[gwenlian]

One of the reasons a friend of mine has given for needing a break from me for a while is that I hate myself. When depressed I don't like myself very much most of the time and I'll go so far as to say I do hate myself when I'm in the depths of the depression. The problem is that I have not been depression free for over four years now so it's easy to say, "She hates herself," versus, "The depression makes her think she hates herself." I think if I truly hated myself I would have left this earth 22 years ago. Today is a relatively good day and I think I'm pretty decent but last night when the depression was in control it was a totally different story. I'm not in the depths of depression all the time, I have times where it's in the back seat, enough to be noticed but also to be ignored and I'm doing the driving relatively undisturbed. Then there's most days where it's in the front seat and shouting directions at me. I think self-hatred can occur without depression but with depression it's a symptom and not a separate entity.

Does this make any sense or am I just talking semantics here?

[kaliope]

you make total sense......I worked to find positive things about me. started with one indisputable fact. so no matter how depressed I was, I couldn't say the good thing about me wasn't true. I started with that I was a good writer. no matter how bad I felt about myself I could not deny that I was a good writer. so when I said the negative things about myself, I could counter with the fact that I was a good writer to help myself feel a little bit better. eventually I found more indisputable facts. it was a way to build my self esteem so I didn't hate myself so much. take care.