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How do you stop hating yourself?

30K views 29 replies 28 participants last post by  a degree of freedom 
#1 ·
Does anybody know?
 
#4 ·
Ignore the outside influences that have caused you to hate yourself. Nobody is born with any kind of hate, it is developed and fostered inside due to outside influence. If we were born hating ourselves we wouldn't smile and enjoy life as babies.

I'm far from being any kind of expert, but it seems that most people who hate themselves point out things that people have said, or how they view other people and their lives.

Stop concerning yourself with others and their opinions and focus on your positives (everyone has SOMETHING good inside them).

I know it's much easier said than done, but it's usually a correct way of viewing the problem, at least from my experience and that of people I know.
 
#7 ·
I've never hated myself but I sometimes feel sorry for myself. When I do, I always try to separate the "me" from the anxiety. I hate my anxiety. I like myself. I hate what I did when I was abusing drugs and lying, cheating, etc. But I have always been good at putting the blame on the disease (anxiety, drug addiction, etc.). I sometimes even blame society, others (e.g. parents, siblings) around me. And to be honest, I do feel part of the blame should be put there. Having said that, my psychiatrist always tells me not to blame myself, just the anxiety.

It was pretty easy for me, but then I never hated "me" just certain characteristics about me, like anxiety. If you had a heart abnormality, would you hate and punish yourself for it? Or just hate having the heart abnormality. Mental disease is no different, except that your irrational thoughts sometimes don't allow you to see this, I think. You basically hate your anxiety/depression, etc., not yourself. Not sure if this makes any sense.
 
#8 ·
Wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say "Hey, who's that sexy badass?".

While normally this would make you a douchebag, if you have a low self-esteem (which I imagine everyone here has), then I consider it acceptable.

If someone calls you a douchebag, just tell em "You're just jealous cuz your not a sexy badass."
 
#10 ·
hmm

Well...you want to stop hating yourself? Okay, well, how are you hating yourself? What are you doing when you're hating yourself? What's the process? Looking for a general formula for this won't work because this is about the individual self and what the individual self needs. What you need.

Also consider that maybe the energy is focused onto what you don't want. You don't want to hate yourself. Well, okay, and you can become aware of the ways in which you go about hating yourself. But also, what do you want to feel? What do you want to feel, think, sense, know etc about yourself? Do you want to think you're amazing one hundred percent of the time? Do you want to think you're perfect? Do you want a general sense of trust, love and respect for yourself? What do you want to feel instead of hating yourself?

Blocking out the negative thoughts might help. But then again, in order to block it out you'd pretty much have to constantly acknowledge and entertain the negative thoughts in order to know when it's time to block them out and that's an awful lot of energy expense there. And, if those negative thoughts, voices or whatever keep shouting at you, keep talking to you, well...maybe they have something they want to say to you. Maybe they want your attention and maybe it's fine to give them and the part of you they come from the attention it might want or need. And you might discover how easy it is to do that without giving anything up and remaining safe, secure and in control of how you want to feel and how you do feel.

And you might like to remember those times when you've made a mistake and making that mistake helped you learn something new. And if making a mistake can lead to learning something new then maybe making mistakes isn't a bad thing. And maybe, if you have made mistakes in life and things haven't gone right then you can take the opportunity to forgive yourself for those mistakes.

And beyond that, therapy is a really good idea.
 
#11 ·
I actually can proudly say I don't hate myself. I used to hate myself, until I really thought about why I don't have personal relationships like most other people. I've struggled through life because of a genetic disorder, something I was practically born with (Social Anxiety). I didn't tell God when I was a fetus, "Can I please have really bad social anxiety so I struggle through my life and have trouble making friends and establishing relationships?" I am the way I am because I have unchosen anxiety. If people like us had a choice of having anxiety or not, what do you think we'd choose? There is no point in hating for yourself for something you didn't choose to have. It's just bad luck.
 
