How to overcome your Inferiority Complex?

           'Inferiority complex to Chronic depression'

As per Wikipedia Inferiority complex is the lack of self-worth, a doubt and uncertainty about oneself, and feelings of not measuring up to standards. It is often subconscious, and is thought to drive afflicted individuals to overcompensate, resulting either in spectacular achievement or extremely asocial behavior. In modern literature, the preferred terminology is "lack of covert self-esteem'  

 Inferiority Complex to Chronic Depression 

   When I saw 'Taare Zameen Par' movie first time, I was completely moved by some of the dialogues from the movie. The phrase 'Self Esteem ki dhajjiyan ud jaana' from the movie completely stuck in my mind for several days. I had gone through such condition in my life therefore I can very well understand the deep meaning of it. Self Esteem, Inferiority Complex and depression terms will repeat again and again in this post; as this post is all about the co-relationship between these three psychological terms. 

    Inferiority complex is a stage of low self esteem.Whenever we compare our-self to someone on basis of some comparison parameters and find our-self inferior to others; we tend to lose our confidence.It's like we are prone to concentrate more on our weaknesses rather than our strengths in such cases. If we sow seeds of Mango Tree we should not expect Apples from the tree. But we do the same mistake and then blame it on Tree for not giving us Apple. Many times we expect things to fall in place without making any efforts. We rely more on our luck and avoid hard-work to achieve what we really need. Sometimes we even have some illogical expectations from God too. Many a times we don't want to face reality and want to live in our own dream world. Sooner or later when we come across reality; we realize that we are too late to control things.  

 Success, Failure and Inferiority Complex 

Success and Failure... come and go. But when failure series becomes little longer; then it starts affecting the morales of any individual. Many of us under-estimate the importance of 'Sports' in our childhood life. This happens specially with the children who are intelligent in studies and love to maintain their top position throughout academic career. Sports plays very important role in teaching us 'To accept failure with right spirits' which we also term as 'Sporting spirit'. Those who fail to digest their failures are more susceptible towards adapting the 'inferiority complex'. Peer pressure is also responsible to add fuel  to that feeling.  At later stage of teen age and early adulthood we spend most of our time with our friends. We automatically start following life styles, thought process of our peers and develop a outer-focal personality . In process we start losing our identity and try to become something which we are not. But when we realize that we can't be among them, or match their levels due to our own personality traits, sociocultural differences or economical background etc. - the feeling of 'inferiority' starts getting developed gradually. 

  The symptoms and growth of  inferiority complex 

      Due to excessive parenting and peer pressure the person with low self esteem loses inner focus and becomes more sensitive and vulnerable towards the world.Depending on the personality either he builds up 'aggressive system of defense' or 'isolated system of defense'. 

The person with 'aggressive system of defense' becomes rebel and always remains restless. He starts boasting about his past performances and never leaves any stone unturned to show his superiority whenever he gets chance. The sole purpose of doing this is to prove the world that he is not inferior to anyone. The frustration and restlessness of such person can be easily seen in his body language too. Due to continuous thinking and lack of sleep he may develop digestive disorders, insomnia kind of diseases. The person can belittle other's achievement and can develop an unpleasant personality. He may become so 'image-sensitive' & self-centered that people start believing that he is  egoistic and rude person. He may not be welcomed by his group due to his short-tempered nature. 

     On the other side person with mild personality will show some altered effects of prolonged inferiority complex. Mild people who develop this complex may withdraw themselves from the crowd. They may not join any function, groups, forums and end up  creating their own isolated world. Such person may not find himself fit into groups and may keep blaming on others for being arrogant to him by playing victim card.  The person with such isolated defense system  may become over-emotional and try to compensate his feeling of 'inferiority' with his good nature/kind heart. You may see only 1-2 selected friends of such people with whom they share everything. These people keeps blaming their luck for every failure and develop jealousy for others. They will not participate in any competition due to  fear that  their weakness will get exposed in-front of the world. Such people may become obese and lazy gradually and also slow movers. They can even change job, career, locality if their inferiority complex starts increasing there. 

 PERIOD OF DEPRESSION

  The feeling of inferiority complex soon becomes reason for depression. The low mood and low self esteem prevails in most of the duration in this phase. The person starts loving solitude and start searching for peace within. The storm in his mind never allows him to settle for a moment, yet he looks very tired and exhausted from his overall appearance. He quits the fighting with his peers and tries to avoid them by giving them some fake reasons. Feeling of inferiority complex over a longer duration becomes a reason for a person to consider himself a 'loser' and his life - worthless. He starts looking whole world through the glasses of animosity. He always fears that someone will show finger at him and laugh loudly without any reason. 

