Hello... please forgive my misspellings (Reflections) ha ha
I would like to post articles from my visits with my doctors because I feel like I am re-learning about life all over again. I felt like for most of my life, I was asleep and numb but now I am alive again and I want to teach everything I have learned. But most of the members of UM are extremely intelligent and all of you I am sure, know all of this but please let me post it.
A long time ago, I use to be so creative and then when my illnesses came, I wasn't phyisically able to do anything. It was as if I was already dead. I even feel like I was an absent Mother to my daughter for four years. The scariest of all of my illnesses is Mental disorder besides; Tumors, Diabetes, Hyperthyroidism, Asthma, Allergies, Stroke, loss of senses on my left side, loss of my job and insurance coverage, loss of my mother and the divorce of my parents before that. I have also lost all of my relatives and brothers because they want the Land & Home I reside on. Everyone is waiting for me to die. I have been abused since I was born and I have never forgotten each episode. So what I am about to write about is new to me. Self Esteem and Assertive Rights is what I would like to talk about.
I can understand and tolerate strangers pre-judging me but when your family does it to you... I have no explanation. I don't understand why as a little girl, I was treated in such a way. What did I do to them? They made me feel as though their abuses were justified because I am American Indian/Mexican American, Brown-skin, thick brown wavy hair and people have always commented on my Eyes. Big deal huh, everyone has eyes. They tell me I have THE EYE, whatever that means. To me, as I grew up, I have always felt that they were just stupid because I was just a small little girl and what kind of threat am I to grown adults.
So...
This is what I have just learned at the doctors office...

What is Self-Esteem?

There are many definitions of Self-Esteem and what they all have in common is the concept of esteeming yourself. This translates to loving yourself, respecting yourself, putting yourself first, and meeting your own needs. Self-Esteem is the placement of yourself in very high regard. This means that you not only love yourself but that you act lovingly toward yourself at all times. The best and the simplest way to think of having Self-Esteem is to imagine that you love someone very much, that you are always pleased to see them and to talk with them, that spending time with this person is what you most want to be doing, that you think of them lovingly and try to do things to please them. Your beloved is the most important person in the world to you and you will do anything and everything so that they know this. Now put yourself in the role of the beloved and act exactly the same way to yourself. This is Self-Esteem.

Loving yourself and taking care of yourself are the exact opposite of what we have been taught to think and do. We have been trained to esteem others and/or external variables and to measure our self-worth by what we have or by how much we are loved. This is the definition of Weak Ego: our worth and esteem are dependent on something outside of ourselves and, therefore, outside our control. When we feel that our esteem is based on having someone else to love us, or having the right job. or making enough money, or being "Successful", we are putting ourselves at high risk for insecurity and eventual feelings of failure. All things external to self are temporary. They are not ours and we cannot keep them. Therefore, when we entrust our feelings about ourselves to these external variables, when we feel esteemed because we are loved or in the right place at the right time, what happens when things change and we lose our loved ones or our job changes? Our feelings of esteem for ourselves go with the externals that are leaving us. And we are left feeling abandoned and depressed and without worth. This is crazy even though it is the "normal" way of being. Everything changes! Why risk our esteem to something out of our control?

Remember... we can only control our feelings about ourselves and our behaviors based on our feelings. If we choose to love ourselves and to behave lovingly towards ourselves, if we choose to have Self-Esteem, than we have control over ourselves. We do not have to risk losing our own esteem.

The true test of Self-Esteem is to have everything go wrong for us, to have this crazy world turn upside down and to lose all the things we value, and to still love ourselves and to know that we are loved. To treat ourselves in the most gentle, nurturing, loving way when we are in difficulty or pain just as we would treat another person who is hurting - this is having and practicing Self-Esteem.

That's all I will write about because I also have Carple Tunnel and I need to rest.

More info from my Doctors:

Assertive Rights

I have the right to...

say "No"
be competent and proud of my accomplishments.
feel and express anger.
be treated as a capable human being.
make mistakes and be responsible for them.
change a situation.
say "I don't know, I don't agree, and I don't understand.
be treated with respect.
express my needs, opinions, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
judge my own behavior and be responsible for it.
take pride in my body and define attractiveness in my own terms.
have a support system.
be myself and have a separate identity.
structure my own time priorites.
request help and receive information from others.
ask and not assume.
have privacy.
say "I'm not willing to accept that responsibility."
be imperfect.
grow, learn, change, and to value my age and experiences.
recognize MY needs as important.
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*We must seek out and tell ourselves the truth, because we act on what we think and believe.

*The truth's we tell ourselves must be based in reality, not just on what we want or wish it to be.

*When a negative or non-truthful thought and images enter our minds, we must learn to counter them with positive and truthful thoughts or images.

*It is often helpful to have other people talk with us about our fears and worries, because other people can often be more objective, and can see things from different perspectives than we can when we are caught up in the emotion of an event.
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Managing Stress & Anxiety

Think carefully about the situation and times when you feel Anxious.
Write down or actually Draw the Images and Pictures (Phantom, Negative Self-Implants) you Automatically see in your mind and experience when you are Anxious.
1. Stress and anxiety Producing Situation:
2. Phantom Images: These are pictures that "pop" into your head.
3. I begin to feel:
4. Negative Self-Implant Images:
5. I begin to feel:
6. Positive Self-Implant Images: These are the things I see in my mind (Or Should invision) that are True or at least more reasonable about the situation:
7. I begin to feel:

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That's it for now. I'm suppost to turn in my Artwork by the end of Jan. 2005

wow you have learned tons..TONS.. i didnt read it all but i scaned it and read the interesting parts...

But thet part.."When a negative or non-truthful thought and images enter our minds, we must learn to counter them with positive and truthful thoughts or images."

yah i have a major problem with that....i think of the worst possible thing people think of me and since i dont know what they really think i cant put truthful thoughts... i just think more bout the bad things...LIKE EVERY ONE HATES ME.... teacher have told me that no one hates me but i just know they do...

My doc would say, "Who cares what everyones thinks about you. How do you think about yourself, is the key. We are who we are. It helped when I stopped listening to my family. I actually told my Controling Aunt & Uncle, to stop coming over my home. I told them, I can make my own decision. I can take care of myself. They didn't take it very well. They made a big scene, but I had to do it, ya know. That was before my Mental treatment too.
When my Phyisical doctor made me go to the Counselors, I had serious side effects from the stress and anxiety, so that means, you could tell by looking at me, that I was very sick. You know, when Mental disorders get too serious, some people die from it.
It took five months for me to adjust to the mental health medication which is two types. I also take 9 other types for the other illnesses. So that is why it took so long for me to adjust. At the sixth month (August 2004) all of my test, every single one of them came up perfect! All of my Doctors and Nurses rejoiced and they gave me a mini party. Everything is still wonderful and it's because I agreed to the Mental treatment. My Doctor says, I came Full-Circle.
I am genuinely happy honestly, after 40 years. So remember your worth it and don't let anyone put you down. You'll get use to letting the words roll off your back, ya know, like a Duck ha ha.

Take care,
Becky

This is sad and emotional yet enlightening at the same time. I feel bad for what you've gone through but you've still got life and us at UM, and you've still got people who will help you with things other than more drugs, which I'm sure your not to keen on.

I don't say this often, but, may Odin bless your soul.

Thanks, that was so sweet. Yep, gatta take handful of pills at a time, but some of them are Puffers. UM is so much better than Yahoo Chat ha ha

Thanks again,
Becky