Self-loathing isn't real?

I originally considered putting this in the depression forum, but I thought I'd get a better balance of responses here.

So I'm on a couple other sites about psychology and such, and someone opened a thread about self-loathing. Namely, trying to understand it. Most of the responses were people who have experienced it trying to explain the feeling, then....this comes along, and I'm inclined to believe it.

Rather than write some long thing, I'll leave this to you guys. I suppose the most disturbing part of this is, how can a "self-loathing" person trust their own feelings? Surely, the way to cure such feelings is to basically command the person to love themselves and stop faking. "No, you're lying. You're only angry with yourself for attention. You don't really have any problems - stop lying and be happy like I know you really are."

I just tried it and it's not working. It really does open a terrifying kind of confusion - are these private, angry thoughts real, or just that subconscious manipulation I've been doing for half my life? Especially since I got in the habit of sharing them online (which I've only recently begun to reign in, regretting how much I've exposed). It does make me wonder about my own feelings: are they real or do I just manufacture them to feel something myself and get attention from others (because self-love would be unbearably boring).

So, is this person clueless, or the only one willing to speak the truth? Is self-hate really just narcissism?

Crap, I wrote a long thing.

The posters veiw is kinda my thoughts excatly

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Hyman Spotnitz is not a well-known name in psychotherapy but I found his concept of self-hate and the "narcissistic defense" to be helpful, at least conceptually. Here's a link:

Modern Psychoanalysis: The Narcissistic Defense

Self loathing is real because it is an emotion and emotions are real. If you feel like you hate yourself then you feel like you hate yourself.

There can be many reasons why a person would hate themselves, from a mental illness or growing up in a family where they didn't feel loved and they internalized it as them being a bad person.

Telling someone that their emotions aren't real or just for manipulation is pretty messed up imo.

This infuriates me. There is so much I want to say but giving those comments anymore thought or reaction is a waste of the little energy I have. The person who wrote those comments can go to hell.

I don't know. I wonder myself where it comes from. I know it has a lot to do with what I experienced in life. THe self hate anyways. Depression once was said to me to be pride out of control. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. That it was selfish of me. That all I was doing was thinking of myself. I didn't believe it. I still don't buy that all. I know being depressed we do think of ourselves obviously, but I also think of everyone else's life that I'm affecting by how I'm feeling and behaving. It affects those around us. I don't know how to change the self hate thing, I have yet to figure that out. But I don't think it has anything to do with narcissism.

I don't think this is an either/or topic.

I think that some people genuinely have low self-esteem and are not seeking any personal gain while some people exaggerate or fabricate low self-esteem for some personal gain. My personal experience is that the vast majority of people with low self-esteem are genuine.

I'm concerned that people who have genuine low self-esteem will face scrutiny instead of empathy which may have tragic consequences.

I suppose there isn't a way to tell between actual self-hatred/loathing, and narcissistic attention-seeking.

I actually asked the person who wrote this what the alternative is to self-hatred then. The answer being suicide, self-killing/ego-suspension, or medication.

I also asked what people have that they "don't want to spend", and got this for an answer:

So self-loathing is laziness, a refusal to fix what's wrong, also relying on others for emotional support is exploitation. Or maybe I'm still reactive about this whole thing.

It bugs the hell out of me when I see people act like negative feelings are just the result of laziness: if you would work and achieve things, you wouldn't be depressed, self-loathing, lonely, etc. You just need to make an effort. Well, sometimes an effort is pointless. I know I tend to see the things that are wrong as largely unchangeable; if they're within myself, then yes, I'm going to hate myself for it.

TBH it's that kind of thinking that made it hard for me to get help because I kept worrying that maybe I'm just faking for attention or I'm just being lazy.

It also made my self loathing worse because why can't I just get better? It took me awhile to admit that I have some problems but even then I doubt myself.

I also had to learn that there's nothing wrong about wanting attention. Monkeys, especially young ones, will try to get the attention of others, usually their moms. Even dogs want attention. We're social creatures so we want to feel included.

Same, it's depressing. I'd love to get over my own negative feelings, no idea how though. Worse when I worry it is just for attention, because I can't get attention in any kind of respectable way.

