Definition of "self-distrust" [self•-dis•trust]

• Lack of faith or confidence in one's own abilities. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And this question is often driven, I think, by negative impulses: a nagging sense of self-distrust (am I deluding myself with hedonism, clinging to autonomy?) and/or the habit of chronic discontentment (will I be tormented if I don't have what everyone else has?)."
• "Self-important, condescending, Casaubon hopes that Dorothea will carry on his work after his death, “the lonely labor, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-distrust,” even though it would entomb her."
• "In the latest manifestation of what seems to be a neverending cycle of Nordic self-distrust and mutual dislike, Finnish author Sofi Oksanen has badly upset many of her compatriots by giving an extended interview to Danish television mostly in English in which she condemns Finland as an unpleasant, inward-turned country characterized by male chauvinism, repressed violence, actual violence against women and subservience to Russia."