Hi @Magalee - I read something once how if you tell someone something enough times they will believe it to be the truth. I was told some awful things as a child and in hindsight I can see how things began to unravel and how I turned out the way I did and no one else in my family has my issues. Everyone else is confident and successful and I'm the loser and the outcast of the family. I try not to blame others for my choices in life but the mind of a child is so easily corrupted and some damage lasts a lifetime. You're a good and worthy person and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, especially yourself. It's not too late for you.
Why do we hate ourselves so much we want to die?
- Thread starter Magalee
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- Tags self esteem self hate self love negative thoughts
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Thanks @Clair for sharing that article. It's hard to change habits and thought patterns that have become hard-wired from childhood experiences especially if you don't realise that was where they originated. Damage inflicted at a such a vulnerable age can really set you down a path of lifelong torment.
Thank you Dugga, I'm so sorry you were told bad things too. You aren't a loser, it sounds like you were the scapegoat of your family, as I was/am.
They kicked me when I was already down. I had health problems, I couldn't walk for years, but it didn't matter to them. As if my life didn't suck enough, it made me a bigger target for abuse, not just my family but the whole community. They blamed me for everything, I was the smallest and weakest and that's how I still see myself
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I've tried to be a good person but sometimes I feel so filled with rage, I don't know what to do with it. Ive run from it for decades, too painful. Feels like a split personality, I try hard to be kind and helpful but there's also an angry and bitter side of me. I've been carrying this heavy weight of guilt and shame for so long it feels hopeless I could ever put it down. The bitterness is going to kill me, I'm afraid.
Yet of six children, who is the one taking care of our elderly mother? It's me. I'm so codependent, I guess I'm still trying to earn love I'm never going to get and I don't know why I would even want it from them.
So sorry for blubbering on. You are kind to respond, thank you for posting. I don't understand how anyone could be cruel to a defenseless child. There are some sick people in the world.
They kicked me when I was already down. I had health problems, I couldn't walk for years, but it didn't matter to them. As if my life didn't suck enough, it made me a bigger target for abuse, not just my family but the whole community. They blamed me for everything, I was the smallest and weakest and that's how I still see myself
. I've tried to be a good person but sometimes I feel so filled with rage, I don't know what to do with it. Ive run from it for decades, too painful. Feels like a split personality, I try hard to be kind and helpful but there's also an angry and bitter side of me. I've been carrying this heavy weight of guilt and shame for so long it feels hopeless I could ever put it down. The bitterness is going to kill me, I'm afraid.
Yet of six children, who is the one taking care of our elderly mother? It's me. I'm so codependent, I guess I'm still trying to earn love I'm never going to get and I don't know why I would even want it from them.
So sorry for blubbering on. You are kind to respond, thank you for posting. I don't understand how anyone could be cruel to a defenseless child. There are some sick people in the world.
Magalee, we're around the same age and our experiences in childhood have led us to a similar place. Millions of other people, as well. Who knows what a different world this would be if only everyone was simply kind and nurturing to the children they were lucky enough to be entrusted with. The Jesuits used to say 'give us the child for the first seven years, and we'll give you the man'. Our families have us for longer than that, and if they fill our sponge like young minds with constant messages that we're deficient, bad, not worthy of love, or even respect, it's going to be so difficult, if not impossible, to undo all of the damage at a much later time when the child is an adult and has already lived a large part of his or her life with the consequences of their ill treatment. For me at my age, my goal now isn't so much to change what I am but to continue understanding the circumstances that made me this way. It takes a lot of the sting out of it. It's like suffering from severe headaches for years, convinced you have a brain tumor and carrying the weight of the stress that causes, and then being told by a doctor that it's just a sinus condition that can't be cured but can be managed and treated. What a relief! I spent so many years thinking that I'd been delivered some kind of cosmic judgement or curse, that I was being punished for crimes I committed in a past life, stuff like that, and that's a heavy burden to carry around. No, my father and most others I came into contact with didn't abuse me as a child because of a cosmic judgement against me, they were simply blindly passing along the dysfunction that still others had delivered to them. Now that I at last understand why I'm this way, and why my life has taken the course that it has it's going to gradually get easier to manage this and live with it. The understanding helps me to stop continuing the abuse in my own mind. It's as if they spend the first ten plus years abusing us and then after we're fully trained, we can continue abusing ourselves for the rest of our lives. But now we know! Now the ghost tormentors they left in our minds, even though they're still there, have lost a lot of the power they had over us.
I agree with everything you said, and you are so good at expressing yourself. Thank you.
I HAVE felt cursed from birth....why did I have to be the youngest who was abused by my older siblings, why did I have to be in a traumatic accident, why did I have to get a bone disease that crippled me for years, why instead of mercy I received contempt and abuse from family and classmates, why was my friend murdered, why did all this happen to me and no one else in my family?
That's where all the bitterness comes from, and I apologize if I sound like I'm having a pity party but I feel I have to get this rant out of me. My siblings had the same abusive alcoholic father and neglectful mother I had to deal with, but none of them had all the other traumas, so yeah, I feel like I had it way worse than they did. While I understand they were passing on the abuse they had also received, I was getting it from everyone everywhere I went, they weren't. As you said in your excellent thread/post on family distance, there was no safe place for me either, and people sense who they can victimize.
It makes me wish I had died at age six in the accident, I was told if I had not been small for my age I would have been killed. I'm so angry I never had a chance to develop properly. I'm the sixth child of a sixth child, is that some kind of cosmic curse?
I know there are people who've had it worse and I hate myself for even posting this negative stuff. I already told all that in my story but here I am repeating it. Maybe it's part of the grief process, finally processing it so I can move on?
