- He was disappointed because his colleague received a promotion at work instead of him

- She felt very jealous because her friend got a higher grade in high school

- He is jealous of his wife because she has a university degree

These situations are considered normal and healthy reactions to disappointments, if the feeling of unhappiness does not go beyond immediately, does not escalate into hatred, and causes problems, there is no need to worry about it. However, if negative thoughts constantly affect the person’s daily life, he may suffer from the "inferiority complex".

Have you ever felt jealous and hated someone who did not hurt you? Do you want to always be the undisputed best, even if you cause harm to others? Do you see every person in your life as an enemy that you must compete with and defeat? Do you compare yourself to everyone you see?

If your answer is yes, then you suffer from an inferiority complex, and this article was written by our team specifically for you. Do not be afraid, my friend. In our current era, in which global standards impose illogical conditions on people to achieve self-satisfaction and a sense of self-worth, some of them suffer from one or more problems with themselves, and we find many of them constantly suffering from an inferiority complex.

Do not worry and continue reading until you understand the causes and symptoms of the inferiority complex and how to deal with it, in the hope that you will reduce your feelings of discomfort and reduce its impact on your social life.​​​​​​

Inferiority Complex Overview

The inferiority complex, or a sense of inferiority, is when you constantly feel low in your self-esteem and always have a negative image of yourself, whether it is a real image or an imagined one. These feelings may come due to the presence of physical or superficial defects in situations in which you feel that you are less intelligent than your peers. These feelings may come from situations and faults that you create in your mind that do not exist in reality!

The American Psychological Association (APA) describes an inferiority complex as: “a strong feeling of inadequacy and insecurity, resulting from real or imagined physical or psychological inferiority.”

This term was first coined by psychotherapist and physician Alfred Adler in 1907.

- When you suffer from an inferiority complex, you will feel stressed and threatened just by being among your peers, and in some cases, you will compensate for your feelings and sense of inferiority by resorting to violence and behaving in a purely competitive and aggressive manner towards those around you.

My dear butterfly, after you learned a little about the inferiority complex and its definition, also learn how to differentiate it from natural reactions to different situations.

Behaviors Indicate an Inferiority Complex

You must be wondering, my butterfly, how can I distinguish between a feeling resulting from natural disappointments and a feeling of an inferiority complex?

As we talked about before, we said that your feeling of disappointment and unhappiness because your colleague got a promotion at work instead of you or your friend got higher grades than you is an expected reaction. It is normal and healthy, but it becomes unnatural when:

• For example, you withdraw from attending a session in which some people are better off than you and whom you are jealous of or who cause you to feel an inferiority complex.
• You resort to behaving in an overly competitive manner to compensate for your perceived deficiency
• You act aggressively and violently toward those around you

You should pay attention to many things if you want to know whether you suffer from an inferiority complex. In our article, we will mention the symptoms and possible causes of your feeling of inferiority, and how to overcome them. Keep reading, beautiful♡

Inferiority Complex Symptoms

Inferiority complex is an informal condition that has not been recognized as a psychological and mental health disorder. However, it may include serious symptoms for its owner, such as:

• His performance at work, study, or social relationships is impaired
• He feels insecure
• He lacks self-confidence and despises himself
• He may lack social skills
• He lacks motivation and loses his passion
• He may be overcome by feelings of sadness and depression
• He feels constantly stressed and anxious.
• He suffers from insomnia
• He cannot complete the tasks assigned to him and blames those around him
• Refuses to participate in competitive activities for fear of incompetence
• He is very suspicious of the actions of those around him
• Be very sensitive to criticism
• His mood changes quickly
• He never admits when he makes a mistake
• He tries to make others feel insecure and comfortable to compensate for his feelings of inferiority
• Stays away from friends, family, and co-workers, especially in group situations
• People who feel an inferiority complex seek praise and attention from others
• He exaggerates in conveying compliments
• He overanalyzes criticisms and conclusions
• He does not respect himself and underestimates himself.
• He may be thinking about suicide
• It may develop into a personality disorder or other mental disorder
• May suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

After learning about the symptoms of an inferiority complex, let's discover the reasons why these symptoms occur.

Inferiority Complex Causes

Suppose you always feel anxious about evaluating the level of others and comparing yourself to them, or you reject invitations to avoid interacting with people who you think are better than you. In that case, we tell you that these feelings did not appear out of nowhere or suddenly overnight, and they are likely the result of someone... One or all of the factors have developed little by little over time, and in this paragraph, we will explain these factors:

Childhood experiences (primary inferiority)

Although your chances of developing feelings of inferiority complex are greater in adulthood, they may be due to negative past build-ups experienced in childhood.