    In extreme cases, in this period other evil thoughts starts en-rooting in his mind. The strong sexual desire, need of violence, requirement of mind-relaxing drugs, liquors etc. are some of the syndromes which can be easily found out in depressed individual with no purpose in life. In Asian countries like Japan and China many depressed youngsters are infamous for reading different types of suicidal methods and watch videos regarding same on internet. Internet chatting is one more way through which an depressed individual vent outs his anger and frustration. In real life he find himself as loser, so in virtual world he starts bullying the people. Even a soft spoken well mannered individual in real life can be seen using abusive language on internet. The need for recognition becomes his primary need even more than his hunger. 

    The inferiority complex starts affecting his health and depression takes over his mind in very little time. The depressed individual slowly becomes very negative and starts hating himself and his life.He then misbehaves with his close friends and argues on small small things within his family. Every day becomes longer as the storm of negative thoughts completely captures his mind and starts ruling his conscious. Walking longer distance without any reason, sleeping any time during day, lack of focus and lack of presence of mind can be seen in such person. A depressed individual becomes completely alone in this crowded world. 

How to overcome your Inferiority complex?

    Depression over longer period may leave scars on your mind which can never be healed. The major depression disorder can become fatal in case not taken seriously by people surround the patients. In America out of 60% suicide cases are due to such chronic depressions. Therefore it is very important to recognize symptoms of depression at really early stage. 

  I am sure none of you might have considered 'Inferiority complex' can lead to 'chronic depression' in long term. The journey which I explained in this post - 'Inferiority complex to Chronic depression' can be considered as stages. 

Inferiority complex ------> Crashing of Self-esteem -------> Depression----------> Chronic Depression 

  So how to overcome inferiority complex at really early stage? You know it's really case specific. But some of the important methods are discussed here. 

1) Share:- It's very important to share your feelings with your closer ones. When you discuss problems with your family, friends, spouse; you definitely feel much better and sometimes even get solutions from them. Interestingly many times other people can easily solve your problems as they are viewing it as an outsider and for them it doesn't seems to be big enough. Experienced individuals, teachers,parents are always capable to guide you if you share your problems with them in first place. 

2) Accept things as they are:- Try to come out of your dream world. Watch reality. Understand that every human being have some strengths and some weaknesses. So don't feel shy about your weaknesses. You can not convert your weakness into strength if you don't accept it as your weakness first.

3) Concentrate on your strengths : - When you are aware of your strengths and ready to concentrate on them, you hardly get time to worry about your weaknesses. Wise people use their strengths to hide their weaknesses under their confident faces. Set your priorities right. Attach your life to goals instead of people or object. Focus on your strengths. 

4) Appreciate others: - As discussed earlier, we should have sportsman spirit to digest our failure that comes when you learn to appreciate the good things about your opponents with great heart. Understand that tables can turn any time if you don't  quit and work hard on your improvement rather than considering yourself inferior to others.

5) Arts:- Many of us are passionate about some arts.But we hardly follow our hobbies when we grow up. Arts has high healing power.Music can easily change your mood. Those who know painting can easily forget their worries in the colors of canvas. The live artists when gets applauded by audiences for their work; gain lots of confidence back which boosts their morale. 

6) Nature : - If you love nature; nature loves you back. Travelling is an essential medicine on all sorts of depressions and low moods. When you change your surroundings for some time and get out of everything for some days, your mind gets refreshed. Vacations in exotic places, visits to sanctuaries, or hill stations, etc. can keep your mental and physical health in good conditions. 

7) Meditation: - Spirituality; makes your mind stable. Helps you get inner peace and teaches you to live in present. Meditation has power to heal most of your mind problems. 

8) Philanthropy & Social work :- It's really a great moral booster in any situation. Helping other people who need your help, increases your self -esteem. It makes you feel good. It gives you satisfaction and helps you to gain your confidence back again. Specially it gives you altogether new vision to see the world.

9) Medicines :-  Anti depressants are available on depression but we must first try to come out of  low moods and depression naturally without any medicines by trying some of the above solutions. 

To conclude, 'Inferiority Complex' is a self-created meaningless phase of mind which should be dealt at very initial stage by diverting your mind and thinking positively.