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[femmelf]

So, I basically feel like crap, in just about all areas of my life.

The worst part is, I realize that my being down all the time is hurting me and making me even more sad than I am right now.

I think I'm starting to annoy the guy I'm dating by being kind of mopey. I believe he's doing one of those deals where he isn't saying it to be nice, but he's not hanging out with me anymore very much at all, etc.

Having no self esteem messes up your work performance as well, so that's really not good either. I haven't been able to do very much but go through the motions for a few months and yesterday I didn't do anything. This really is not good.

Socially, I've pretty much not seen any of my friends in quite some time and I'm more or less being a bit of a hermit right now. I am basically not talking to anybody because I am afraid I would be seen as whining. The problem with not talking to anybody or just saying the bare minimum is that I'm pretty sure I come across as if I'm being stuck up or something. People don't want to talk to me and I can't exactly blame them.

I don't project any confidence in myself at all and even faking it is very very difficult at times.

I really don't think I can afford to see a psychiatrist or therapist right now, and while I feel bad about the idea of asking for something for free, I wouldn't even know where to ask for that.

I feel basically like my life is falling apart.

What do I do?

[Shakerag]

If you have people you label as friends, but you won't talk to them for fear you would be seen as whining, are they really friends?  Do you trust the opinion of people on the internet more than these friends?  Or the person who you are dating? 

That aside, I'd say start with identifying what is important to you.  Is there anything past "whatever I need to physically survive this day until the next one starts"? 

[kaijyuu]

I'd start by establishing some trust with those around you. Talk to your friends/boyfriend, and ask if you're annoying/etc. I'm certain most will just express concern. At which point you're not an annoyance/burden on them, and you can lean on them a bit until you're more confident in yourself.

Don't fight these things alone.

[AlmightyOne]

I can relate to that somehow. You are going through depression, and what you need is someone to talk to. You're afraid because, you are scared you might get judged by people, you don't want to show what your going through to them. I would suggest you to open up to a close friend or family member? that is if you feel comfortable with them. If that isn't the case, there are plenty of forums where you can share such stuff(where people will be open and not judgmental), forums particularly for people who are going through such a phase. All you have to do is google it or perhaps even on this forum?

[MushroomDynamo]

Saw this and had to register just to reply; I had the exact same issue.

One, talk about your issues with a friend you suspect may not be your friend. They think differently than you think they do, particularly since self-hatred is toxic to opinions of others.

Two, think about going to a religious retreat! I spent about 8 months in a gradually worsening worthlessness cycle and to be honest the mandatory one I went to for a day probably saved my life. I know, I know, religion and the Internet, although I'll be fair and say that roughly that Jesus was actually roughly superficial to the message :U

[Catsup]

So, I basically feel like crap, in just about all areas of my life.

The worst part is, I realize that my being down all the time is hurting me and making me even more sad than I am right now.

I think I'm starting to annoy the guy I'm dating by being kind of mopey. I believe he's doing one of those deals where he isn't saying it to be nice, but he's not hanging out with me anymore very much at all, etc.

try not to date under your condition, you'll likely end up more hurt.

Never focus on sadness, if your mind is not a pleasant place to be then try to clear your mind by meditating or distract yourself by exercising.

Having no self esteem messes up your work performance as well, so that's really not good either. I haven't been able to do very much but go through the motions for a few months and yesterday I didn't do anything. This really is not good.

Socially, I've pretty much not seen any of my friends in quite some time and I'm more or less being a bit of a hermit right now. I am basically not talking to anybody because I am afraid I would be seen as whining. The problem with not talking to anybody or just saying the bare minimum is that I'm pretty sure I come across as if I'm being stuck up or something. People don't want to talk to me and I can't exactly blame them.

hahahahahaa "people dont want to talk to me" eh? theres nothing wrong with being absolutely alone, with no friends, no lover, no one. You really just need yourself, start making yourself stronger both physically, and mentally when your mind has calmed down (talk to yourself during those moments).