Thank you and everyone who posted here for helping me understand the how and why and where to from here. Life is so unfair to saddle some people with all this damage at an early age that stunts development and affects them for the rest of their lives. I hope, as you ended your post, that the knowledge will help me and others to silence the ghost voices from the past that promote self-hate instead of self-compassion.
I HAVE felt cursed from birth....why did I have to be the youngest who was abused by my older siblings, why did I have to be in a traumatic accident, why did I have to get a bone disease that crippled me for years, why instead of mercy I received contempt and abuse from family and classmates, why was my friend murdered, why did all this happen to me and no one else in my family?
That's where all the bitterness comes from, and I apologize if I sound like I'm having a pity party but I feel I have to get this rant out of me. My siblings had the same abusive alcoholic father and neglectful mother I had to deal with, but none of them had all the other traumas, so yeah, I feel like I had it way worse than they did. While I understand they were passing on the abuse they had also received, I was getting it from everyone everywhere I went, they weren't. As you said in your excellent thread/post on family distance, there was no safe place for me either, and people sense who they can victimize.
It makes me wish I had died at age six in the accident, I was told if I had not been small for my age I would have been killed. I'm so angry I never had a chance to develop properly. I'm the sixth child of a sixth child, is that some kind of cosmic curse?
I know there are people who've had it worse and I hate myself for even posting this negative stuff. I already told all that in my story but here I am repeating it. Maybe it's part of the grief process, finally processing it so I can move on?
Thank you and everyone who posted here for helping me understand the how and why and where to from here. Life is so unfair to saddle some people with all this damage at an early age that stunts development and affects them for the rest of their lives. I hope, as you ended your post, that the knowledge will help me and others to silence the ghost voices from the past that promote self-hate instead of self-compassion.
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I don't know if I can convince you, but I can try. After all that you've been through, you're still such a good person. I just think you are an amazing person. There's no good thing in the world that could ever be too good for you. You haven't had the good luck in life that you deserve, but if there is any justice in the world there is an ocean of blessings that should come to you, and I hope that they come to you soon
@Magalee, the same thing happened with me and my two older siblings (I'm also the youngest). They grew up in the same environment I did and they both turned out pretty good. I think it's because they're much more like my father than I am (not in the sense of being abusers though, just cold and casually cruel, like him). If that's true in both our cases then we might be the luckiest ones of our respective litters after all. The thought of being in any way like my father makes me sick.
Thank you for all the great information you've provided for the good people of SF. I believe the young people here can fix their neural pathways if they work hard at it. I hope I can get to a place where I can believe it's possible for me too. I am going to try, and I'm going to share your information with my therapist.
This may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.....Thank you so much, and I think you are amazing too
. I'm going to save your post and when I feel down, I'm going to read it. I want to say something bad about myself right now to prove you wrong, but that seems ungrateful, so let me just say thank you and hugs to you.
. I'm going to save your post and when I feel down, I'm going to read it. I want to say something bad about myself right now to prove you wrong, but that seems ungrateful, so let me just say thank you and hugs to you.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.
I owe you such a debt for your insightful post explaining how abuse affects children. I'm going to put a link to it here because I want every person in the universe to read it:
https://www.suicideforum.com/community/threads/family-distance.133970/page-3#post-1546107
Also i think this statement of yours sums up the self-hate theme of this thread:
It's as if they spend the first ten plus years abusing us and then after we're fully trained, we can continue abusing ourselves for the rest of our lives.
The "training" worked on far too many of us.
Thank you for sharing your insights and wisdom.
. We are lucky not to be like them. I owe you such a debt for your insightful post explaining how abuse affects children. I'm going to put a link to it here because I want every person in the universe to read it:
https://www.suicideforum.com/community/threads/family-distance.133970/page-3#post-1546107
Also i think this statement of yours sums up the self-hate theme of this thread:
It's as if they spend the first ten plus years abusing us and then after we're fully trained, we can continue abusing ourselves for the rest of our lives.
The "training" worked on far too many of us.
Thank you for sharing your insights and wisdom.
So I guess the obstacles that need cleared away are my thoughts, but what about the consequences of living my life up to this point damaged? I have little self confidence and made bad choices because of it. I lack friendships because I'm afraid of people. I never reaching my full potential because I was never allowed to develop a sense of self, of what I like and what I want, because growing up, it was always about what other people wanted and I had to put my wants and needs aside in an attempt to avoid abuse. I want to change, but what do I do about all that?
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I think the inner work, overcoming fear and so on, has effects on our outer world so that instead of feeling cursed, we can begin to feel blessed instead. I know that sounds incredible@Magalee, but I know it to be true. Actually, I have been practising self compassion for a while, without really knowing what I was doing, so I was amazed to find there's actually scientific research backing it up.
We can't change the past, unfortunately, but we can come to peaceful acceptance of it. Events and circumstances can also change for the better, bringing us joy which compensates for the hardships of the past caused by faulty conditioning.
We can't change the past, unfortunately, but we can come to peaceful acceptance of it. Events and circumstances can also change for the better, bringing us joy which compensates for the hardships of the past caused by faulty conditioning.
Clair, I think you should start a thread on self-compassion, only don't call it that or few will look at it, call it something like "how to silence your inner critic." Then you could put all the information and links in one place and more people could see it. I'd really like to see the young people here working on this before their brains become set like concrete. I know you're gonna say that doesn't matter, but still....they need this information asap. Hugs to you.
Clair, I think you should start a thread on self-compassion, only don't call it that or few will look at it, call it something like "how to silence your inner critic." Then you could put all the information and links in one place and more people could see it. I'd really like to see the young people here working on this before their brains become set like concrete. I know you're gonna say that doesn't matter, but still....they need this information asap. Hugs to you.
It's funny you say that titling a thread Self-Compassion would likely cause it to be ignored. I think you could be right...just shows how much people are in need of it xx
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