_ Inferiority complex can be attributed to how the parents dealt with the child. If you have grown up surrounded by adults who provide for all your needs, you may grow up feeling weak and inferior and can't take care of yourself without supervision. The inferiority complex may worsen in situations in which you are forced to think that you are a little girl, in need of care, and helpless without others, so your self-esteem decreases and your self-esteem decreases.

On the other hand, if you grew up in a toxic, harsh environment, this environment will make you constantly question your worth, and this is what makes you grow up and become shy and unsure of yourself and your value when it comes to those around you.

Physical attributes

It is natural for a person to look at his appearance and care about it, but there may be periods when you may not like it:

• Your look
• Your weight
• The features of your face
• Your physical features
• It may be a reason for you to worry and compare yourself with others, leading to feelings of inferiority and an inferiority complex.

Other characteristics, such as living with a speech impediment, such as stuttering, can trigger feelings of inadequacy and an inferiority complex.

This matter does not apply to everyone. Not everyone who has physical or verbal defects necessarily suffers from an inferiority complex. Rather, the matter varies from one person to another depending on the strength of his personality and the way his parents raise and support him.

Economic and social challenges (secondary inferiority)

An inferiority complex may grow due to many economic and social challenges that you may face, including:

• If you are the least successful person among your family members or group of friends and you are constantly forced to contact them to ask for help and assistance, this will affect your self-esteem.
• If you grew up in an environment with difficult economic conditions that forced you to constantly ask for money.
• Your inability to find work in adulthood
• Difficulty finding a husband
• Social setbacks

The Inferiority Complex Consequences and Harms

When you live your life with thoughts that dominate your head that everyone is better than you, this will affect your productivity, your social and work life, and your daily activities, as living with an inferiority complex is very harmful due to factors that our team will explain below:

Increased opportunities to resort to drugs

Being constantly forced to live and communicate with people who you believe are better than you will be exhausting. To escape this reality and help yourself understand these difficulties, you may resort to alcoholic beverages or dangerous drugs!⚠️

It may indeed help you spend your day and provide you with some comfort and forgetfulness, but it reduces your self-esteem and worsens the situation even more. We did not talk about its negative effects and the health harm it causes to your psyche and body.

Depression

When you do not have the courage and do not feel your strength and worth to interact with your friends, family, or co-workers and feel equal to them, this will certainly affect your mental health, and not respecting yourself and diminishing yourself in most situations will lead to your depression. Depression, in turn, exacerbates the inferiority complex.

Low quality of social and work life

Many things lead to a decline in your social and professional life, contribute to your isolation, and encourage your feeling of inferiority and inferiority complex, such as:

• Your excessive worry about appearing incompetent or making a mistake in front of your colleagues will distract you from what is important, such as your job and performing your duties and carrying them out properly.
• Focus your entire thought on answering the inquiries of your colleagues and family correctly. This will lead to less interaction with them and less participation in social activities to escape embarrassing situations that may occur.
• Exaggerating the gaps in your inferiority complex by dealing with others harshly and violently, and can make others distance themselves from you.

Sleep disorders 

Living with an inferiority complex can increase the tendency to develop sleep disorders, due to excessive thinking about what happened to you, how you behaved, what so-and-so said, why he said it and what he meant, the thoughts that take you and bring you back, and the endless conclusions that cause insomnia.

Continue reading, at the end of this article you will be familiar with all the information related to the inferiority complex, how to deal with it, and how to treat it.

How to Deal with Inferiority Complex

There is no doubt, my friend, that it is very difficult to live your life believing that you are not suitable because of some deficiency or because you feel that others are better than you, but you must know that you are a rare and unique human being, full of energy, activity, and strengths, and you have different abilities and advantages that are not found in others. This is what makes your presence a positive and useful addition to any environment you are in.

We do not deny that this topic is difficult, my butterfly and that it is not easy to reach this mentality, but with training, you can achieve the impossible!

To help you control your inferiority and inferiority complex, our team searched for some methods that can help you suppress feelings of inferiority complex, and put them here in this paragraph, so continue reading:

Recognize the problems 

The first stage of treating an inferiority complex is admitting that you suffer from it, and avoiding shame, as denying this problem will only bring you trouble and slow progress. Enriching your knowledge about it and its causes and symptoms is an important step in the treatment journey.

Consult a doctor and start treatment

Telling a stranger and someone far from your surroundings about the internal conflicts you are experiencing due to low self-esteem can help you, so seek professional help and consult your psychiatrist to get the guidance you need.

The doctor can resort to cognitive behavioral therapy, which is one of the most effective treatments in cases based on anxiety and depression, as he can identify negative thoughts and turn them into positive thoughts, and provides a guiding helping hand that helps you challenge negative thoughts about yourself.

