I don't need it. I can live without it. I don't deserve it. I'm receiving compassion and attention for punishing myself, but if I know I'm going to be receiving compassion and attention for the "punishment" then it no longer functions as punishment. It only serves that function if no one else will know. Otherwise I'm just pretending to punish myself for attention and compassion, which reinforces the behavior. I end up becoming even more weak and pathetic and needy rather than handling my punishment on my own like I used to.
I have no self discipline left at this point. I've become completely focused on trying to use the reactions of others to believe that maybe I deserve compassion or whatever, trying to see things from their perspective. But that's not working. I can't go easy on myself. Liking myself would just make me weak. I need to focus on making myself a better person who is actually worthy of those things.
Those things are for people who are fundamentally good people who don't need to hate themselves. Hating and punishing myself is the only thing that makes me productive instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself.
The problem isn't that I'm too hard on myself or don't like myself enough. The problem is that my natural instinct is to be way too easy on myself and let myself off the hook and not push myself. I need to punish myself to counteract that. I am fundamentally weak, and the minute I stop pushing and punishing myself I fall back into that weakness.