I'm sure this isn't your intention, but your method doesn't lend itself to interdependence.

You began this thread with a quote from a member of another website. Then you added your own commentary. Then it seems you went back to the other website with commentary from this website. Then you returned to this website with commentary from the other website.

That method doesn't work because the forums (on this website) are interdependent: We receive and give support to one another. When you jump from website to website it makes it impossible to be interdependent.

Self loathing is real, but I do sometimes get the impression that people go on and on about how much they hate themselves are really crying for attention. It's hard to say who's just fishing for positive feedback and who's really struggling, though I'd have to say even someone fishing for positive feedback is struggling too. Everyone needs attention now and again, and if they have to resort to telling everyone how awful they are to get it, they probably aren't getting it from people who matter.

I agree. Those of us who feel ashamed of a lifetime of moral corruption that landed us where we are now can't help – unless a psychopath – to feel guilt and self-loathing. I think that it would be the narcissist who would be more apt to forgive themselves.

And the wanting attention bit? I have social anxiety problems and the only two people that I speak to are my therapist and my caregiver; and I only speak to my therapist about my feelings. If I'm seeking attention it's with an awfully small audience.

I know what I feel and why I feel it. Not for any reasons that were quoted. Mental illnesses have been recorded since written history but not understood as such. It infuriates me to think that someone could be so ignorant and crass to believe and preach that mental problems are a con.

I think whywesuffer.com has some answers.

There's alot of free stuff to read.

He is not punishing but teaches us to understand.

Some interesting ideas. Thanks for posting. Anything in particular you have found helpful?

I'm new to this too. Alot of this rings true. I'd like to understand more about the dynamic of inner passivity. I've ordered the book Phantom of The Psyche.
I'd like to feel more self confident and not got back to an old default position.
i like what he said: "Self -discovery is our redemption, our release from old shame.
Like an inner martial-art skill they acquired the mastery to banish the inner critic."

After I fully study this I want to read his book about co-dependency.
I learned this from an early age.
I want to take another look at this.

I'm glad you found this interesting too.

^ Just checked out that site...ew. I already know that crying is weakness, self-pity is narcissism, and I'm an overall evil, horrible person (literally the only thing that makes me cry is my own, internally-dramatized negative feelings. I'm incapable of being moved by beauty, etc. And yes, it's better than being numb and dead), and there's nothing I can do about it. Suffering sucks, but it's necessary and at least it's a kind of life. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything useful. And I have to disagree about not punishing.

Why would I want to be interdependent?

Definitely. A kind of life is better than numb and dead. . .

At the risk of being ridiculously sappy, I wish the best for you. In my experience self-loathing is real but if it's a habit, of sorts, then there may be something else which is contributing energy to it -- either the loathing or the direction (towards the self) or both.

My feelings of self-loathing are very, very similar to yours. For over 20 years, I suppose, I have felt that I am truly and honestly evil, and that it is right and just and moral that I deserve punishment for my behavior. I don't 'cut' myself or contemplate self-harm but of course I punish myself – the costs of my behavior shattered me. I vacillate between thinking that my illnesses are only caused by my self-punishment or if there are other factors that I just can't understand. Factors that even my shrinks over the years have not suggested.

I don't buy into the self-pity/narcissism labels. I've told this story before but when I came home to my stepmother in 1999 and told her of my mental problems she told me that she didn't believe in depression, that it was a weakness, that I needed to go back home and pull myself together and to call her after that. I went home, was hospitalized for three years and when I called her, well, she didn't answer the phone. She couldn't answer the phone. She had blown her brains out with a .38 special six months before my release.

That's self-pity. That's depression. There is nothing narcissistic about suicide.

Do you ever think that you may reach a point where you've served your sentence and your punishment is complete? When I'm in a more than usual rational state of mind, I've thought of that. The possibility. I've tried, time and time again, to seek forgiveness (or something similar) from my primary victims but I've never had a reply, no calls are answered. If my victims won't even acknowledge me, who am I to reduce my reduce my sentence?

My 'new' pastor and confessor correctly identifies the scrupulousity in my confessions and assigns me pitifully simple penance. Unlike our 'old' pastor (who I love dearly) the new guy doesn't know my full background, only that I have mental issues but not any background.