#13 ·
Ad of the day in the OP:

 
#16 ·
i experience self-hatred from time to time. my self worth flactuates but at the end of the day i know that i am a good person and i don't inflict pain on anyone and i try to be the best person that i can be. if you know that you're a good person then there's no need to despise yourself. whatever problems that you have you can work through it. nothing in life is constant; your situation will change.

you should occupy yourself with work (if you have a job), hobbies/interests and etc. i've been feeling worthless about myself because i have the time to. i have nothing else to focus on so i end focusing on all my negative traits and end up loathing myself. i have a job offer so i hope it works out because i need to be busy and around people so i don't continue thinking bad thoughts about myself. you should join a club. do anything to keep yourself busy. being alone with one's thoughts can be dangerous.
 
#18 ·
Ahhh. The things some of the posts here are advocating are worrisome. Keep yourself busy/distracted so that you won't have to confront your thoughts?? So essentially run from your thoughts. Sounds like running from your problems, which isn't going to make them go away.

Unless you're ok with sort of leaving things unsettled I'd advocate not doing that. Yet, I don't know if there is an easy way to answer the question "How do you stop hating yourself?" It really depends on a lot of things.

But naturally, I think the first place to start would be to ask yourself why? Why do you hate yourself? Is it that you're unhappy with the way you look, behave, the things you like, etc.? Basically challenge that belief and determine if there is a reasonable basis for it? You could then ask what you can do about it? Generally there are two things you can always do about a situation: either you can change it or change the way you think about it.

It is hard to assess yourself in this fashion. Deep reflection is hard but I don't believe that to be any reason not to try.
 
#19 ·
Ahhh. The things some of the posts here are advocating are worrisome. Keep yourself busy/distracted so that you won't have to confront your thoughts?? So essentially run from your thoughts. Sounds like running from your problems, which isn't going to make them go away.

Unless you're ok with sort of leaving things unsettled I'd advocate not doing that. Yet, I don't know if there is an easy way to answer the question "How do you stop hating yourself?" It really depends on a lot of things.

But naturally, I think the first place to start would be to ask yourself why? Why do you hate yourself? Is it that you're unhappy with the way you look, behave, the things you like, etc.? Basically challenge that belief and determine if there is a reasonable basis for it? You could then ask what you can do about it? Generally there are two things you can always do about a situation: either you can change it or change the way you think about it.

It is hard to assess yourself in this fashion. Deep reflection is hard but I don't believe that to be any reason not to try.
Unless deep reflection got you in this mess in the first place. After hours of typing on my computer reasons of why I hate myself and what to do and on and on and on, I finally decide to just stop and go for a walk and enjoy my day and think about things I enjoy, staying busy with working and music and whatever else I like to do.

In other words, it's good to be aware of your thought patterns and feelings, but not so aware that it consumes you.
 
#21 ·
I think the key to not hate yourself and move towards recovery is to accept that you have a somewhat debilitating condition that is stopping you from living the life you want. It isn't your fault that you have whatever so and so neurotic tendencies it's just the way the it is and you don't have control over it. Drop your expectations of where your life "should be."

So what if there's parts of your life that you feel shame about? Okay, so you have shame about some aspects of your life that holds you back, but you have to remember that it's part of the condition and forgive yourself for past mistakes or not being at the point in life where you wish you were.

Try your best to find things in your life that you are proud of and give yourself for any accomplishments you have even if they might not seem like much to you. Set a goal or two for yourself and try to keep making some progress towards it, but realize that you will have days where you are unable to make progress because of your condition, not because you are some sort of terrible person. When you feel that you're giving yourself negative self-talk saying "you're a loser" or "you're a failure" recognize that it's crap and that it's not true and you're no more of a loser than someone with a real physical disability holding them back.

Overall, just be easy on yourself. When thinking/talking to yourself, pretend it is not you currently, but like a 5 year old relative. Would you be mean and critical and judgmental of that kid when they made a mistake? Obviously not, so treat yourself the same way.
 
#22 ·
id really like to know the answer to this also. i mean what about when the hatred is way to strong ?
i was watching discovery health last night an this women with 15 personalities learned to love her self and was like, "i love myself now, all of me"
wtf ! how ? how do i learn to do this, i could never say that....
 