Don't let shyness stand in the way of your treatment journey! Come now to consult a doctor, so that you can speed up your treatment and alleviate the symptoms that are disturbing your life.

Write notes in your diary

Writing down your true feelings about yourself and the issues and things that trigger your negative thoughts will help you monitor your treatment progress while evaluating yourself and thinking more kindly about yourself.

_ Identify the factors that make you think negatively and overcome them

_ Write down how you deserve respect and in which you should treat yourself

_ Respect yourself, give her love, and get close to positive people who truly love you. This will give you a greater ability to absorb positive thoughts about yourself.

Encourage yourself and believe in positive thoughts

Get used to telling yourself how valuable, beautiful, and talented she is. This can radically change the way you look at yourself. Doing this will create confidence in you and strengthen your belief in yourself and your abilities.

_ Swap the time you waste on your obsession with your faults and use it to praise and remember the positive qualities that distinguish you. Your positive self-talk will help you change the thinking of your mind and extract yourself from the cycle of humiliation and self-flagellation gradually.

Exercise and physical activities

Various studies have proven a strong correlation between exercise and self-esteem and self-confidence, as it stimulates the release of chemical compounds that benefit the brain and bring happiness, such as serotonin and endorphins.

A word from our team

Our dear butterfly, it is normal for you to experience periods from time to time during which you may suffer from depression and feel incompetent. However, if these feelings become fear and an obstacle to your communicating, getting along with others, and engaging in social activities, this could indicate that you have an inferiority complex.

You may think that overcoming an inferiority complex is difficult, but when you think positively and defeat the thoughts that make you feel that you are at a lower level than others and that they are more physically attractive than you, and when you attend meetings and participate in social activities, these steps will help you in treating the inferiority complex and establishing positive affirmations about yourself and a significant improvement in the way you see yourself and interact with others.

Do not worry or be ashamed, you are not alone. Many people around the world suffer from an inferiority complex and are working to overcome it. Join them and start your treatment to overcome the inferiority complex so that it does not remain an obstacle that affects the quality of your social and professional life.

At the end of our article, we hope that you have quenched your curiosity and satisfied it with rich information about the inferiority complex, and that you have learned about its symptoms, causes, treatment methods, and how to deal with it. For more important topics that concern women in all parts of the world, follow Farashti magazine and Sarah’s Pop Fit website and learn the steps of doing exercises correctly, safely, and in a fun way. Watch international trainer Sarah Popfit’s YouTube channel.

From our team, all the love and respect to you, our beautiful butterfly.

FAQ's about Inferiority Complex

● How can I distinguish between a feeling resulting from natural disappointments and a feeling of an inferiority complex?

Your feeling of disappointment and unhappiness, because your colleague got a promotion at work instead of you or your friend, got higher grades than you is an expected reaction and is normal and healthy, but it becomes unnatural when you withdraw, for example, from attending a session in which people you are jealous of are present, or you resort to behavior in an overly competitive manner, or you act aggressively and violently towards those around you

● What are the consequences of living with an inferiority complex?

Things can worsen to increase the chances of resorting to drugs to escape from the harsh reality, whether real or imagined, and a feeling of depression, and a decline in the quality of social and professional life.

● How do I deal with my inferiority complex?

We advise you, my dear, to talk to someone outside your environment, such as a psychiatrist, who will be a great help in guiding you on how to deal with an inferiority complex. We also advise you to write down negative thoughts and their triggers in your diary, and we encourage you to believe in yourself and turn negative thoughts into positive ones.

●What is the benefit of cognitive behavioral therapy in the case of inferiority complex?

It is one of the most effective treatments for cases based on anxiety and depression, as it can identify negative thoughts and turn them into positive ones, and provides a guiding helping hand that helps you challenge negative thoughts about yourself.

● How does inferiority complex affect the quality of daily life?

Your excessive concern about your incompetent appearance will lead to your attention being diverted from what is important, such as your job and its proper implementation. Focusing your mind entirely on answering your colleagues’ inquiries correctly will lead to less interaction with them and less participation in social activities to escape embarrassing situations that may arise. It can happen, and exaggerating in filling the gaps of your inferiority complex by dealing with others harshly and violently may make others distance themselves from you.

● How do I deal with someone who has an inferiority complex?

Dealing with someone suffering from an inferiority complex can be difficult, because his actions may not be consistent with his true feelings and thoughts. Likewise, if you want to adapt to someone you love who suffers from an inferiority complex, you must read about it and understand its symptoms, and you can then help him control his thoughts and overcome the difficulties he faces and encourage him to consult a doctor.

Written by: Haidy Soliman

Sources:

Adult mental health

Scientific reports

Very well mind

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