Do You Wonder Why You Hate Yourself Even When Others Like You?
It's so tragic to hear someone say I hate myself. But down deep, many people do. Do you hate yourself? It seems there are so many things in this world that attack our self-esteem and sense of worth. When you hate your life and yourself, it feels like you're in your own personal jail, full of self-loathing, desperately wanting to get out, but not believing they can.
Can You Relate to Caroline?
Others may think you are just crying out for attention. But the feelings are very real. You are miserable because of how you feel about yourself, even if it sounds exaggerated or overly dramatic. I believe you.
Caroline described her self-hatred like this: I hated myself because I thought I wasn't good enough to be in this world. I thought I was ugly, stupid, and weird. I wished I could have been someone else.
So why do people hate themselves?
We took a poll and asked what reasons you might have to hate yourself. The majority of people said it was something about their appearance, followed closely by I didn't feel loved, and then I failed at a relationship. Each of these could be their own articles.
Blame Ourselves When Bad Things Happen
When bad things happen, we often blame ourselves. It's easy to let this blame turn into self-hatred and suck the very life out of us. This can leave us depleted of any kind of self-worth or love. When bad things happen, the worst thing you can do is spiral down into self-pity.
Sometimes self-hate is emotional exhaustion from the blame game. It's important to remember that painful, challenging, and hard times are going to happen. Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break and get some rest. You will look much better to yourself when you get some rest and forgive yourself for any mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.
Rejection or Abandonment
Everyone will experience rejection of some sort. It's normal. But it's difficult. Not everybody is going to love you or accept you.
But it doesn't mean you're a bad person, and that you should hate yourself because of it.
Tom wrote: I used to live consumed with thoughts about what everybody else was thinking about me. I felt like people were constantly rejecting me. All the worst things came to mind, even though there was no way of actually knowing what people were thinking. I had to quit, or else I'd go crazy.
Sometimes when people experience rejection or abandonment, they turn the responsibility onto themselves, as if they are the ones who caused the pain. Don't let what other people think about you determine what you think of yourself. The freedom you experience when you let go of this burden like Tom did, will give you great joy. He's right, it's not worth going crazy over something you really can't control.
Negative Self-Talk
Thinking poorly about yourself is kind of like self-rejection. You see something about yourself that you think is stupid or ugly and you think criticizing yourself about it will somehow make it go away. It won't. It will actually make it worse. A lot of people feel ugly. Lazy. Inadequate. It's like the whole human race suffers from deep, low self-esteem.
Mona wrote: I hate who I've become. I know there is a hardworking, honest, skinny person inside me somewhere, but most of the time I think about how far to the negative I've come, then get even angrier at myself for not working harder to become the person I know I can be.
The Fight Against Self-Hate
The fight against self-hate is an on-going battle in all of us. Some struggle with it more than others, to the point of depression and suicidal thoughts. But it seems to always be there working in the shadows, waiting to pounce on us, and take us down. One thought that has helped me in this struggle is God's love for me.
I ask myself, "Why should I hate someone God loves so much? Why should I slap Him across the face? He's the one who made me, and He did it for a very special reason." There is no one else in the whole world who is just like you or me. Isn't that incredible? That person, YOU, is worth loving.
So how do you climb out of the dark hole of self-hate? Check out 5 Things to Think or Do When You Hate Yourself.
every single i tear myself apart, ill get high on anything and usually get drunk. i have no friends and my girlfreind has been cheating on me and i just found out. i try talking to other girls and they seem to absolutely despise me. everyone i have called a friend has either lied or stole from me. and i feel as if everyone is pointing and laughing at me or thinking to themselves that im an ugly ass freak. i have nobody i can talk to and my family will just laugh at me if i tell them. im also a dropout. which doesnt help me besides the fact i have accomplished litterally nothing in my life, i dont hate my life, i hate myself becuase i know people think im weird and that they hate me, but i dont know what i ever did to anyone. all i want to do is get high and go to work everyday, but even thats becoming a struggle because im tearing myself to peices every single day, i can never smile. i have to fake it for work as a cashier. but i dont smile in pictures, i dont smile if im somehow entertained. i just feel like an empty bag of skin. im starting to not care anymore, i dont care about anything. i dont wanna kill myself, but if i saw a semi truck going full speed at me, i think i wouldnt move and just stand there.
I get it. I get the self-hatred. I don't want to wake up. If it wasn't for having a kid, I would make sure not to wake up. I do not want to be here anymore knowing how pathetic and worthless that I am, but also knowing that when my husband looks at me that is what he sees. And as he says - my son will see this too. Especially since I am not raising a "man" but instead a "toy". I am so pathetic that I can't even raise my kid properly. I hate myself and do not want to deal anymore.
Look outside, to the snow covered mountains,
We are more than hollow souls dressed as accountants.
Feel your heart beat in your chest,
That is not the sound of a monster or a pest.
Look yourself in the mirror, stare into your deadened eyes,
You are human, not an object or a prize.
When I was little, my parents divorced. It was messy, and my father suffered dreadfully from it. He tried desperately to get back on his feet, and he managed to get a basement apartment. He was into the whole conspiracy thing and as a child that really rubbed off on me. He basically destroyed the building blocks of religion, told me that my mother was a robot and she would kill me and crap. That everyone I loved was in on the entire alien plot. I was five, so I was really gullible. I didn't know any better. I became paranoid. My mom was struggling to pay the bills and was so stressed that she would come home and yell at me and my bro everyday. I wouldn't take a shower for months on end, didn't know what brushing my teeth was like. Meh, I really didn't care. I thought it was normal. I thought it was normal that my father threatened my mother with a knife. I smelled like smoke cause my dad smoked so much.
When I was older he asked for custody full-time. Of course I thought he was the good guy and agreed. My mother was furious, and the fact that her children's names were on the paper sent her into a rage. My father died a year later from lung cancer.
My mom found a guy, and shes better now. Shes happy. My brothers leaving high school soon. Everyones gotten over it, except for me.
Self-harm and emotional eating are my life story, mixed in with the rough concoction of self-loathing. He died two years ago and ever since then ive felt quick bursts of nothing to intense feeling, and then back to nothing again. I feel like I'm losing all emotion, everyday is a new day where something good about me is stripped away to show something rotting beneath. Ive gone to four psychiatrists, all to no avail. I wake up feeling like at times my life is gonna end completely. Like my step-dad will die or my mom will die. I don't talk to anyone because I know that my life has been no bif deal, that people have been through worse stuff so I just keep my mouth shut and fight the urge to drink that windex under the cupboard or close the garage door and turn on the car. It would be such a relief to the constant worry of yeah, something dreadful will happen. Two years of peace do not get rid of 12 years of watching life rot away.
I worry constantly about the environment, about poverty, about animal and child abuse. I try to do all that I can because I feel a little better when I do things that hep thiose causes but in the end all of my willpower comes crashing down with the realization that there is no point.
Basically, what has helped me with this is literally shutting down my brain, emjoying the beauty of this dying world, and trying to do all that I can with what I have.
: CURLS UP IN A LITTLE BALL AND STARTS CRYING QUIETLY IN THE CORNER WHILE NO ONE EVEN CARES :
I sometimes wish that i could just disappear for a day and see what happens without me. My guess would be that everyone would not even care and even be glad that I am gone. How I hate myself and life!