Dear Felix,

you’re welcome. You say you’ve had trouble swallowing since you were a child. Do you remember (or have your parents told you) when it started happening first? Is it related to one specific incident, or it has developed gradually?

It’s understandable you don’t like to eat, since it causes you problems with swallowing. But I don’t think it has any effect on your height. Your height was probably caused by your genes. How is it in your family? Are your parents/grandparents/siblings also of a smaller height?

If you like to brag about things and show people how good you are, it indicates there’s an insecurity in you, a lack of self-esteem, and you need other people to affirm that indeed you’re good and worthy. If you were more sure of yourself, you wouldn’t need so much outer approval. It doesn’t make you a bad person, not in the least. It just means that in your childhood, you didn’t receive enough validation and appreciation, and that’s how your insecurity developed. I still think there must have happened some kind of rejection, even if ever so slight.

For you, it’s painful and unbearable that you cannot brag about your height. Somehow you associate your worth with your height. Short height – low worth. Have you been teased a lot about your height? Or you saw that some taller guys have more success with girls, or something like that?

You know how some girls attach their self-esteem to how thin they are? Well, it seems you’ve attached your self-esteem to your height. It’s pretty unfortunate because you can’t do much do become taller, a miracle won’t happen. So you’re stuck. However, if you could attach your self-esteem to something else rather than your height – you’d suddenly have a number of possibilities how to feel better about yourself. Your situation wouldn’t seem so hopeless any more.

If you could say to yourself: I am good enough and lovable and amazing and special – just the way I am – life could be so much better.