Do you feel inferior to anyone? If so why?

charlieHungerford

Well-known member
I am wondering if people feel inferior to people and if so, is your anxiety at its strongest around these people?

I am thinking this could be a good way to help each other realise that we are not inferior to these people, but subconsciously we feel we are not good enough compared to them and our confidence just drains because of these feelings.

I am going to work on overcoming the inferiority I feel around women (my age), authority and meeting new people who I have to interact with in terms of having to chat for a bit with them.

My reasons for feeling inferior is because around women my age I don't feel I am good enough for any women to ever be interested in me, I feel they just think I'm a piece of crap. At the same time I have beliefs that women are so looks orientated and judge men on how they look. Authority like my boss I feel he is so powerful and can tell me to jump or dance or whatever he wants and I have to do it. I feel like a nothing around him, I feel I have no power, etc, and therefore feel so irrelevant.
New people - well I judge people fairly and nicely, I seem to have this inner belief that people can only look at me one way - negatively. Therefore from the word go I feel inferior as I am judging them as good enough whilst judging myself as not good enough.

Its time to analyse these beliefs - brainstorm the reasons why I feel like that, then address each issue, understand its wrong, negative, extreme, biased, etc. Then understand the true way to think of the person you fear. Its also crucial to believe in yourself, need to think of ourselves in a positive way in which we have so much to offer, we are such a good person, we are good enough for anyone.

So who are you inferior to? Do you know why? And how is your SA around these people?
 

Starry

Well-known member
I feel inferior to most people. There are only a few members of my family that I don't feel inferior to. :? My social phobia is the same around everyone else. I just feel like I'm useless next to everyone. They have lives, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, they are 'normal,' they can go out whne and where they want to. They can speak with ease to anyone they want to... I even feel inferior to some people on this site that manage better than I do. I see myself as defective: I should be able to cope to, but I don't. :(
 

charlieHungerford

Well-known member
Starry said:
I feel inferior to most people. There are only a few members of my family that I don't feel inferior to. :? My social phobia is the same around everyone else. I just feel like I'm useless next to everyone. They have lives, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, they are 'normal,' they can go out whne and where they want to. They can speak with ease to anyone they want to... I even feel inferior to some people on this site that manage better than I do. I see myself as defective: I should be able to cope to, but I don't. :(

Blimey that is no good! There really does seem to be a link between feelings of inferiority and being anxious around those people.

Starry, what is your story - i.e. how old are you, what have your achievements been, what do you like about yourself, what don't you like about yourself? You sound like you have such a negative self image of yourself, I do too when it comes to being around certain people, something has to change for you to start gaining confidence around people.

This morning this girl at work who I never really chat to or know came up to me, she is really nice, sweet, confident, attractive, etc and I was a total bag of nerves around her. I was so angry at myself afterwards but then thought well I cannot help it when I feel the way I do about myself and how I feel about myself in comparison to her. But I did 20 mins of writing down my qualities and positives such as I am intelligent, good person, kind, interesting, good sense of humour, fun, I am ok looking - am in good shape, I am tall, been told I have nice eyes, cool hair, good teeth, I am smart, I have a nice car, nice house, I have some friends - unfortunately they no longer live locally, but I thought wow that is a lot of positives and qualities.
I then looked at what has she on top of this and came up with she is attractive, she is in a relationship, she is in a better job, she is more confident. But then I analysed all of these. She is attractive, but not stunningly beautiful, she just your average girl really. I am sure there are many men who wouldn't fancy her from looks alone, there will be a lot of people who think of her as just your average girl, and then there will be men who find her attractive. But unless you have completely let yourself go and care nothing for your appearance then we all can have people who think we look either nice, average or not nice, etc. I mean I had a girl email me at work a couple of years ago asking me out saying she was my secret admirer. I had never even spoke to her before. So that was very flattering that she said she fancied me from how I look. But also we are not inferior for looks we were born with, its not fair to think like that. I mean why should we feel inferior for something we had no control over - how we look. You have to make the most of yourself, which I do, I think my SA is the reason I am single rather than worrying that I don't look good enough, I mean I never meet new women, I never ask women out, etc. So what can I expect! Even if she doesn't like how I look or could ever be interested in me because of how I look, well what is wrong with that? Like I said there are billions of people on earth, there is going to be a % of people who don't like how I look, but the same applies to her. Its just one person's opinion, it doesn't make it fact.

