This is a great thread.
Thanks for all who responded and thank you for the link to the other site - it was VERY helpful to me.
A tremendous amount of my low self-esteem is attributed to things I dealt with as a child - obviously - but when I was younger I suffered from trich and pulled out my hair. My parents were horrified and didn't think to seek me help. I thought I was a complete freak! This insecurity and inadequacy has only grown over the years. It wasn't increasingly bad as I got older, but I did hide it - one spot in the back of my head, under hair. Somehow word got out that I had a "bald spot" on the back of my head, when I was in highschool.
Kids are so mean. To top this off I kissed an upperclassman's boyfriend when I was a freshman and was absolutely terrorized by the grade above me. I was afraid to walk the halls- this has translated into alot of trauma, but during this time I was taunted again and just felt utterly defective. I now know that it is a disease and a very shameful one - on top of my other mental maladies - I just like to know I'm not alone and want to let others know the same.
I recently started on a low dosage of prozac to aid some of my anxiety and OCD symptoms. I think it may be making things worse -uneless the med is just ineffective and my symptoms have just gotten worse ? I don't know. I am very concerned about weight gain so that is my biggest factor in deciding on an OCD med. I will calla my doc today and try to discuss other options.