I don't project any confidence in myself at all and even faking it is very very difficult at times.

I really don't think I can afford to see a psychiatrist or therapist right now, and while I feel bad about the idea of asking for something for free, I wouldn't even know where to ask for that.

you dont need confidence, youre not proving anything to anyone and shouldnt care what they think. Let them judge and be judged.

[Mullet Master]

These situations are seldom simple to resolve. Anyone who thinks they are - really hasn't been through one.

So, someone feels depressed and naturally feels the need to reach out to people. However, most people will react very negatively to a depressed person. Even friendships with your best friends will be strained, and if your condition doesn't rapidly improve, it's possible to lose them too. Most people who have truly been depressed has a long list of failed friendships (and possibly relationships) behind them. The only people who can truly listen and have a neutral reaction to it are people who have been through the same thing before.

I think it is very important to get some of your worries out in the open, but you need to be very strategic with them. Don't dump all your feelings and worries on one person, and try not to repeat things to others. This has a two fold effect : 1) You are less likely to completely scare someone away and 2) you are not dwelling on some subjects. Repeating something over and over again will eventually make you believe it is true - regardless of the validity of it.

If you absolutely must expound on your negative feelings on a continuous basis, there are plenty of online communities that are set up just for that. I would recommend finding a depression related chat room and start there.

Someone could write 50 pages on improving self esteem, and all of them would be good tips but it all boils down to one thing :
Keep trying to make forward progress.
The little "easy" things to improve your life snowball into a much larger feeling of accomplishment.

[Shook]

I would suggest you to open up to a close friend or family member?

I can highly recommend this, although i wasn't feeling QUITE as down as you seem to be (but make no mistake, i was NOT feeling good). I was feeling like a failure, like i wasn't cut out for life in the real world. I had this continuous nagging doubt that, somehow, i had done something that made my friends dislike me, which to me is a terrifying notion. I couldn't focus on anything important, and i was basically only not feeling like shit when i was practicing escapism via video games. As a result, i missed out on a lot of work, and NEARLY flopped completely at uni. But one day, where i had a particularly bad morning, after getting back home, i basically opened up like a floodgate to my dear mother. At first, she got a bit angry, but she always does that when she thinks someone says silly things. It very quickly switched when she realized i was genuinely feeling like shit. She helped me clear out a lot of the worries in my head, and that was the very sudden end of that mild depression.

So, my point is, if you're on good terms with your parents, try talking to them about it. Who knows? Maybe you'll get an epiphany like i did. In any case, very sound advice from Mullet Master up there. I can confirm that snowballing thing, it's MUCH easier to do bigger actions once you've done some small ones. This comes from a guy who has always had tremendous problems with taking initiative for... Well, anything. The first step is always uncomfortable for me, but the subsequent ones suddenly become much more bearable.

One, talk about your issues with a friend you suspect may not be your friend. They think differently than you think they do, particularly since self-hatred is toxic to opinions of others.

Also, this. I'm positive that i wouldn't be put off by a friend of mine (or almost anyone else, really) opening up to me, especially not if it's about depression or other serious matters (i don't think any average person would be put off, actually). I may not be particularly good at making them feel better, but that comes down to a lack of ability rather than lack of will.

[weenog]

Depression is a tricky one.  Lack of self-esteem isn't, the solution is right there in the word.  To esteem someone is to regard them with respect or admiration.  Contrary to politically correct insistence, respect is not a basic right, it is earned.  So ask yourself, who do you admire?  What do you respect about them?  And don't give the answers that sound right to other people, give the ones that hold true for you.  Once you have your answers, be admirable, by your own measuring stick.  Do the things that earn your respect.

