We have all been there: seventeen-years-old feeling alone and hated by the world. The worst thing about hating yourself is when the person who you used to be hurts the person you will be someday. Self-hatred is a vicious and natural cycle. But loving yourself takes time, and it’s worth the trouble. (linked to a letter with similar topics).

We have all been there: spending all this time telling yourself that nobody will ever love you because it’s easier than admitting someone might. Guarding your heart from the start is easier than letting someone in who leaves it cracked. So you tell yourself nobody will ever love you, and you tell yourself it’s because you guard your heart with so much pain you’re unlovable, but loving yourself takes time, and it’s worth the trouble.

We have all been there: feeling lonely. An instant where you are alone in a room full of loved ones – friends. You hate yourself for it – feeling alone because why should you? When your loved ones are right there. It isn’t fair. There is a voice in your head who can’t see what you have. The voice says you’re alone. You listen to the voice because you find it easier to be alone than to waste energy on friends who don’t love you. The voice always seems to be right. You just need to find a reason for the voice to be wrong, because loving yourself takes time, and it’s worth the trouble.

Because of fallible upbringings, we feel incompetent, unloved, and alone; therefore, these feelings of self-hatred are not our fault. Self-hatred is self-explanatory – an extreme hatred or prejudice against oneself. Hating oneself is a universal reality for many. Consequently, being raised in un-nurturing environments, where the needs of the child are not being met, lead individuals to hate themselves.

As children, we experience “acute sensitivity to pain” (Barrington, Jo), so when a child witnesses parental anger, frequently, children see these instances as potentially life-threatening. Children are being raised in toxic environments where they feel unsafe, because of these negative perceptions of anger. While these children grow up, their inability to understand this parental anger diminishes. Therefore, the child’s degrading self-perceptions grow as they internally reflect their parents’ anger onto themselves.

However, we have all been there: getting yelled at by our parents, which leaves us feeling unwanted, unloved, and angry. Anger plays a major role in the development of one’s self-hatred. When a child doesn’t have an outlet for anger, such as sports, a large portion of this anger is internally reflected.

Growing up, I had always wondered why I never exchanged “I love you’s” with my parents before going to bed or hanging up the phone. I also wondered, while watching television, why the parents would tuck their children into bed and read them a bedtime story. Unknown to me, this was a nightly ritual for thousands of children. I was never read to before going to bed and I always wondered why. However, it was never my fault just the result of parents “withholding love and affection in youth” (Barrington, Jo).

Having a child bears parental responsibility, which is ultimately caring and protecting your offspring. However, a parent also has to balance being strict with their child with loving parental approaches. More often than not, parents around the world struggle with finding the balance between the rules and love. As a result of this ever-changing spectrum of parenting, a child is often left living with the repercussions of these “fallible upbringing” (Barrington, Jo). Struggling to find the balance parental responsibilities creates an environment where children feel neglected as parents “withhold love” (Barrington, Jo). Furthermore, these repercussions result in teens who struggle deep-rooted self-hatred because their parents neglected them.

In conjunction with this less than ideal upbringings, children also receive the blunt end of their parents’ self-hatred as these feelings are “also directed onto their children” (Firestone, Lisa). The cyclical nature of self-hatred is secured into generations. Without the help of counseling and rehabilitative intervention, more generations are at risk of living with debilitating self-hatred and mental illness. Individuals, especially children, “internalize the attitude and actions of our parents” (Firestone, Lisa), which goes into forming one’s core beliefs and identity. If a parent also lives with self-hatred, a child is more at risk of adopting a belief centered upon self-hatred.

A recent study by Dove states that “65% of girls ages 13-17 refrain from telling their parents certain things about themselves. Teen girls do this to prevent parents from thinking badly about them, compared to the 49% of girls ages 8-12.”(Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report On The State Of Self-Esteem Commissioned: June 2008). Going from a young girl to a teenager results in a lack of trust and communication with adults, thus resulting in the loss of an outlet for teens to vent their feelings. The effect of the lack of open communication with adults causes teenagers to internalize their self-perception, which may or may not be rooted in self-hatred.

My own self-hatred led to the development of depression, which is why it is integral that self-hatred is talked about, as we have all been there; seventeen years old and feeling incompetent, unloved, and alone.

Depression and mental illness are not to be stigmatized by a society which values someone’s sack of bones more than a healthy head. Mental health is to be talked about in schools, at work, and at home; individuals struggling with mental illness need to know that they have the world standing behind them. They need to know that there are people waiting to catch them if they fall, and hoping that they don’t. There needs to be support behind those living with self-hatred because there is no reason for us to feel hated by the world, or unloved or lonely.

Mental health is just as important as physical health, so why is it that we expect a student with a broken bone to “take it easy” while the student living with depression is expected to perform just as well as the student who lives free from depression?

There is nothing wrong with having a mental illness. There is nothing wrong. Nothing.

We have all been there: feeling as if the world will crush us at any given moment. We feel hated by the world, unloved, and alone. Feeling hated, unloved, and alone is the foundation that self-hatred grows upon. As a society and as individuals there needs to be awareness around self-hatred, so people don’t suffer more than they should.

There is no need for individuals to feel hated, unloved, and alone. There is no reason for self-hatred to be as prevalent in a society as it is today. Loving yourself takes time, and it’s worth the trouble.

 

---

WORKS CITED

Barrington, Jo. “Self-Loathing.” Psychalive, 2016, https://www.psychalive.org/self-loathing.

Firestone, Lisa. “Stop Hating Yourself Once And For All.” Psychalive, 2016, https://www.psychalive.org/stop-hating-yourself/.

Karson, Michael. “Four Kinds Of Depression And Self-Hate.” Psychology Today, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-our-way/201512/four-kinds-depression-and-self-hate.

McAllister, Dawson. “Why Do People Hate Themselves?.” Dawson Mcallister Association, https://www.dawsonmcallisterassociation.com/why-people-hate-themselves/.

McLeod, Saul. “Low Self Esteem.” Simplypsychology.Org, 2012, http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-esteem.html.

Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report On The State Of Self-Esteem Commissioned: June 2008. London, The Dove Self-Esteem Fund, 2008, http://www.isacs.org/misc_files/SelfEsteem_Report%20-%20Dove%20Campaign%20for%20Real%20Beauty.pdf.

Rufus, Anneli. “Who Hates Themselves? It’s Not Always Who You’d Think.” Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stuck/201401/who-hates-themselves-its-not-always-who-youd-think.

IMAGES

Hayley Bosselman. “Mental Health Is Just As Important As Physical Health: Here’s Why.” 2017, http://www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/mental-health-just-important-physical-health-heres-why.

“Lonely.” http://diamondsxarentxforever.tumblr.com/post/38487408492.

Pinterest. “Parental Responsibility.” https://www.pinterest.ca/explore/deadbeat-parents/.

Tumblr. “I Have A Dark Soul.” https://www.tumblr.com/search/i%20have%20a%20dark%20soul.

Unilever. “We Work With Our Partners Organizations To Develop Impactful Programs. Together, We’Re Creating A More Positive Beauty Culture For Girls Everywhere..” http://selfesteem.dove.ca/en/.