What Are the Causes of Insecurity?
Ok if you’ve read my posts about signs of insecurity you’re probably wondering what in the heck are the causes of insecurity and what do you do about it. Again, follow along this month as we break the last question down but for now, let's talk about what causes insecurity.
Insecurity, as mentioned in my previous post, when it's something that's ingrained and not a one-off feeling it can be the source of underlying low self-esteem. If you feel that ‘I’m not good enough’ feeling in most situations and it is impacting not only you and your health but also your relationships, career, etc then you may suffer from low self-esteem and insecurity is one of the ways that low self-esteem has been showing itself and is the cause of your insecurity.
So let's talk about it. What causes insecurity or more importantly, what causes low self-esteem?
Low self-esteem can be the source of many things but what I have found is that our experiences play a huge factor. This may look like…
Having a highly critical parent who had very high expectations
Being bullied in earlier years
Constant criticism and being told you weren’t good enough
Not having a role model to show proper self-esteem and self-love
Having a history of abuse(sexual, mental, physical)
Frequent punishment and neglect
Having extremely high parental standards
A lack of praise and affection in your earlier years
Unfulfilled needs and a lack of support in childhood
Any frequent experience from your family or peers that made you feel as if you weren’t good enough and didn’t feel loved and accepted.
I know that the last one is broad but what I want to stress here is that our experiences and mainly those early experiences usually are the cause of insecurity. Childhood is where we form our beliefs and build the ideas of who we are, how we should behave, the world, and our place in it. If these experiences were muddled with isolation, rejection ad criticism, then of course you feel insecure. During these years you learned that you weren’t good enough, you had high standards to live up to, had to behave in a certain way to receive love, or simply were never shown what self-esteem looks like on a day-to-day basis.
Just because you feel insecure and didn’t grow up with these things doesn’t mean that you are doomed forever. Just like something is learned it can be unlearned and your beliefs along with your insecurity can change. If you’re feeling insecure and suffer from low self-esteem, like I mentioned before, I’m Tiffany, a black therapist in Chicago and online. This is the work I do with women and I would love to help support you in building your self-esteem and kicking this insecurity to the curb.
See you on the next and last post.