Can being adopted cause low self esteem and low self image?

Good evening! I appreciate you taking a step and reaching out about something you have been dealing with and questioning. I am going to answer this question in more of a general way because I didn't have the specifics of your childhood and background.  This should still help with processing your question.

As humans, we are so good at criticizing ourselves and one thing is for sure, we are our own worst critic. When it comes to self esteem and our own self esteem, we are assessing ourselves subjectively of our own self worth constantly. In essence we make a choice whether or not we are worthy of happiness and good things in life. When we start to believe that we don't deserve things, our ability to enjoy life can take a hit and suffer.  As we grow from being a kid into an adult, those experiences that we endure in between influenced and shaped our self esteem. We have impactful experiences with people and experience different situations which both form a self image. Experiences in childhood begin to build the foundation of your self esteem. How we were treated by different people in our life, the times we succeeded and the times we were knocked down all influence your self esteem and self worth.

I like to take a look at a comparison of healthy self esteem vs poor self esteem. With healthy self esteem, the adults who experience this may have experienced a variety of support as a child. Achievements were most likely praised often, they felt like they were heard and were respected by others, they felt they had a healthy amount of attention from others and were able to feel affection by those close to or caring for them. Having a peer group that admired them for different things they were good at may have also impacted them having high self esteem as an adult.

On the other hand, those adults with low self esteem may have experience much of the opposite. As a child they may have felt like they were criticized, they may have been yelled and screamed at. There is a high probability that the adults in their lives that we expected to be caring for them, may have not given them much or any attention at all. Sometimes, with all of the criticism and feelings of imperfection, your mind starts to believe that without achievements you will always be unworthy and worthless. This is really harsh, right? It's what happened to us, it's not our fault.

We are molded and shaped by all of these experiences. We don't always see that until we become older. This is important to know for a few reasons. One of them is that you are able to have a understanding that what has happened to you in life has an impact on you. You are also able to work on and build your self esteem, so I do not want you to feel like you are doomed. It takes some work but it is very possible and it is so important! The way we feel about ourselves effects and impacts how we live our lives. We can build healthy relationships, set and achieve small and long term goals, focus on our health, find things that we can do that we really enjoy and all of this will help to increase our self esteem. First things first though, you have to admit and believe in that you are worthy of these things. There are ways to work through the thoughts and feelings that come up when asking yourself that question and there are people that are able and here to help you during that journey. I wish you the best and I hope that this is helpful for you.