’s self-esteem, recognising when you’re being belittled at another’s expense and surviving it.

I’ve never had much of what you would call self-esteem, or positive regard for myself. I had learned from an early age that self-respect and boundaries were just selfishness on my part, everyone else is more important. Anything I ever achieved I was led to believe I was either just lucky and undeserving, or would I would be savaged by others accusing me of being smug and thinking I was something I never was. I lived for a long time without the ability to recognise my own value and worth, my own unique qualities and skills and would constantly second guess my own decisions, always trying to mitigate other people’s harsh reactions to me even just feeling happy about something. The negative people I was surrounded by had no problem accepting me as being a mundane under achiever. It was only times when I would strive, achieve, to embrace joy that they reacted harshly. So this book is about esteem, our own and other peoples. The power balances, imbalances and struggles at play in our different relationships showing how some people only feel good about themselves by feeling better than others. A book about what esteem is, where it comes from and how our level of esteem for ourselves affects others and vice versa. With personal and real life examples from my life illustrating the power plays at work, this book shows how bullies, haters and those with low self-esteem go to any lengths just to value themselves by devaluing others…..and a little bit of how I learned to overcome the negativity thrown in too.

Darren F Magee lived for many years in a constant state of anxiety and panic always fearing when and where the next criticism and insult would come from and how best to mitigate it. In 2005 he retrained as a counsellor and is now a practicing psychotherapist and blogger in his home town of Belfast in Northern Ireland helping others make sense of and overcome traumatic experiences and self defeating behaviours.