#23 ·
I hated myself for a long time. I had a lot of bad habits and not very many good ones, and I knew this. I knew what I needed to do to change my life but couldn't bring myself to do them. Then whilst discussing this with a close friend the answer came to me:

Because I believed that I was this no good useless person, my brain responded to that, and carried on behaving in a way that a no good useless person would. Somewhere down the line in my life, I had fallen down and never really picked myself up and carried on, which is what I should have done. Instead I not only let my life spiral downwards and started telling myself that I was a loser, with various negative affirmations. One bad habit lead to another and so on. I believed that I was a loser and that was that. I never really took control of myself. I just hoped that a day would come a long and everything would just fix itself, but it never really did.

Then, like I mentioned above whilst talking to a close friend, it hit me. I had allowed all of this to happen to me and not really stopped it, or tried to turn it around. I looked into the matter a little more deeply and here's what I did:

1) I set myself some goals, asking myself what do I really want out of life? And then set myself a daily, weekly and monthly plan to achieve them. What do you want now, what do you want this year, what do you want out of life? Be honest and realistic and then plan how you will achieve them.

2) I wrote down a number activities I could do in order to elevate my moods. Join a interest or hobby group/class, and make more friends or plan a day or weekend out. Surround yourself with positive people and keep your distance from negative people (who will make you feel negative too)

3) Exercise, take vitamins, eat lots of fruit and veg, water etc. Vitamins B6 and B12 are natural mood elevators, and lacking certain vitamins can bring your mood down.

4) Use aromatherapy oils that will elevate your mood at home. They really help

5) always look at the positive of things. When your mind starts thinking negative things, say to yourself, "No. Stop. I am not going to allow myself to do this. I want to be happy and positive, I will be happy and positive"

6) If you believe in a Creator, then pray and ask for help and guidance. Spiritual people tend to have much more peace and happiness in their lives.

7) Tidy your home, so many people I know who have felt like this have cluttered homes. Mine was the worst! You will see a huge difference in how you feel.

When your walking towards what you want, life doesn't feel so tedious anymore. It's like having a map, you know where you are going. Yes there maybe mountains and swamps along the journey, but when you know what treasures lie on the other side, it doesn't bother you.

The above worked for me and I'm certain it can turn the life of others around too. Take your time and be realistic withyourself. Remember a person's frame of mind can make or break them. But it is only you who can do it. Don't let society or tv or glossy magazines dictate how to live your life, you are unique person. Use your own brain and accept yourself.

I'd love to know if any of the above helps anyone. please do drop me a line
 
#24 ·
There is a LOT of great advice in here.

I guess where the first place to start is, WHY do you hate yourself? Do you have a reason? Is there more than one? Write them down. If you don't have reasons as to why you would hate yourself, it could be a psychological symptom of depression, or a chemical imbalance, or lethargy. If you in fact have reasons, ask yourself, WHAT IS WITHIN MY POWER TO CHANGE? If it is within your power to change, set a goal to complete or start the process of reaching that goal. At least one. Once you complete that, start a new goal. And so on and so forth. If your reasons are out of your control, figure out a way to best come to terms them. Instead of fighting against them, work with them, as best you can.

What it comes down to is... something needs to change. Attitude, circumstances, physical well-being, whatever it is that is causing this self-hatred needs to be done away with or worked on. You need to feel GOOD about yourself. You need to feel WORTHY of yourself and your own self-approval. Go achieve something that you can be proud of and begin to eliminate that list...
 
#27 ·
Oh and also when you get negative thoughts during the day think about those thoughts and analyze them. Like for instance I could be sitting in class while the teacher is giving a lecture. During that time I could think "everyone is criticizing me and staring at me.". But when I think about this thought and look around the room I see that everyone is staring at the teacher during the lecture. Or if someone behind me is laughing then I might say "that person is laughing at me. I must have done something stupid.". But how could I know this? Maybe she is laughing about something else? It is highly unlikely she is laughing at me when I am just sitting here. I can't read her mind. So many of our negative thoughts aren't true and it's just fear.
 
#26 ·
You abolish that thought from your mind.

Then, you find someone worth while to talk to, seek counseling and pursue your interests in life. If you have none, you should seek.

If that doesn't appeal to you, than focus on being more humble, and still making things work.

You should always remember you're never too old to make a difference in your life.

!!!!!!!!
 
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