Teenagers often struggle with their real identities. Do you understand what inferiority complex is all about, very closely related to low self esteem?
–Tosin is good natured, and he doesn’t seem to mind it when he’s kidded about being fat, but it hurts inside. He’s heard “fatty, fatty, two by four”, until he believes its just a joke and there’s nothing he could do about it.
-Gloria’s problem is her height, she’s 1.75 metres tall, she hates every centimetre of the last 10, she’s never had a date nor admirer and doubts that she ever will.
Each of these young people has a different problem, but they have one thing in common – they have a poor self esteem.
Self esteem is the way you see and think about yourself, how bold, confident you are in yourself and in fact your decisions. Inferiority complex on the other hand is the feeling that you are inferior of lower quality compared to others, funny enough, these two terms can be connected to each other, and you will only feel inferior to others when you have a low self esteem meaning you are less confident about yourselves.
A poor self-esteem is developed by accepting wrong values other people put on you, your appearance and your abilities.
Teenage years are the prime years of bearing the burden of inferiority feelings.
Inferiority complex arises when a person finds himself in a situation where his abilities and attitudes are denigrated or rejected by other people. Inferiority complex is a magnification of natural feelings of inferiority. Anything in the individual that is below the average, that provokes unfavourable comment or gives him a feeling of impotency or ineptitude leads to inferiority complex.
They seek acceptance and belongings among other peers, when they fail in this aspect, what often occurs is that they develop a low self esteem. Inferiority complex is an inner feeling of inadequacy, a feeling of ‘I’m not up to the task’; I’m not as good as other children’.
Everybody feel inferior at one point or the other especially while growing up, but how we handle it and the end results thereof determines if the feelings still pushes us around or it is a thing of the past for us. When you started school, you became more conscious of your appearance and your abilities.
As you grew older, you began to look yourself over for every possible “defects” and just in case your school mates have said it out to you “you have a large eye ball” you know what, it doesn’t take a lots of this words to make you feel worthless and I can tell you, most of us has experienced such feelings at one time or the other.
A lot of teenagers are faced with this challenges and finding it difficult to overcome. Some teenagers feels other children, friends are smarter, healthier, better, wealthier than they are, therefore think less of themselves.
While growing up as a teenager, I had a lot of issues, a lot of shortcomings, whole loads of inadequacies, which later resulted into feelings of been inferior to other children, I concentrated on the negative parts of my life rather than focusing on those good and positive attributes of my life.
I could share some of those things which I felt were not so good about me; thinking that I am too short; I don’t have straight legs, I’m not taking the 1st position in my class, I’m not from a wealthy family and on and on like that. I can say that all this thoughts started rolling into my mind immediately I entered high school, so that could be within the age of twelve thereabout, trending towards teenage age, you could imagine the long stretch of those feelings within me till I finished High school.
Imagine the kind of low esteem I had developed, the stack of negative impressions I had concentrated on, all because I was constantly hearing negative words around me from family members, and from my other peers, I had no one to help me in my weakness state and proffer solutions to them.
Adolescents who consistently fail or repeat classes are found to develop inferiority complex and a non progressive attitude towards school and peers. High degree of parental demands and expectations may lead to inferiority feelings. .Inferiority complex is an exaggeration of normal inferiority feelings and individuals with inferiority complex display a tendency towards overcompensation and over reaction.
Therefore inferiority complex could sometimes come from other external influence such as parents, other peers, relations, schools. A teenager might feel he/she is unable to make friends, that nobody likes him/her, Inferiority complex could also develop as a result of continuous comparisons of the child with others, also if a person is compared with others, confusion sets in about his/her life goals then he/she is good for nothing.
The results of this negative experience is overwhelming among the teenagers, it could lead to disappointment, dissatisfaction, self-pity, insecurity, loneliness, withdrawal, depression, fearfulness, shyness, inadequacy and lots more.
It is so bad that this whole lot of feelings has led many teenagers into drug addiction, food addiction, pornography, alcoholism, suicide attempts, all because they needed acceptance which they couldn’t get from normal and sanity environments, then they tend to preoccupy themselves with activities that will draw them away from where they think they do not belong.
To be continued!!!!