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A Course in Self-Esteem
6.The Payoffs for Low Self-Esteem
by Channing Grigsby
Outline
1. We get to be right
We prove what we secretly believe.
2. It provides safety
We think it's easier to fit in and gain approval; part of our invisibility
3. A No-Fault Insurance Policy
No responsibility; no risk; no rejection
4. Beyond Criticism
Keeps us blameless -- not our fault -- this also means we get no praise that
works
6. Victimization
Being a victim is a position of power; allows people to feel sorry for themselves,
gain pity; others stay clear
7. Justice
People with low self-esteem don't deserve satisfaction or success
8. Helpless
A program for failure; keeps us powerless
9. Normal
It's all very familiar and known, even comfortable; the way it is.
Okay, if low self-esteem is such a problem, why in the world would anyone hang onto it? Why would anyone perpetuate it?
Everything we do is purposeful and has a pay-off, some reward, for what appears to be even the most negative kind of behavior. For instance, if we have low self-esteem, we may find ourselves doing behavior that reinforces that low self-esteem. It is very difficult for someone who thinks she's a failure to allow herself to succeed, even though success is apparently desperately desired. In the operation of such a self-fulling prophecy (I am a failure), the pay-off is the confirmation that the statement is true and accurate. As in everything, there are pay-offs for holding onto low self-esteem, even if the perceived pay-off is an illusion and not real.
At first glance, it may not seem like much, but this is central: we get to be right. For someone who has lived most of a life with a lurking feeling, large or small, that they were wrong, that they are chronically wrong, that they will never be right, fulfilling the low self-esteem prophecy paradoxically makes us right and redeems us even if only momentarily. Occasionally, in moments of disappointment, it can be seen in the tight-lipped, thin smile of satisfaction that fleetingly appear on someone's face. We succeed, finally and at last, even if it is at failing. At the same time while we may be frantically attempting to overcome some behavior, our core belief, for instance, that we can't do this persists and we feel a kind of perverse relief when it turns out, one more time, to be true. The anxiety level raised by the posssibility that we can do this is awesome, and we may go to apparently crazy lengths to protect our old selves. Thus someone with a drinking problem who has been doing very well lately may suddenly and inexplicably go off on a bender awesome to behold. It appears to be terribly self-destructive behavior, but in fact it is a survival response, an attempt to make us right and keep us right. Also notice the levels of arrogance, of superiority, of self-righteousness involved in being right. It is, all in all, an amazingly powerful reward.
Most of the time our low self-esteem is masked by the false self we have created for public consumption, and we persuade ourselves that we are much safer if we maintain that false self. We think we fit in easier, gain instant approval, and we also, interestingly enough, get to remain fairly invisible and anonymous. Safety is of prime importance. The great scientist Albert Einstein was once asked what he thought the most important human question was, and he answered, "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" A person with low self-esteem already has the final answer to that question. We experience a profound sense of danger and jeopardy--the universe is decidedly unfriendly in our experience and our interpretation, and so we place a premium on safety. The illusion of safety is an important reward for us, even though it really is just an illusion.
3. It's A No-Fault Insurance Policy
A person with low self-esteem has taken out a kind of no-fault insurance policy with life. The pay-off is that our low self-esteem absolves us of responsibility for what happens in our lives. (Of course I couldn't have done any better than that.) The pay-off is that we are smart not to take risks --how could someone with such poor self-esteem possibly expect or be expected to do well, get that project finished, achieve that dream? If you take no risks, you do not fail. If you take no risks, you experience no rejection. We are not responsible for what happens. It must all be someone else's fault, so we gain the illusory appearance of innocence and virtue.
Although we may appear to bumble and stumble as a result of low self-esteem, we maintain a core belief that we are beyond criticism. Low self-esteem not only keeps us safe -- it also keeps us blameless. We can use low self-esteem as an excuse. It is a schizoid way of thinking that is expressed by comedian Flip Wilson's old line for his character Geraldine, "The devil made me do it."
