I have a friend who is very transparent and pure hearted.
He has a lot of self-respect.
So he shares me reels on Instagram about self-respect.
And his point of view is that if a girl doesn’t respect you, you shouldn’t chase her.
Other than love advice, I also learnt many other things from his reels.
But self-respect is a key idea that changed my life.
Before I was admitted to NIMHANS(National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore) in 2025, I used to call everyone “Sir”,”Maam”,”Dada”(elder brother),”Didi”(elder sister).
I didn’t realize that I was unnecessarily putting others on a pedestal.
I was giving people more respect than they deserved.
And I was also making myself uncomfortable and feeling disrespected by them.
So I stopped using those titles like sir, madam, dada, didi, unnecessarily.
I use them only when the person is an elderly person who is somehow related to my circle of friends and family.
Moreover, I have learnt to respect myself more. I am kinder to myself.
And I noticed that people started taking me more seriously, and I got more respect from people.
I also used to unconsciously smile a lot to get people’s approval. But recently I decided to become more comfortable in my own skin and to love myself more and to smile less.
So I don’t smile unnecessarily with everyone.
But I think I have grown a lot. I don’t think that shallow tricks like not smiling or not saying titles make any difference.
The real difference is the medicines and the psychotherapy from NIMHANS.
My doctors have worked very hard to help me. And I am grateful to them.
So yeah I think if you want to get respect from others, you need to respect yourself first.
Thank you for reading this line. It means a lot!