She is in a relationship. Ok that is nice for her, but is that a reason to feel inferior for? Its not like I have asked women out or tried meeting women to get a girlfriend, whereas she would have had to make effort to meet someone. Its out of choice that we are both in the situations we are both in, so how can that be seen as inferior.
She has a better job than me - well hardly a better job, and the job she has she has - I have been offered the same job 5 times but I always turn it down as its not much more money and has quite a bit more responsibility. So no way can I be inferior for that. And as for confidence - if only I stopped feeling inferior and started believing in myself, then I will be confident, so its something I shouldn't feel inferior for, we are all unique at the end of the day, we should feel inferior to no one. But I know that when I am feeling inferior my confidence just drains away.
Anyway, after doing this she came over again to me and I was like so much much better, I was still a little bit anxious, but nowhere near as bad as what I was. It really did work.

We have got to believe we are good enough, have confidence in yourself and who you are. When interacting with someone we feel inferior to we are aware that we believe are not good enough, we focus on our flaws and feel they are looking down on us, looking at us in a critical way. It simply has to change.

I feel we also really need to start looking at ourselves better, have a far higher opinion of ourselves. People who are confident have confidence in themselves, believe in themselves, fight for what they want and believe they deserve. They don't feel inferior to people. No one is inferior to anyone, we come into and leave this world as equals, we all have the same rights in life, its all about us and what we want, we are all unique and have to do the best for ourselves, we have to stop comparing ourselves and always aware of others when it comes to doing what we want.

Lets make it a new year's resolution to work at getting the highest opinion possible of ourselves, believing we are fantastic people. I mean you see it on the X factor, singers who can't sing for toffee, some are so confident and believe they are so fantastic and good, they go for their dream. If they didn't have that high opinion of themselves they wouldn't even try for their dreams.

We have to work at gaining the highest possible opinion of ourselves and believe we are good enough for anything and never feel inadequate and inferior to people because it gets us nowhere in life.
 

charlieHungerford

Well-known member
One quick thought is that what do we believe we must be in order to be good enough? Maybe this needs addressing too, because a lot of people here so I take it its an SA thing, believe they have to be like perfect at something when it comes to having no confidence in or why they are anxious in a situation. But its complete rubbish. What I mean is that I try hard to look my best, but because of past negative feedback, years of ridicule at high school, put downs, insults, etc - I have no belief that I look good enough for women to be interested in me, even though I have had small relationships with a few women who were nice, I used to 'pull' when in nightclubs, so it seems somewhat unfair, biased, exaggerated and negative to think I am not good enough. Yet I am at work now, I look around and see men who are bald, some man with really bad teeth, one man really overweight and bald, another guy who is really overweight, another bloke with a really bad moustache, a guy who walks like he is pulling a five berth caravan, another guy who looks scruffy. I mean what is going on? Why do I believe they are good enough when they are far from perfect, yet I believe I am not good enough for anyone?

What do we believe we must be in order to be 'good enough'? We put so much pressure on ourselves in situations we are anxious in, we believe if we are not absolutely perfect then we will fail.

Maybe others feel they are not good enough for some part of their personality not being good enough, but again what are you comparing yourself to? Would you only believe you are good enough if you were like perfect?

Something is wrong in the way we see ourselves compared to everyone else here. Don't you agree?
 

Starry

Well-known member
charlieHungerford said:
Starry said:
I feel inferior to most people. There are only a few members of my family that I don't feel inferior to. :? My social phobia is the same around everyone else. I just feel like I'm useless next to everyone. They have lives, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, they are 'normal,' they can go out whne and where they want to. They can speak with ease to anyone they want to... I even feel inferior to some people on this site that manage better than I do. I see myself as defective: I should be able to cope to, but I don't. :(

Blimey that is no good! There really does seem to be a link between feelings of inferiority and being anxious around those people.

Starry, what is your story - i.e. how old are you, what have your achievements been, what do you like about yourself, what don't you like about yourself? You sound like you have such a negative self image of yourself, I do too when it comes to being around certain people, something has to change for you to start gaining confidence around people.

Well, I'll be 21 in 2 days. I've always been extremely shy/social phobic. (I'm not sure where/when the shyness developed into a phobia) I was verbally bullied/called names all throughout school. I was always in the top 5% for highest marks on exams, so I always had confidence in my academic ability. But aged 11 I developed psychosomatic dizziness, which made school life even harder for me. Just after I turned 15 I couldn't face going back to school and became agoraphobic. Ten months later I finally got into a non-mainstream school. (Taken to and fro by taxi, so it wasn't so stressful) But after missing so much of an important year at school I did poorly on my GCSE exams. (Well, they were bad results for me, I'm sure some people would have been happy with them.) After I left school I didn't go out again. I've been stuck in the house friendless since then. I haven't achieved anything. I don't like anything about myself other than the fact I can play the piano and my dogs love me. I hate the fact that I'm so pessemistic, but I'm such a pessemist I find it hard to change...

You're right about there being a link between feeling inferior and anxiety. I've always felt inferior and always been anxious.

I'm a perfectionist too. If I don't do something perfectly I feel that I've failed.
 

Skog

Well-known member
charlieHungerford said:
I am wondering if people feel inferior to people and if so, is your anxiety at its strongest around these people?


