I'm Just A Sucker With No Self Esteem

Here’s a poem I recently wrote. Being a poem it is necessarily extreme. It is called Self Downing.

I'm bad

I know I'm bad

I'm a sinner

Not a winner

Selfish grinner

Full smile wiped off my dirty face

The lowest of the limbo low

No further southern point to go

Wicked as the devil could be

Despicably depraved me

A wriggly worm in the dirt

A slimy slug in your herbaceous borders

I'm completely out of order

All my thoughts are disgusting

All my words curses

All my deeds dastardly

Totally unlovable

Irredeemable

Every inch a failure

Never hitting the mark

A capital L loser

A pig in a poke

A dog eating its own puke

Pack myself in a suitcase and hide

Nobody deserves to see this

Take me away and throw me into the sea!

Oh mercy me! Oh mercy mercy me!

This addresses an issue which makes and keeps us depressed. We ignore any good in what we do. We ignore any achievements. We use only negative language to describe ourselves. We focus on a bad thing we’ve done and let that colour everything else. We assume we should be more skilful, do more, succeed in everything, be popular. And when we miss that mark we’ve set for ourselves we throw our hands up in the air and declare ourselves useless, hopeless and we stop trying. Rather than looking to see if this was just a blip or a glitch or a bad day, we declare this is everything and this is just how we are and always will be. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How do we get out of this? We calmly and rationally ask ourselves some questions. Starting with why we believe we must be more skilful, more productive, successful, popular. Is there any proof that this is the case? Are these demands real? We then have to assume the answer is no and encourage ourselves with answers like, I would like to be a more skilful person, but there is no proof that I have to be. I would like to be more productive, but there is no proof that I have to be. And so on. This disarms the demands we accepted and turns them into preferences. It releases the pressure valve. We can relax. 

This doesn’t mean we just accept a perceived mediocrity. It should just mean we take off the pressure to perform and change our approach to improvement. We need to change our mindset so we attempt improvement but do not beat ourselves up if we fail sometimes. We keep calm and carry on. We don’t throw in the towel at the first setback.

I want to say something about self-esteem before closing, as that is linked, I think. Constantly putting ourselves down suggests we don’t value our worth. We think we’re either perfect or we’re useless, and there is no middle ground. This black and white thinking is part of the landscape of depression. And coming from a Christian viewpoint I think our understanding of the Bible may contribute to this. Not that the Bible is at fault but rather the depressed mind reading the Bible is at fault. The depressed mind focusses on original sin, “I am a worm and not a man”, “even our good deeds are like menstrual cloths”, I have sinned in every thought and word and deed. It does not focus on original goodness, being made in the image of God, “I have loved you with an everlasting love”, “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”. Both sides of this equation are Christian and need to be attended to in their proper contexts. The self-esteem of the Christian does not derive from within, it derives from the knowledge of being created in the likeness of God, being loved by God, being redeemed by God, etc. All these are things which are outside ourselves and in which we played no part. If we gather our self-esteem from what we have done it will be a poor showing. God thinks we are worth it, and so He loved us and sent His only Son for us. This is an act of God which should instil in us a sense of how He values His children.