Sounds like you've made great progress and really turned a corner. Change, in my experience, comes in increments, and it often begins with openness to what and how you're doing something, and a desire for it to be different.

I share some of your history and beating myself up for past current mistakes or less than ideal or perfection in living isn't what I do so much any more. In a way self hatred was like a compulsion for me, and I felt comfortable with it, and from time to time I miss it. It's hard sometime to allow myself to see and feel the love people have for me. I'm not sure I'm at self-love so much as self mostly-like. But it feels good.