I don't feel inferior; I feel unappreciated.
 

charlieHungerford

Well-known member
Starry, your background of your past to where you are now has been really tough, you have suffered so much worse than me, I cannot relate to a lot of what you went through, so am not sure how alike we suffer. I can relate to being bullied, I was the most confident kid up until about 12 years old, even in year 6 (aged 11) I was told by the teacher I was the biggest chatterbox and loudest kid in the year at school. I would always be first up telling stories I wrote to the class, I was always just so confident. But at high school I was bullied (not sure bullied is the right word, I had lots of friends and never hit or anything - I wasn't all by myself sort of thing, but for the whole 5 years I was just verbally abused all the time). I was just always called names, ridiculed, teased, insulted, put down, people just always pointing out my 'flaws' etc, etc for how I looked and for a speech impediment. I went into high school so confident, nothing phased me, but left where I didn't dare say my name out loud in front of people. I mean that is shocking. So yeah being bullied at school seems to cause huge problems. I put all of my SA problems down to being bullied, I still remember it all so well, just always people calling me names, people writing things on the blackboard as to how I said words wrong or drawing pictures of me on the blackboard which were so mean. In sportsday winning a race coming down the home straight which should have been great, but I just remember loads of people yelling out horrible names ridiculing me. I even remember running for the school in a race doing well and 2 or 3 girls from my school who were cheering people on just started shouting out horrible names at me and laughing, it was just all the time I would have to listen to put downs, I always remembered thinking no one on Earth gets more put downs than me. It ruined me. Anyone who can suffer all that verbal abuse and not be effected with negative self image, believing you are not good enough, believing people just see you so negatively and people are so critical, then I would be amazed. It does ruin you. I should sue the school.
I have made very good progress in the past couple of years, but I am still searching for the answers to really make that giant leap of overcoming it, but I will overcome it, even if its the last thing I ever do.

Starry, do you believe you can get better and improve through building confidence up, believing in yourself, gaining self worth, self esteem, changing beliefs, etc, or is it different for you?

I read in a book recently that habbit and long term avoidance are two things that really accelerate the problems of SA, you get into a mindset where you just don't believe you are capable of doing the things you have avoided for so long. It seems like these two things really apply to you. Please don't feel like I am making assumptions about you, but from what you wrote it seems like you have developed a very isolated life and that making that first move out of the rut is going to be one huge step.
I think its understandable for you to be so pessimistic, given your past few years. I mean there is no doubt about it you are intelligent, you are an excellent writer, you seem a nice person, you have a lot to offer, and to be achieving nothing is just such ashame.

Have you any plans at trying to overcome this or are you doing anything to try beat this? You have a really unfortunate platform to build from, but I am sure if things started happening and you can change the way you see yourself, really tackle your fears then you would be up and running and I am sure you could make great progress. I wish you lots of luck, you know there are people here to chat to always about things.
 

Starry

Well-known member
charlieHungerford said:
Starry, your background of your past to where you are now has been really tough, you have suffered so much worse than me, I cannot relate to a lot of what you went through, so am not sure how alike we suffer. I can relate to being bullied, I was the most confident kid up until about 12 years old, even in year 6 (aged 11) I was told by the teacher I was the biggest chatterbox and loudest kid in the year at school. I would always be first up telling stories I wrote to the class, I was always just so confident. But at high school I was bullied (not sure bullied is the right word, I had lots of friends and never hit or anything - I wasn't all by myself sort of thing, but for the whole 5 years I was just verbally abused all the time). I was just always called names, ridiculed, teased, insulted, put down, people just always pointing out my 'flaws' etc, etc for how I looked and for a speech impediment. I went into high school so confident, nothing phased me, but left where I didn't dare say my name out loud in front of people. I mean that is shocking. So yeah being bullied at school seems to cause huge problems. I put all of my SA problems down to being bullied, I still remember it all so well, just always people calling me names, people writing things on the blackboard as to how I said words wrong or drawing pictures of me on the blackboard which were so mean. In sportsday winning a race coming down the home straight which should have been great, but I just remember loads of people yelling out horrible names ridiculing me. I even remember running for the school in a race doing well and 2 or 3 girls from my school who were cheering people on just started shouting out horrible names at me and laughing, it was just all the time I would have to listen to put downs, I always remembered thinking no one on Earth gets more put downs than me. It ruined me. Anyone who can suffer all that verbal abuse and not be effected with negative self image, believing you are not good enough, believing people just see you so negatively and people are so critical, then I would be amazed. It does ruin you. I should sue the school.

The way you were bullied is very similar to the way I was, except I never had very many friends, and by age 14 I had none at all and would spend all of the school day by myself.


charlieHungerford said:
I have made very good progress in the past couple of years, but I am still searching for the answers to really make that giant leap of overcoming it, but I will overcome it, even if its the last thing I ever do.

