I just remembered this thread, after finding this article. Basically, something alluded to in the original post, in several supporting things I've read: self-hate is narcissism. It's a despicable, immature, selfish and makes you a bad and toxic person.

However, how someone explicitly stated to have a "poor self-image" can be said to be a narcissist. Isn't the core of narcissism self-love? I guess the term has been hijacked to mean excessive self-focus, that's the only way I can think that traits that are basically the exact opposite of traditional narcissism now are simply a "different form" of the disorder.

The only other thing I don't understand is how a "poor me" defense maintains self-esteem. At all. I can see how it's stagnating, I experience that daily; it can maintain a painful norm. But maintaining self-esteem? HOW?