Why do we hate ourselves so much we want to die?

[Human Ex Machinae]

When you say your brothers turned out good, I assume you mean successful in their careers? Actually, you are the one who turned out good, which is your point at the end . We are lucky not to be like them.

My sisters are doing well in their careers, and also the other ways people are supposed to in order to be officially classified as 'happy'. I said in another thread that when we're born we're given a checklist, and our mission is to check as many of the boxes as we can as we go through life. The more of them we check off, the happier and more successful we appear to others, and the friendlier people are. Missing too many of the boxes produces the opposite effect.
My sisters have checked off a lot of their boxes. Me? I think I accidentally threw my checklist in the garbage forty years ago one day when I was emptying my pockets:confused:

@Clair, you're no slouch in the writing department yourself, but if my keyboard skills could be of assistance, I'd be happy to. My fee would be nominal: one little red alert notification per 500 words. I love clicking on those, it's like internet bubble wrap.

 

[Lara_C]

My background is in writing essays for academic stuff - your creative writing skills greatly exceed my own @HumanExMachina. And your good natured humor is a treat! One red alert paid forward coming up to get you started....

 

[nihilistic]

No one taught me to hate myself, in fact the opposite is true. I had a great childhood. But I've had mental illness all my life that nobody noticed, except for me, but I never realized I should ask for help. Since I was a child I've had voices in my head that say things I'm pretty sure most children don't hear until they're teenagers. I don't know where these voices could possibly have come from.

 

[Lara_C]

No one taught me to hate myself, in fact the opposite is true. I had a great childhood. But I've had mental illness all my life that nobody noticed, except for me, but I never realized I should ask for help. Since I was a child I've had voices in my head that say things I'm pretty sure most children don't hear until they're teenagers. I don't know where these voices could possibly have come from.

Not everything that goes wrong is due to abuse. Conditions like autism and schizophrenia, for example, have been attributed to poor parenting in the past, but are now thought to be largely genetic in origin.

 

[brightlight]

I come at this from another angle, I see love as a spiritual quality, it is what our spirit self is made of, love and peace and joy and gratitude all rolled into one. When we feel any of these feelings we are connecting into that spirit energy and it grows and gets more intense the more we connect and stay connected with it because we are creating it or joining in with creation. However, we believe that all these feelings are coming into us as a result of someone or something external, him, her, this or that, from memories of the past and dreams of a future, which translates into "we are not responsible" because these feelings can be "given and taken" to us, and away from us. So the world "proves to us" not to trust any of these feelings to much as they let us down over and over again, this is our experience and we KNOW we are right. this results in us inadvertently not trusting, believing or connecting with our spirit self, which leave the human or ego in charge.

Then we have our human- ego self ,that wants more, more then love and peace and joy and gratitude, AND we have the power or ability to create, so we create our own feelings that are separate from what is already created, the feelings we humans create are hate, sadness, fear, envy,anger, emptiness, guilt and all the other crappy feelings we experience. For the most part we believe these feelings are coming into us as a result of someone or something external, him, her, this or that, from memories of the past and no vision of a future. Again we are not responsible, however, with these feelings we do trust them, they are reliable, and nobody has the power to give or take them away from us, so we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable and at the mercy of others and we actually defend our own creations with our lives and sometime to the death. (on a personal level I have seen many people run away when they thought or felt I was a treat to their anger or sadness or hate and even pain)

Why do we hate ourselves so much we want to die?

Because if we loved ourselves so much that we want to live, it would spell the end of the ego and it creations, if we lived in love, peace and joy,and gratitude was reserved just for these feelings and nothing else, the egos creations would no longer exist, it's hate and anger, etc etc that defines it would fade into nothing and the guilt that it feeds on would end, the ego would rather see you die than live, would rather hold onto a living hell than surrender to live in peace, the ego sees hate as it's friend and alloy and protector, and love and peace and your spirit self as it's enemy. We all have the power of choice as to where our loyalty lies, our spirit self or our ego self, whichever one is chosen has to be maintained, and nurtured with our time and our energy, and neither path is easy going.
Love and Light
P
https://www.suicideforum.com/community/threads/inner-voice.134329/