I'm glad you've made progress, I really wish I could.


charlieHungerford said:
Starry, do you believe you can get better and improve through building confidence up, believing in yourself, gaining self worth, self esteem, changing beliefs, etc, or is it different for you?

Sometimes I think that if i just had more confidence, self-esteem etc I'd be able to be 'normal.' But then it occurs to me that I've always been like this, perhaps this is normal for me. :? I don't know what it's like to have confidence and high self-esteem.

charlieHungerford said:
I read in a book recently that habbit and long term avoidance are two things that really accelerate the problems of SA, you get into a mindset where you just don't believe you are capable of doing the things you have avoided for so long. It seems like these two things really apply to you. Please don't feel like I am making assumptions about you, but from what you wrote it seems like you have developed a very isolated life and that making that first move out of the rut is going to be one huge step.

I tihnk you're right. It does sound a lot like me. It'll be one very huge step. But I personally feel that before I can deal with the social phobia, I'm going to have to deal with the agoraphobia and the psychosomatic dizziness.
That's the worst part for me. The dizziness is one of the causes of my agoraphobia, because I was always scared of falling or fainting infront of people and making a fool of myself.

charlieHungerford said:
I think its understandable for you to be so pessimistic, given your past few years. I mean there is no doubt about it you are intelligent, you are an excellent writer, you seem a nice person, you have a lot to offer, and to be achieving nothing is just such ashame.

Thank you.

charlieHungerford said:
Have you any plans at trying to overcome this or are you doing anything to try beat this? You have a really unfortunate platform to build from, but I am sure if things started happening and you can change the way you see yourself, really tackle your fears then you would be up and running and I am sure you could make great progress. I wish you lots of luck, you know there are people here to chat to always about things.

At the moment I have no plans to do anything really. Mostly because I'm a little scared of how I could go from my current life to a more normal, intergrated one. But also because with all my problems it feels like a huge mountain, that I can't even see the top of. I'm going to have to start thinking about therapy or something though, because I can't go on living like this. it's too lonely.
 

maggie

Well-known member
yeah, i feel inferior to anyone who looks like they've got it more together than i do..(mostly everyone i know)..or people who have accomplished things that i wish i've accomplished :roll:
 

Emma

Well-known member
I feel inferior to everyone, like they think I'm scum and shouldn't be in the same room as them
 

Broken_Memory

Well-known member
ALL the time. When I make friends, eventually I feel as though I'm not 'good enough' for them. So I start feeling like I cannot talk to them anymore, and then I cut them out of my life, assuming they'd appreciate that.

I work part time, and there I always feel inferior to everyone as well. Its everywhere.

Even like... taking a bus somewhere, I look around at all the strangers, and I feel that they are just 'better' than me.
 

LittleMissMuffet

Well-known member
Hi,

Recently I've lost a considerable amount of feelings of inferiority.

I don't know just why this is so, but I do know that I feel more confident of my own image of my self and my own sense of self worth. As in, others opinions don't override my own opinions about my self. Perhaps my time spent on my own has helped me to get confident about who I think I am; since I don't feel the same fear about what others think of me or how they judge me as much.
I'm not saying that I am cured: but I am saying that I feel like I've gotten past a few nagging doubts that somehow have latched on when my social anxieties were going on in the outside world.

One other thing worth mentioning here is that I've established in my mind my own definition for my difficulties and my personality -as far as social anxiety is concerned. ...This is that, whilst 'Social phobia', being a fear of judgement and dependency on others for approval, is in fact an emotional immaturity -I don't feel ashamed about being this way. I see that this 'mental illness', whilst being an exagerration of the average person's insecurities is an exagerration -an emotional immaturity- only because my sensitivity towards what is really, sensory information around me is heightened and more intense than most people's.

In other words, I only suffer from the emotional immaturity that is called 'Social phobia' because I have higher sensitivities than most people -yet, because of this, I am not more immature than most people. Not at all. And I feel able to see and make this distinction.
As in: I'm not that good, but I'm not that bad either. ...I feel as though I am getting a better grip on this illness/problem, rather than the other way around. In fact, I feel like I did when I was a teenager and the world was not as threatening or such a big unknown, and I had a belief in my own idea of who I was. ...In actual fact: would you believe that I was told as a teenager: "You never get phased by anyone!" ...would you believe that someone told me that once? You wouldn't think that I'd go on to become the exact opposite of this. ...Hopefully I'll revert as much as possible back to childhood and to this confident unafraid and un-self -concious way of being.
 

shyandnumb

Well-known member
Basically, I feel inferior around everyone, even my own family members. I'm not sure why I feel this way, but it could be the huge amount of guilt and anger I hold down deep inside myself.
 
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