What Is The Relationship Between Low Self-esteem And Emotional Dependence?
Social relationships are a source of emotional well-being as long as they are healthy and based on respect and equality. We are social animals, so we need the company and acceptance of others to have good mental health.
Unfortunately, there are people who establish dysfunctional relationships, with high emotional dependence, because they have the belief that they are absolutely nobody if they are alone.
The relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence greatly influences psychological well-being and it is the origin of toxic and asymmetric relationships. Let’s find out how it happens.
The link between low self-esteem and emotional dependence
Human beings are social animals, which means that our mental health depends a lot on the quality of our interactions with others. We have the need to be liked by others and spend time with other people. We need to be part of a collective, a group in which we share our values, tastes and emotions No matter what they say, everyone needs to be in the company of other people, even if it’s just a little.
However, excessive seeking of approval from others can become a pathological problem. We all need other people to accept us, but if we make that our main motivation, believing that if we do not have social acceptance we are worthless, it is clear that we are facing problematic behavior. This is where we can come across the relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence.
Some people need to feel like absolutely everyone likes them. Because they have very low self-esteem, They are very sensitive to criticism and other people’s opinions, which can greatly influence your mood. If they are flattered, they will feel very good, but the slightest thing that someone says something bad about them, even if it is something that is not true, their mood will be on the floor.
People with low self-esteem and high emotional dependence have important emotional deficiencies, which push them to try to please others no matter what. They have a negative assessment of themselves that, when combined with emotional deficiencies, has the enormous need to try to be accepted by others, even if this means humiliating themselves or doing degrading things. If they are not accepted, these people may be unable to find meaning in their existence.
The importance of emotional dependence
We cannot understand the relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence without first understanding what we mean by this type of dependence. We can say that People who suffer from emotional dependence need the affection and attention of others almost uncontrollably Because of this, they feel a real phobia of abandonment and loneliness, which makes them become people who subordinate themselves in their personal relationships, to avoid at all costs doing something that upsets those they want to please and makes them leave their side.
People with emotional dependence cannot satisfy their emotional needs on their own, so they want to cover them by establishing dysfunctional emotional ties with other people. This means that they can develop parasitic and asymmetric relationships, that is, unequal relationships in which they sacrifice themselves for others. They are willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship last forever.
The combination of low self-esteem and emotional dependence makes people long for relationships where they feel protected and loved They don’t care about the quality of the relationship, they just want to feel accepted within them, which is why they establish very intense but also unstable emotional bonds. As we have mentioned, they are people who will do everything possible to feel loved even if it may even hurt them.
One of the problems of emotional dependence on others is that, If attention or the “affection” that the person seeks is not received, they will begin to have irrational doubts about their own worth In his mind, the idea of not being valued by a specific person can be interpreted as synonymous with uselessness, little importance and not being necessary. They value their existence based on how much appreciation they receive from others. Logically, this has an impact on the self-esteem and well-being of the emotionally dependent person.
As a result of this, the emotionally dependent person will begin to feel very bad, sadness being a feeling that is very present in the lives of emotionally dependent people. Because of this You can enter a vicious circle of emotional emptiness and chronic dissatisfaction a loop that is very difficult to get out of without adequate professional help and that can lead to depression.
Dependent people who do have friends or people who give them the feeling that they accept them cannot help but have an irrational fear of loneliness, a fear that produces very high anxiety. This anxiety arises from constantly thinking about the possibility of being left alone, even though objectively the person next to them would not have to abandon them. Likewise, they cannot avoid getting out of this anxious state, and to prevent the feared situation from happening at all costs, they will accept without complaint any type of gesture that is made to them, even mistreatment.
Improve self-esteem
In the relationship between low self-esteem and dependency we cannot clearly identify one as the cause and the other as the effect since, in reality, both feed off each other. Low self-esteem will mean that the person, at the very least he finds someone who accepts him with his “defects” (even if they are unreal), will stick to that person like a limpet, showing a high emotional dependency, while if we look at it from the other side side, A person closely linked to another person may begin to have a worse and worse view of themselves and develop the belief that without their friend or partner they are nobody
Although we are social animals as we have already mentioned, it is clear that the person we are going to spend the most time with is ourselves. The main “social” relationship in life is the one we maintain with ourselves and for it to be healthy we must see ourselves well, accept ourselves as we are, knowing that we have our strengths and weaknesses but that we can improve in what we set out to do. .
When we try to please other people when we don’t even like ourselves, it is normal to end up falling into a relationship of dependency. Therefore, to avoid falling into toxic relationships We must improve the perception we have of ourselves, improve self-esteem and make an effort to feel good emotionally and psychologically, regardless of what others may think about us. We have to treat ourselves as we would like to be treated, and not the other way around.
