What I Wish I had Known: Self-hate is a choice

How can it be a choice? Not only do you hate yourself and have crippling low-self esteem but now you are also to blame for your low self-esteem? What a horrible thing to say!

But hear me out.

We often think our low self-hate is a result of a past trauma or our personality or some other fixed reason. We accept that we have hate ourselves and blame external reasons for why you hate yourself. You must not have been cared for enough as a child. It's part of your personality and who you are.

So you accept it and try to move on in life despite the self-hate.

However, what if we actually choose self-hate? What if there is a part of us that actually feels we benefit from hating ourselves? According to a contemporary of Freud, Alfred Adler, everything we do is in our benefit. So we hate ourselves because we believe it is in our benefit to hate ourselves.

But how can it be in our benefit? Think about it. How many times have you stopped yourself talking in a group because you thought what you had to say was stupid and you'd be laughed at? If you hadn't hated yourself you would've talked and made a fool of yourself. So thank god you hate yourself, it helped you avoid making a fool of yourself. Thats one way self-hate helps!

Or have you ever not attempted to do well at a maths test because 'you suck at maths' so by hating yourself and not thinking highly of your abilities, you avoid failing because you don't try! Thanks self-hate for helping you avoid those uncomfortable feelings!

So self-hate helps you avoid all sorts of uncomfortable feelings and situations by being cautious.

But is that really living life? To live so cautiously that you never do anything, never try anything, always keep quiet and invisible? They say you cannot self-hate yourself into success. Any success you achieve is in spite of your self-hate not because of it.

All the successful people you know have gone through all those uncomfortable feelings that self-hate promises you it can help you avoid. In fact, everybody goes through life with those uncomfortable feelings and situations. You cannot escape it.

Would you rather live a life where you attempt to avoid any experience or would you rather jump headfirst and try things and fail until you succeed?

So next time you have feelings of self-hate ask yourself 'in what way is this hate helping me? What is it helping me avoid?'. Then decide if avoiding that experience is more important to you than having a life, complete with all the inevitable failures and successes.

I hope that helps :)