Hating and Loving Yourself

[viveridereamor]

I don't mean to bring anyone's self-esteem down or make this have a negative conotation. You can "hate" or "love" yourself, but in the end, you just deal with it, aside from those who actually DO have troubling lives dealing with low self-esteem, constant shame, suicidal thoughts, and depression, etc. but just in general, has there ever been a time where you just can't stand what's happening in your current situation that you're all like "I hate myself for doing this" or "I hate myself because I want everything to be perfect"? What about "I love myself because I made her feel better about herself" or "I love myself because others like the way I see things"? You ever come across thoughts like these?

 

[Brovo]

Being that I'm a human being with a functioning capacity for emotions, yes.

Sarcasm aside, these feelings are generally perfectly normal. Everybody has moments they're proud of and moments they feel ashamed of. Everybody hates themselves at some point, and everybody loves themselves at some point. There's all sorts of reasons for it: Embarrassment, pride, shame, adoration, self-appreciation, and so on. It's healthy, so long as it doesn't cause you to hurt yourself or others.

 

[Diana]

*points at Brovo* That. o__o All of that.


I am a person who has suffered with depression her whole life! Including being suicidal. >> It takes a daily effort of habit building to shift bad thoughts in to good thoughts. There are days when happy perky Diana is me forcing myself to be sunny, because if I don't, I will slip in to a very unhealthy place. O__O Even when you've gotten your life to a really good place, depression follows you and you can't stop working on yourself.

On my high moments, I am really really happy with myself and what I do. :D It takes work to BE there, but I try to treat myself well.

 

[Brovo]

I am a person who has suffered with depression her whole life! Including being suicidal.

Hey, me too! Suicide pride! Wait...

In all seriousness, everybody has baggage. Nobody's pain is inferior or superior to that of another... If more people understood this we could have a much healthier world, but we're not quite there yet. Alas. Just make sure not to bottle up pain or try to destroy it with drugs and alcohol, or other addictions. Addictions only cover up pain, that pain will continue to expand and grow over time until you address it and just feel your way through it. Find a way to live with it, beat it, and get on top of it. Also, most importantly, I swear I have to scream this more loudly than anything else where it concerns pain.

Don't be ashamed of pain. Pain is something we evolved in four billion years of successive evolutionary steps, it's been with us in our genetic heritage long before we were a little shiny dot in Evolution's eyes. No one person is going to totally and utterly vanquish an integral part of their self-survival mechanism that's been bred into them since the dawn of mankind! Pain isn't your enemy either, not necessarily. Pain is an emotion, like any other emotion it serves a purpose. When you're in pain, address it, that's what pain is trying to do: It's your friend grabbing your shoulders and screaming "WAKE UP! SOMETHING IS IN ERROR! YOUR HEART ISN'T BEATING RIGHT MAN!" And I ain't gonna lie, addressing pain isn't always easy. Pain is also that friend that insists on speaking to you in some old, dead language, and sometimes (s)he overreacts to the simplest of things, or even sometimes gives you false alarms.

Just find the best method for you to dealing with pain, and do it.

Being reclusive myself, I like to recoil from the outside world for a day or two when I'm in serious pain and just eat popcorn, watch movies, play games, and otherwise just focus on mending myself and living out a fantasy until I feel better. Another method I use is treating pain like a challenge to my masculinity: I'm going to beat the shit out of you by being happy, you bastard. Find a way to address your pain and don't drown it out. It's there for a reason, even if it sometimes feels like life would be better without pain... After all, how would we learn about abusive people, or not burning our hands on stoves?

 

[Space Cowboy]

Don't be ashamed of pain.

I can't emphasize this enough!

Don't be ashamed to deal with it, any way you see fit. Don't be afraid to address it, to share it with people. No one who loves you will look down at you or judge you for it. We're often our greatest critics, and I know I tend to project my own thoughts and feelings onto others.

DON'T DO THIS.

They're their own person. It's wrong of you to come to their conclusion for them. Odds are, they love you more than you know.

So yeah, don't be afraid of your feelings, or ashamed. Don't feel the need to conceal, and don't feel. As the song goes...

Oh, wait..

 

[Hatsune Candy]

My opinion of myself has never really been very... positive. Well, actually, that's not entirely true, I didn't always struggle with low self esteem. It wasn't until reality slapped me in the face some odd 3 years ago in my sophomore year of high school that I started having doubts about the kind of person I am. Mix in quite a few mistakes here and there and you've got a recipe for disaster. And if I've learned anything from that experience, it's that it's very easy to develop a negative image of yourself, but incredibly difficult to maintain a positive one, hence why it's usually deemed a struggle; part of that is because of society and part of that is because of the pessimist that exists in all of us.

 

[Jorick]

Brovo hit the nail on the head with his first post.

Aside from that, for me personally, I tend heavily toward the self love side of the spectrum (yes, the masturbation insinuation was intentional). I have some fairly narcissistic thinking patterns especially when it comes to dealing with negative emotions, so even when I do things where I'm like "ugh, fuck, I'm an awful piece of shit" I usually end up twisting it into more of a "fuck that, I'm still better than most other people, I'm awesome." I have rather high self esteem because of this, so that's a perk to weigh against the fact that this is a pretty unhealthy way of thinking. Even so, I have my moments of self loathing just like everyone else, they just might last less time than they would for a more balanced person.

 

[Asuras]

I honestly very rarely praise myself or otherwise feel a sense of pride. I'm generally more apathetic to myself, either disinterested or spiteful of self-reflection (either because nothing important ever occurs, or because I dislike finding positives).

It's less a lack of loving myself and more a disinterest in trying to.

 

[Zen]

Agreed with Brovo. Everyone has those emotional moments, but it's important to keep the debilitating ones in check.

Speaking from personal experience though, I used to have crippling social anxiety (it's still there from time to time) which resulted into an eating disorder and some self harm. That along with other factors made high school extremely intolerable. Towards the end of high school I realized that the best way to be happy was not to take myself so seriously anymore. I didn't stop caring, but I changed the way I cared. I had to tell myself not to stress out, I took theater to get over my crippling shyness, and basically explored who I was.

My advice to those who have a negative outlook on themselves is to not let those thoughts get to you. Do activities to better yourself and solve your problems, but I implore you not to wallow in such thoughts. Do something, whether it be forming positive habits, or exploring things outside your comfort zone -- trust me you'll love the results.

 

[Razilin]

I honestly very rarely praise myself or otherwise feel a sense of pride. I'm generally more apathetic to myself, either disinterested or spiteful of self-reflection (either because nothing important ever occurs, or because I dislike finding positives).

It's less a lack of loving myself and more a disinterest in trying to.

I have the opposite problem

I have a TITANIC EGO and love it

I am aware of it and make it a part of my charm - my wife thinks my eccentricites and "praise me more, praise me more" attitude is hilarious (but she's also perhaps one of three people who can take my down a peg at will, so it all balances out)

One of my nurses was talking about how one of the new residents needs more confidence when dealing with patients

I was like, "Yeah, it makes things easier. I certainly never had that problem."

And she's like, "YEAH! Confidence was NEVER a problem with you, Dr ___"

And I'm like "My massive ego is the size of this printer, and its all a part of my charm!"

A colleague sitting next to us quipped "Printer? Its like the size of this room. At least you're aware of it."

And I'm like "CHARM!!!!!!"

And so forth.

Where was I going with this?

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