Hello,
I have always had low self-esteem since childhood, as far as i can remember. I've been trying to analyze and find the possible reasons for that. I can only remember being very heavily criticized by my father, for small mistakes, when I was a young child. The problem was that, he often used to do it in public, either in front of relatives or other public places. That and I don't remember my father ever praising me or telling me something positive.
From my analysis, this seemed to be the root cause, because I always had this strong need for validation from others and would always feel self-conscious in front of a group of people. I would beat myself up at night by rewinding my performances all day in front of others. I would beat myself up all over again because i could not understand why I cared so much about other's opinions, because consciously i knew there's no reason to care. Now, I think I unconsciously believed myself to be worthless because of how my father treated me and I've been trying to change that image of myself by seeking validation from my peers or others.
I have no intention of putting the blame on my father or parents and in fact I'm very concerned that I would be falsely blaming them, considering how easy and comforting it is to put the blame on someone else. My memory is not good enough to remember many similar incidents from my childhood and I'm just trying to be sure this is the root of my low self-esteem. It'd be great if someone could help.