Self-esteem and self-acceptance are absolutely puzzling to me because what everyone says seems mostly idealistic, irrational, and confusing, almost like socializing and social rules. It'd be wonderful to feel better about who I am, but it honestly seems like a hopeless endeavor, one I will never achieve, because there is nothing to feel good about, and whenever someone here, for example, says otherwise, it leaves me thinking what the heck that person is talking about.

Suffice it to say whenever I hear these cliche phrases like 'loving myself' it confuses me because a) I don't know what they're talking about, and, more importantly, b) I don't know how to do it.

When I think of what I hate most about who I am and how I am supposed to love myself, it leads me wondering how I am supposed to love those things about me or even accept them.

School has always been a hot subject for me. Thinking about my school career, I basically failed all of elementary and middle school, and when I did 'better' in high school, I was mostly in remedial classes, which I feel negates that improvement, since it was relative to my past and the drug dealing students, some of whom were wearing ankle bracelets and had been to jail. School is a long, painful failure for me that has been sitting on my shoulders for years, but I am supposed to love that about me, accept it, and feel confident? How do I love being a failure? I failed in school but I love myself anyway? You see, that doesn't work for me. Can someone explain to me how to not feel suicidal about having failed in school and learn to be a confident failure? Sounds likes an oxymoron.

That's sums it up for me - I am told to love and accept myself but there is all this failure, ugliness, and bad in me that I don't know how to accept and love. Someone might say to think of my incredibly few positive traits, and while they might exist, they're certainly insufficient to counter all the bad in me, and they don't even slightly improve how I feel about myself. I could tell myself all day that I am honest, thoughtful, compassionate, etc., all things I believe, but those don't make me feel any less suicidal nor do they reduce the desire to self-harm. Writing out the few positive qualities I have is a pointless exercise for me - I've done it. Does nothing. It's sugar coating self-hatred.

I wish I wasn't me. I hate me. I wish I was someone like my best friend. She's incredible.