What is the relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence?

Let's see how emotional dependence and lack of self-esteem interact with each other.

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 for good mental health.

Unfortunately, there are people who establish dysfunctional relationships, with high emotional dependence, because they believe that they are absolutely nobody if they are alone.

The relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence has a strong influence on psychological wellbeing and is the origin of toxic and asymmetrical relationships. Let's find out how it happens.

• Related article, "Do you really know what self-esteem is?"

The link between low self-esteem and emotional dependence.

Humans are social animals, which makes our mental health highly dependent on the quality of our interactions with others. We have a need for others to like us and to 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 anyone says, everyone needs to be in the company of other people, even if only a little.

However, the excessive search for the approval of others can become a pathological problem. We all need other people to accept us, but if we make it our main motivation, believing that if we do not have social acceptance we are worthless, it is clear that we are facing a problematic behavior. This is where we can find the relationship between low self-esteem and emotional dependence.

Some people need to feel that absolutely everyone likes them. Because they have very low self-esteem, they are very sensitive to criticism and other people's opinionsThey are very sensitive to criticism and opinions, which can greatly influence their mood. If they are flattered, they will feel very good, but if someone says something bad about them, even if it is something that is not true, their mood will be at rock bottom.

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 evaluation of themselves that, when combined with affective deficiencies, have the enormous need to try to be accepted by others, even if it means humiliating themselves or doing demeaning 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 have an almost uncontrollable need for the affection and attention of others. 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 to do something that displeases those they want to please and make 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 causes them to develop parasitic and asymmetrical relationships, that is, unequal relationships in which they sacrifice themselves for others. They are willing to do anything to make the relationship last forever.

The combo of low self-esteem and emotional dependence makes people crave relationships where they feel protected and loved.. They do not 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 already mentioned, they are people who will do everything possible to feel loved even if it may even hurt them.

How does dependence affect them?

One of the problems of emotional dependence towards others is that, if the person does not receive the attention or the "affection" he/she is looking for, he/she will start to have irrational doubts about his/her own value.. In his mind the idea of not being valued by a particular person can be interpreted as synonymous with worthlessness, unimportance and not being needed. 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, with sadness being a feeling that is very present in the life of emotionally dependent people. Because of this one can enter a vicious circle of emotional emptiness and chronic dissatisfaction, a loop from which it is very difficult to escape.A loop from which it is very difficult to get out without the appropriate professional help and which 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 causes them 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 have no reason to leave them. Likewise, they cannot avoid getting out of this anxious state, and to avoid at all costs that the feared situation happens, they will accept without complaining any kind of gesture made to them, even mistreatment.

Improving 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, actually, both feed back on each other. A low self-esteem will make the person, at the minimum that he/she finds someone who accepts him/her with his/her "defects" (even if they are unrealistic) will stick like a limpet to that person showing a high emotional dependence, while if we look at it from the other side, a person who is very attached to another person may begin to have an increasingly poor view of himself and develop the belief that without his friend or partner he is nobody..

Although we are social animals as we have already mentioned, it is clear that the person we spend the most time with is ourselves. The main "social" relationship in life is the one we have with ourselves and for this 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 whatever we propose.

When we try to please other people when we do not even like ourselves, it is normal to end up falling into a relationship of dependence. Therefore, to avoid falling into toxic relationships we must improve our perception of ourselves. we must improve the perception we have of ourselves, improve our self-esteem and make an effort to feel good emotionally and psychologically., al margen de lo que puedan pensar los demás sobre nosotros. Tenemos que tratarnos como nos gustaría que nos trataran, y no al revés.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Hirschfeld, R. M, Klerman, G. L., Chodoff, P., Korchin, S., & Barrett, J. (1976). Dependency—self-esteem—clinical depression. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 4(3), 373–388.
• Iancu, I., Bodner, E., & Ben-Zion, I. Z. (2015). Self esteem, dependency, self-efficacy and self-criticism in social anxiety disorder. Comprehensive psychiatry, 58, 165–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2014.11.018