by Wendy Aron

As depressives, we all suffer from low self-esteem and we all know what a killer it is. Therese Borchard, in her blog Beyond Blue, described having no sense of self-worth this way:

“Three years ago I walked into my therapist's office feeling like a Krispy Kreme donut: I had no center. Everything I attempted, both professionally and personally, seemed to flop. I had no sense of self, no confidence, and no faith in myself. I found nothing of value in my DNA.”

Borchard went on to say that she has battled back by putting together something known as a self-esteem file. To make your own self-esteem file, she advised, you begin by trying to identify 10 of your strengths--10 positive qualities about yourself--and write them down on a piece of paper. If you are unable to identify ten things you like about yourself, Borchard recommended that you find four other people that can. If you don’t have a lot of friends, she says, think of other people like “coworkers, or siblings, or teachers, or pastors, or mail carriers.” If still don’t have four people, Borchard advised making new friends by taking a class, getting a dog (pet owners stick together) or going to a support group. To get the cooperation of the four people you’ve selected, she said, you can tell them it’s for an online project you’re doing and offer to write down a list of the positive qualities that you have found in them. When you’re done with the project, you were to actually take the paper the lists are written on and stuff them into a physical folder in your filing cabinet for referral every time you are feeling low about yourself.

Borchard’s recommendations all sounded well and fine, except I have a few problems with the self-esteem file. First of all, what if  you were stymied by the fear that you didn’t even have ten positive qualities that your friends could list? Wouldn’t that just put an end to your self-esteem all together if you gave the assignment to your best friend and she was unable to come up with ten good things about you? The suggestion to go outside your circle of close friends is also problematic. Listing ten great things about me is not something I would ask a new friend to do for fear she would run for the hills. New friends, when they are first getting to know you, don’t need the pressure of having to list why they like you. They may not even know, yet, if they do like you. As for my mail carrier, I’m reasonably certain the only good thing he knows about me is that I tip him at Christmas time. Furthermore, even if I have found four people who could come up with ten positive qualities each, what if I couldn’t think of ten things I liked about them and couldn’t reciprocate?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for high self-esteem, but Therese, there must be an easier way to go about getting it.