It wasn't me who screwed up, honest. It was because of my low self-esteem.
You know I can't do better than I did.
If you knew me better, you'd know not to expect more.
So nothing that happens as a result of our low self-esteem is really our fault. It is also important to notice that we never get our credit either. If we are so removed from responsibility, no praise that comes to us can be real, no praise can make us feel good except fleetingly, because the person who is being complimentary clearly cannot be talking about the "real" us.
People with low self-esteem tend to feel invisible and isolated. As you may know, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Many people with low self-esteem come from families in which they were treated with indifference, in which they became invisible. Low self-esteem behaviors are pretty visible, and so one of the pay-offs is that low self-esteem gains us attention we don't believe we would get otherwise. As Charlie Chaplin demonstrated, someone walking down the aisle in church is not especially notable, but someone who walks down the aisle and trips and fall on his face is very notable. It is a false assumption and expectation, but if you are used to being noticed only when you're doing something wrong or screwing up, you have a powerful incentive to keep it up. It's better to do something wrong rather than get no attention at all.
Low self-esteem allows us to be a victim in the world, at the mercy of people and forces we cannot control, and it gives us complaining rights about all the bad things that happen and the bad ways others treat us. To be a victim is to be in a power position. If you are familiar with group dynamics, you may know that the person who remains silent long enough will wind up dominating the meeting. Such behavior is called "passive aggressive." It is aggressive because it gets attention and demands responses from others. Our victimization can also elicit sympathy and pity, so it apparently rewards us with positive attention. But you may have noticed that chronic victims and complainers rarely have many close friends because people tend to steer widely around them.
There is also a pay-off around the notion that justice is truly being served. It is as if the person with low self-esteem is doing their part to maintain balance in the universe, for after all a person with low self-esteem doesn't really deserve satisfaction or success. You can see how viciously circular all this thinking and believing is, and the chain of logic can go years into the past. We learn early in our childhood in this culture that there are "winners" and there are "losers." In a five person footrace, one person wins but four people lose. What in the world would happen if five people won? Why the whole reality of the universe would be turned on its head. If early on in your life you decided, or someone told you, that you were a loser, it is only right and decent for you to stay in that place. Justice is served, and the structure of the universe is preserved.
Low self-esteem is "a program for failure." Because we tend to take the blame for even things we have absoutely nothing to do with, clearly it is hugely dangerous for us to wield any real power. We have little experience being positively powerful people. Being powerful is scarey, so maintaining that program for failure keeps us helpless, keeps us powerless, and relieves our fear and reduces our anxiety. Although we may dream about being the president of our own business, our low self-esteem requires that we stay right where we are because fulfilling the dream literally terrifies us. Because the consequence of success is power, and powerfulness is dangerous and something we never learned to handle, we must stay in our failure program. As Martin Seligman has said, helplessness is learned. But if you haven't learned anything else, you stay with what you know.
Most of all, though, we perpetuate our own low self-esteem because we have simply gotten used to it. We sort of know how to function with it. It is all very familiar, very well known. You might even say it's comfortable, especially when compared with the anxiety that can be aroused when we think about changing it. We are habituated to our own low self-esteem and we perceive it as "the way things are." The judgments of the past have become the fact of the present, inevitable, and obvious. It is normal and what normalcy is made of.
The question of why people maintain and perpetuate low self-esteem was raised by a student. This list of the positive rewards for low self-esteem is composed of responses from numerous people in numerous classes. They are not logical except in an emotional way, and they may seem contradictory. Self-esteem is a fluctuating dynamic, working one way one day and another the next. I believe it's important at least to be aware of the pay-offs, because they help explain why it isn't possible simply to decide you're going to feel better about yourself and then to go ahead and do it. However, while there are certain real comforts in these pay-offs, they are truly illusory. They are not true and they don't really work, and we know they don't really work. In fact, they serve only a small part of who we are, and we are much more than we think.
© 1997, C. Grigsby, All Rights Reserved. 2 Aug 1988
Comments? E-mail to: Channing