 

[Magalee]

I come at this from another angle, I see love as a spiritual quality, it is what our spirit self is made of, love and peace and joy and gratitude all rolled into one. When we feel any of these feelings we are connecting into that spirit energy and it grows and gets more intense the more we connect and stay connected with it because we are creating it or joining in with creation. However, we believe that all these feelings are coming into us as a result of someone or something external, him, her, this or that, from memories of the past and dreams of a future, which translates into "we are not responsible" because these feelings can be "given and taken" to us, and away from us. So the world "proves to us" not to trust any of these feelings to much as they let us down over and over again, this is our experience and we KNOW we are right. this results in us inadvertently not trusting, believing or connecting with our spirit self, which leave the human or ego in charge.

Then we have our human- ego self ,that wants more, more then love and peace and joy and gratitude, AND we have the power or ability to create, so we create our own feelings that are separate from what is already created, the feelings we humans create are hate, sadness, fear, envy,anger, emptiness, guilt and all the other crappy feelings we experience. For the most part we believe these feelings are coming into us as a result of someone or something external, him, her, this or that, from memories of the past and no vision of a future. Again we are not responsible, however, with these feelings we do trust them, they are reliable, and nobody has the power to give or take them away from us, so we are not leaving ourselves vulnerable and at the mercy of others and we actually defend our own creations with our lives and sometime to the death. (on a personal level I have seen many people run away when they thought or felt I was a treat to their anger or sadness or hate and even pain)

Why do we hate ourselves so much we want to die?

Because if we loved ourselves so much that we want to live, it would spell the end of the ego and it creations, if we lived in love, peace and joy,and gratitude was reserved just for these feelings and nothing else, the egos creations would no longer exist, it's hate and anger, etc etc that defines it would fade into nothing and the guilt that it feeds on would end, the ego would rather see you die than live, would rather hold onto a living hell than surrender to live in peace, the ego sees hate as it's friend and alloy and protector, and love and peace and your spirit self as it's enemy. We all have the power of choice as to where our loyalty lies, our spirit self or our ego self, whichever one is chosen has to be maintained, and nurtured with our time and our energy, and neither path is easy going.
Love and Light
P
https://www.suicideforum.com/community/threads/inner-voice.134329/

I like what you are saying, and I'd like to be able to do it, but to make that kind of jump from where I am right now to where you are.....I don't see how to manage it. Learning self compassion certainly feels like a step in the right direction, though.

Is it even possible to completely get rid of the ego?

 

[Lara_C]

I like what you are saying, and I'd like to be able to do it, but to make that kind of jump from where I am right now to where you are.....I don't see how to manage it. Learning self compassion certainly feels like a step in the right direction, though.

Is it even possible to completely get rid of the ego?

We can definitely reduce our attachment to it simply by (mindfully) taking the perspective of an observer and in this way become aware that's its not who we really are at all. Mindfulness instantly reveals the ego to be only a collection of thoughts, not our real being.

I don't think we need to worry at this stage about complete freedom, but we can do much to lessen attachment to the thought patterns comprising our ego selves. In fact since the ego IS basically comprised of an habitual tendency of thought, it is not fixed, and can be modified.

I agree that self compassion is a method of loosening the grip, bringing the ego into greater harmony with our core being (the source of compassion). Also, imo mindfulness is a very effective form of self compassion.

A good website about mindfulness is https://mrsmindfulness.com/what-is-mindfulness/

 

[Magalee]

I actually tried mindfulness a few years ago, I have cds and a book by Pema Chodron. I was trying to get rid of my anger. Unfortunately, the voices in my head we're stronger than my feeble attempts to learn.

I'm sure it's a good thing, and I should try again. I want to try the self compassion exercises first, see how that works.

 

[Lara_C]

There are different methods we can try - whatever works for us personally is the right one. The self compassion exercises should make the mindfulness technique easier though - in fact generating love /compassion is recommended as a support to mindfulness/ self- awareness meditation simply because our essential nature is said to be blissful, conscious being.

 

[Lovetolisten]

View attachment 1646 Today my therapist and I talked about how I came to have such a low opinion of myself (self-hate). She said because of how I was treated as a child by family and others, their negative comments and treatment became internalized into negative self-talk and perpetuate my self-hatred.

