Why Do People Hate Themselves

By rupanshi luthra

Self-hatred, is extreme criticism of oneself. It may feel as though nothing you do is good enough or that you are unworthy  of good things in life. Self-hate can feel like having a person following you around, all day every day, criticizing you and pointing out every flaw.A person may dislike their appearance, feel that they aren’t good at anything or feel that they treat others badly. 

When bad things happen, we often blame ourselves. It's easy to let this blame turn into self-hatred and leave us depleted of any kind of self-worth or love.Not only does self-hatred limit what you can achieve in life, but it also worsens mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

"For a while 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."

If you are thinking "I hate myself," then your inner voice constantly puts you down.This inner voice might compare you to others or tell you that you are not good enough.

You might feel as though you are different from other people and that you don’t measure up. These thoughts may leave you feeling like an outcast when you are with other people. 

"The inner critic is like a frenemy who is intent on undermining your success. This voice in your head is filled with self-hate, and can also evolve into suspiciousness if you listen long enough. The inner critic doesn’t want you to experience success, so it will even cut you down when you do accomplish something good."

Reasons for people to hate themselves

There's a lot of possible reasons someone could hate themselves.

1. Hate the way they look

Thinking poorly about yourself is self-rejection. You see something about yourself that you think is stupid or ugly and you think criticizing yourself will somehow make it go away. It won’t. It will actually make it worse. A lot of people feel ugly or inadequate. It’s like the whole human race suffers from deep, low self-esteem.

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.

2. Emotional reasoning:

You take your feelings as facts. If you notice that you are feeling bad  like a failure, then you assume that your feelings must reflect the truth of the situation and that you are, in fact, bad.

3. Feel Rejected by Others

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.

4. Your early childhood experiences

 if you grew up in a household where you were neglected, ignored or rejected by the adults around you, you may grow up with a defectiveness schema. This is when you believe that there’s something inherently wrong, shameful or flawed about you, which can lead to low-self worth in adulthood.

5. Do not have social support

Social support is an important factor against trauma and depression so when you have no one in your life who you can count on to be there for you in times of distress it further reinforces your feelings of self hatred from family to friends to colleagues. A lack of meaningful relationships in your life can make it harder for you to feel loved, cared for and accepted.

6 You are  always comparing yourself to others

You often find yourself comparing to others and competing with them to be better. The unhealthy need to feel superior to others and setting high expectations for ourselves only makes us feel worse about ourselves when we  fail to measure up to other people.

7 Negative self concept

Self-concept is defined as person's view of themselves that based on their values, principles, experiences and relationships. When you choose to define yourself according to the bad things in your life be it traumatic experience or mistreatment at school, you are accepting all the negativity and convincing yourself that you are a terrible person and focusing only on ugly parts of your life. You give away all the good things about you and all the wonderful things in your life. You are allowing all those horrible things to have power over you and dictate how you feel about yourself.

8. Guilt

Everyone makes mistakes, but some of us tend to hold onto the guilt from our mistakes for years on end. We struggle to forgive ourselves, even when those we hurt have forgiven us. We see our mistakes not as learning experiences necessary for our growth, but as proof we aren’t good people. Our guilt turns into shame, the common feeling that your actions make you unworthy, unlovable, and a bad person.

How does this affect a person’s life?

When the feeling of self-hatred and anxiety becomes too strong, there is a risk of engaging in destructive behaviours to deal with the unpleasant feelings. Cutting or damaging the skin can be a way to relieve the anxiety and to punish the body as well. A person with self-hatred can get the feeling that the body needs to be purified. Eating disorders and abuse of alcohol and drugs are other ways to attack the body. It is also possible to develop suicidal thoughts.

Self-hatred and destructiveness cause a person to withdraw. Isolating oneself is a way to conceal one’s state of mind and behaviours. It is common to feel ashamed and then feel even worse because of this. Perhaps the person feels that they do not even deserve to feel happy. This can make them stop caring about, or even avoid things that would make them feel better, such as good food, good sleep, exercise and socialising with others.

From time to time, everything negative a person thinks about themselves can feel as if it were true. As if there is no way out other than continuing to bully or punish themselves. But their brain is deceiving them. There are other, better ways to deal with these feelings, which will eventually make the victim to feel better.

Hurting yourself can alleviate the difficult feelings for a moment, but is never a good solution in the long run. The best thing to do is instead to start taking care of yourself and showing yourself compassion.