[Imperfect]

I found a bit of self esteem in self-learning. That is, I picked a topic that interested me at the time: Psychology. I wanted to find out why I sucked at math in the later grades of the elementary and despised it ever since even though I can clearly remember(from the early years at elementary) figuring out division on my own by comparing it to the other three basic operations I already knew, coming up independently with the concept of odd and even numbers(I named them "just" and "unjust", because you either can or can't divide an x of something between two kids, right?), and asking the teacher to present me with more math excercises of a particualr kind which I was fond of at the time. They looked like a spider web of calculations that you had to do in order to come to one number. Eventually, I ditched psychology and instead tackled math itself, and also programming, while I was at it, with the aim of going for a degree from computer science and becoming a software engineer. And I studied and I learned, and gradually, I became fairly confident that I can do any high school math there is and that I have at least rudimentary grasp of about three programming languages and computer science in general.

That's what made me from an insecure kid with no direction who aimlessly wasted his time playing videogames and trying to socialize into a half-adult with some sense of purpose and a bunch of ideas for a business in mind. Mastering what my family, classmates, and teachers told me I will always suck at, proving them wrong, and also finding their very approach to study and learning a limited and misdirected one; carving my own understanding of what I want from life, learning to be at the steering wheel of my destiny, acquiring a sense of what could I do for the world... There are so many more things that I learned during this like eight months study trek than solving some equations or cobbling together a for loop. I don't know what's your story or life situation or anything, but for me, embarking on a journey to conquer my weaknesses and fears did the self-esteem trick pretty well.

[QuakeIV]

I didn't fully read all of the above posts (lot of text) to make sure this idea wasn't already suggested, but heres what I do.

I pretend to be happy, then I eventually become happy.

I act like I'm happy, I plan like I'm happy, I laugh at jokes if I think I would laugh at them if I wasn't feeling down, et cetera.

This is based on the whole theory that if you are running some sort of deception then you become the character you created for yourself.  I was feeling depressed so I decided to try weaponizing it for my own purposes early on in my history.  It turns out it actually works (for me, at least).

Just bear in mind human brains are freaking weird things, and can't be predicted by intuition alone.  Also bear in mind that if you have a legitimate reason to be sad (boy/girl friend leaves you, circumstances prevent you from having friends at a given time, etc) then you will just go insane instead, I have tested this fairly extensively for myself at this point.

With respect to having trouble faking it, if you tell yourself its all part of your (my plan in this case I guess) brilliant plan, then it is much easier to keep it up.

[dwarfhoplite]

In case of depression there may be this situation where nothing seems to bring joy or pleasure. Pretending to be happy doesn't work if you don't know what it is to be happy. I'm going through depression now and I gain self esteem (temporarily) from overcoming my fears (and there are lots). Small things like wearing that bright coloured shirt you've never used since you bought it or talking to a stranger.

My best tip is to help people. You will get on a good mood when you get to feel yourself useful to someone and they express their gratefulness.

[xczxc]

You should most definitely consider to start practising meditation. Whether your problems stem from lack of self esteem or (most likely) depression, meditating can help you cope with them, as a number of studies suggest.

I also recommend exercising. Go for a run every day!

[Vector]

I second the faking it, meditation, and exercise.  I've done all of these before to good effect.

Here's something that a social worker suggested for me: start keeping a journal.  Every day, you have to write three things that you like about yourself, or that you did well.  It can be anything.  In my case, I'd write stuff like "I have beautiful ankles" or "I overate a little bit less than usual" or "I wasn't psychotically manipulative" (seriously, just set the bar as low as you have to--it really does help).

I've also done things like setting a goal, and then folding a paper crane after I do something that gets me a little bit closer to that goal.  When I have a thousand, I'm going to donate them to a psychiatric hospital :I

[Shadowgandor]

I third the faking it. For some reason it worked out pretty well for me, though I'm not sure if it's possible to completely lose that feeling of worthlessness.

Something else that improved my self-esteem by a lot was getting a job. It doesn't matter which job, as the work experience you'll be getting will give you the feeling that you're doing something with your life. Physical jobs like stock fillers especially helped a lot, as I could set my thoughts aside and just mindlessly fill those damned stocks!