I'm trying to figure out how to change, how to 'love' myself. How do I convince my HEART what they taught me was wrong? My HEAD knows, but it doesn't seem to help me.

I was going to list all the negatives taught me, but it was so depressing I tried to list as positives, or what I need to LEARN:

-I'm worthy of nice things & nice people in my life.

-I'm valuable just because I'm human, I don't have to earn it.

-My feelings are important too.

-When something goes wrong it isn't automatically my fault.

-I don't need to be ashamed of who I am.

-It's ok to be proud of myself if I do something good.

-I didn't do anything to deserve the abuse.

-Not everyone is physically and verbally abusive, so don't be so afraid of people. I'm an adult now and I can take care of myself.

- I'm not a burden, I'm a blessing.

-I'm not stupid (can't yet say as a positive)

-I'm not unattractive (can't yet say as a positive)

Children don't come into the world hating themselves. They learn it. I was hoping people would share who taught them to hate themselves AND what do you do to fight the hate and even, love yourself.



Sent from my iPhone

You hit the nail on the head. I think self-hatred stems from being treated poorly by others, and having others condition you to feel like you're bad. For me, I felt okay about about myself before abuse occurred.

This is why I don't like it when society blames people with low self esteem. It takes work to undo all of the negative messages that people have received.

What I have learned is to maybe look at the evidence to challenge our self-hatred. So maybe we have had multiple people say mean things to us. What about people who have complimented us and said positive things?

I had a therapist who said our negative self-hating thoughts is like an old tape recorder. It takes time to change the tune.

 

[Magalee]

Yes, it does take hard work! It's like an onion, you think you've fixed something and then another layer is revealed. It's not easy but so much better than the alternative. Thanks for your insights.

 

[Lovetolisten]

Yes, it does take hard work! It's like an onion, you think you've fixed something and then another layer is revealed. It's not easy but so much better than the alternative. Thanks for your insights.

Glad you found it helpful. I know...situations and things trigger self hatred even when you think you have made progress. :/

 

[Magalee]

Yes, it's simply amazing the things I can find about myself to trash talk!:rolleyes:

I hope you checked out the videos @Clair posted by Kristen Neff on self- compassion, excellent information, I've noticed a difference since watching already .

 

[may71]

You really are a wonderful person, Magalee

Not just ok, not just pretty good, but really truly wonderful. I don't know if it's something that you can realize right now, I'm not even sure you ever will be able to fully understand it, but you are one of the truly extraordinary people of this world.

Here's hoping that some of the goodness you send out gets reflected back to you soon

 

[Thauoy]

I don't hate myself. But I don't know why everyone hates me. It's make me wanna die.

 

[Lara_C]

I don't know how anyone could ever hate you @Thauoy

 

[Magalee]

I don't hate myself. But I don't know why everyone hates me. It's make me wanna die.

Hi @Thauoy...... if you feel that way in real life, could you be the victim of discrimination in some form? I was descriminated against as a child for being different from others. If you are different, it could explain, but certainly not justify, why you feel that people hate you. Please don't let their hatred drive you to hurt yourself. I've always enjoyed and appreciated your posts at SF. <3

 

[Thauoy]

Hi @Thauoy...... if you feel that way in real life, could you be the victim of discrimination in some form? I was descriminated against as a child for being different from others. If you are different, it could explain, but certainly not justify, why you feel that people hate you. Please don't let their hatred drive you to hurt yourself. I've always enjoyed and appreciated your posts at SF. <3

I was always discriminated and mistreated for being different. I don't know why people hate me. I don't see any wrong in myself.

Anyway, Thanks for the kind words. I much appreciated it. HUGS to you.

 

[Magalee]

There's nothing wrong with you! Some people are just narrow minded, and you being different is enough to cause them to hate and even fear you. It's not a reflection of you, but of them. Hugs back to you

 

[Thauoy]

There's nothing wrong with you! Some people are just narrow minded, and you being different is enough to cause them to hate and even fear you. It's not a reflection of you, but of them. Hugs back to you

Thanks for the kind words.