Of course self-loathing is real... so many of us feel it, even if for wholly different reasons and in different degrees. Mental health as a science is relatively new but the symptoms are nothing new. And it seems that with each passing decade there come new disorders or existent disorders that become more predominant.

Can you point to specific actions or behaviors that made you feel evil? Have you consciously hurt others? I suppose those are a couple of questions that I had to answer before knowing that I deserved to be tried for my crimes.

I'm going to continue following this thread. I am curious to know what you've actually done that is evil (if you're willing to post that) and if you've given any thought to the "length" of your sentence.

I know right - I've tried to get advice of what to do or ask the people I hurt, and can't get any response.


Sure: Most of my crimes are against my mother. I'm horrifically entitled and have been most of my life. I've stolen enough to put me in prison; I lived at home for two years after dropping out of school without paying rent, then actually complained about things like having my laptop constantly taken away and rarely being able to be alone. Despite having no right to a life of my own (that's what I've thought could be a sentence: move back in and give my entire life to being my mother's 'slave'. Do whatever she says, be whatever she wants, let her do whatever she wants to me whenever she wants, like I should have growing up. Except she doesn't want me around anymore, so that won't work).

Then it gets even worse: I ran away. And got on welfare. Intentionally. I thought I would only be on for a month or two, then I could get a crappy job and a crappy apartment and figure to what the hell I want to do while my life. Instead, it's been nine months and I will be welfare trash for the rest of my life. There's nothing that can erase that I'm so entitled, I'm stealing from the government when I deserve to die in the street. Hell, I had no right to run away, no right to try and live in any sort of comfort (shelter, food, etc), I should have just stayed home and killed myself, or whatever would have happened if I couldn't leave home. Because I'm too weak to deal with frustration or depression (depression is a weakness, btw. Most mental illness is. I've realized that only recently.)

I'm also apparently cruel to people without meaning to, I use people, I'm narcissistic, and I'm a lazy failure. Someone mentioned in another thread here the notion of justifying one's existence. I agree completely: I'm useless and if I continue to be such, I should die. So far I have been nothing but a menace to society and a sick, bloated leech destroying everything she encounters (no really...I've broken stuff by sheer carelessness).

So that's about it. Damn, this got long.

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?

How someone else thinks of and expresses themselves is really not my problem? I have to attend to my own knitting and how I think of Me and what I am doing. So, people who are into self-loathing are not that interesting to me as they don't connect in any way with what I am doing and we are all looking for connection of some kind. I know several women who mostly complain about what is happening in their lives, don't try to fix it, might agree with all you say as to what their problems are but never actually do anything to change. I find that boring after awhile as there's nothing in it for me Constantly telling someone, "Oh, no, you are fine!" doesn't help either party?

As far as being "real", I am sure there are people who do not like themselves and who do not know how to live any other way, how to learn to like themselves and move on, etc. Lots of people look outside themselves to solve "self" problems (self-esteem, self-awareness, self-knowledge (not the same as awareness), self-loathing, etc.) and I believe you can't get anywhere that way, it's the wrong direction to look.

I have an admittedly “bad you” attitude toward psychology after more than 50 years of assuming that my problems were “all me”. It wasn’t so much a “poor me” attitude as an “I can do this. . . I can find (with help) and admit my faults and fix them”. A kind of grandiosity, it seems now, but a defensive “control” attitude at the time.

I modestly posted what I (grandiosely) think is an answer to this question, at least theoretically. I’m pissed that the psychotherapy profession isn’t looking into what I think was some good to decent theorizing 20 and more years ago. The concept of narcissism came out of theory, though, and it wasn’t conceived of the way it’s used now, to attack the narcissists rather than try to help them. Here is a quote from my earlier link that I think is particularly relevant.

I'm seeing a gigantic catch-22 here: If a person hates themselves, that's narcissism. Since narcissism is bad, one must hate oneself. That would be a negative feedback loop with no escape.

Thanks, yes, that's what if feels like!! The theory above helped me cognitively, conceptually frame what the difficulty was. And got me out of the (emotional) loop somewhat when I went into "rational mode", but changing that emotionally, internally -- another story I'm still working on.