of those who, without your realizing it, nibble at your sense of self-worth till one fine day you realize that you no longer have an ounce of self-confidence left.
Speaking purely from experience......and it's taken me 30 years to realize this.
There are those who outright say and do things to make you question your self-worth. These you can deal with. Just tell them to get lost....or if you feel there is something in what they are saying, you can work on it and work it out.....
But...
There are those who through indirect ways - ways that you cannot recognize because you get blindsided by the pain they cause - make you feel as if you are less than nothing. There are those who through their 'soft' words and actions, even through what they don't say out loud, make you feel as if everything you do is lacking in something or the other, as if you could have done more; who make you believe - gradually but surely - that you are just a waste of space; who seep into your consciousness with saccharine-sweet words that hide a dagger with which they demolish what you think about your work, what you do, what you think, what you say, how you live...everything about you gradually, without your even being aware of it, comes under this dagger; who, sometimes without words, but just a lifting of their eyebrows, or some other gesture show you that you are less than them or less than less. These are the people to be aware of. The realization that your heart and soul are being eroded may come in a short time, or may take a longer time....but when it does come through, then that is the time to act. This is the time to step back, take a good long look at what you have become, and say enough. You may not want to rock the boat or disturb the circumstances of your life....but if you want to live with dignity and if you want to live in peace with yourself then you have to fight to get your sense of self-worth back. It's no use saying it's okay if you feel hurt or someone has deliberately put you down. What you have to say is, it's okay that this has been said or done - that is not in my hands - but what I do with it is in my hands and I choose to chuck them out as being less that worthless. I know I am not ____, ____, or the other. I am talented, I am strong, I am kind, and if I have made a mistake or slipped up, it is not the end of the world......I can fix it or if I can't, then I have the strength to take the consequences. You will always find something in yourself to commend and praise....just for yourself.
A technique I'm using and learning that this really helps me - refer to my blog on Tao - is to smile and breathe. When I know that someone - especially someone close - is saying something which doesn't sound hurtful, but I know is definitely a put down to make me feel small and incompetent and useless, I smile to myself and force myself to take a deep breath - and when I breathe out, I send out the poison before it has time to poison my system. I'm a long, long way from healing, but I've started. The most difficult thing was to face the fact that my self-confidence was gone....eroded silently and without my knowing it. I was reacting and jumping to every word that was said to hurt, by going overboard trying to fix whatever it was... I was taking on myself every criticism being thrown out in a general way... I was bending over backward trying to set things,that I hadn't even done, right....
Once your sense of self-worth is gone, believe me, nothing will seem right...nothing will seem to work...So if you are feeling small, or down, or like a fool, just because you have not 'come up to someone's standards' chuck it. You don't have to come up to anyone's standards but your own. And believe me, someone who puts up 'standards' to put you down, isn't worth standing on your head for. Just stand on your head for your own self...