Over the years, I have suffered with a great deal of self hatred. Even as a kid, I often wished that I was "someone else" other than me because I just hated me. I hated myself on a very, very deep level. However, it isn't like there was no reason for it. I really want to be able to get over this but I do not know how. As years went on, I kind of embraced the self hatred and built almost a sort of persona around self hatred. I accepted myself as "no good" but this is something I want to change. I do, unfortunately, have some reasons for hating myself.

One of which is that I am pretty socially awkward, possibly being on the autism spectrum. Whether or not I actually have autism has been something that my parents and I have debated for a long time and it has come to the attention of a clinician once who seemed unsure and recommended an expensive assessment which I did not get. Over the years, I have always been made to feel embarrassed about my autistic traits by my family and those around me. They would always say the things I did were 'embarrassing' and in some ways maybe they were (e.g. saying mildly inappropriate things in public, arguing in public, etc.) I always had a hard time with public and private to some extent, blurting things out, this was probably my main trait of autism over the years. Still I have had some successes socially, but they have often been relatively shallow relationships except for the one good friend I had as a kid who turned his back on me. Also, probably as a result of autism, I have been harassed by local police and was arrested for no reason at all (e.g. they were suspecting me of driving on drugs when I was sober as confirmed by a blood test)

Possibly as a result of all this, I have been harassed by both of my siblings despite the fact that they are both adults. Particularly my sister who would always mock me and encourage her kids to mock me as well. For some reason, being a passive person, I would often put up with this from people. My parents would stick up for me sometimes with this, but sometimes when I 'acted up' it was seen as acceptable for my brother to be mean to me. Also, sometimes when I 'acted up' or did things that were wrong, my parents would always compare me to someone else and say how they wouldn't do anything quite like that.

I have always had somewhat of a passive quality about me. I still am like this to some extent. I just kind of go along with other people, rarely challenging others. It often seems against my nature to really stand on my own. My parents did not like this much and always encouraged me 'not to be a follower' but I couldn't really help it as this was sort of my nature.

The other thing, and my brother is kind of like this as well but nowhere near as much as me, is that I tend to be sensitive in a way that most other guys don't. Sometimes relatively small things can hurt my feelings or upset me, sometimes for a good while until other people attempt to pull me out of it which is often unsuccessful. I could never accept this trait of myself when I was younger as I saw it as not masculine and 'gay'.

If all that was not enough, when I went to college I was sitting in my room and I randomly, out of nowhere, fantasized about other men and after this, these fantasies continued for some time although I never wished to or had any interest in acting on them. I always liked women and only had fantasies involving women. Despite being a total failure with women, I always have been attracted to women and very strongly so. I always have had dreams of one day having a girlfriend although at times this seemed out of reach and it still has never happened. That business I was talking about confused and frightened me greatly due to the sudden and random nature of it. I never really felt compelled to act on these fantasies but nevertheless it caused me a great deal of distress at the time, especially considering my history and utter failure in relationships with women. Of course, it deepened my sense of myself as an unacceptable person and caused me to descend yet further into my world of lunacy and self hatred. It also made me feel like I didn't really know myself much and given the things I have said previously, this scared me a lot.

Anyways, my question is does anyone else struggle with this sort of self hatred and self loathing? and how did you overcome it? I have always felt "unacceptable".