I am finally to the point that I know I need to stop the self-hatred. I wish it was as easy as changing a tape in my brain but It seems harder than that. I'm thinking of taking five minutes each day (hopefully i can stay consistent) just to think about who God made me, forgiveness, and his love and stuff. How do you guys stay centered on taking care of yourself?

[SweetCrusader]

Well I"m probably a bad person to answer this , but I've been working on it, too. Developing a strong positive bond with my therapist is helping me a lot.

And another thing I did like a year ago, which might really work with your belief system, was I kept a "Be Happy" book for a while. It was just a little mini notebook that I kept easily accessible. Every day I wrote something happy in it (sometimes it was darn hard, and I had to get creative). I would write either: something good about me, something I was grateful for, something someone said or did that made me feel good, or some small thing that made me smile for a minute that day. It really did help, when I was good about doing it.

Thats a great idea. I'll have to try it.

[Malady156]

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taking five minutes each day (hopefully i can stay consistent) just to think about who God made me, forgiveness, and his love and stuff.

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For me that would be the absolute WORST. It would trigger my self-hate, not fix it, not to mention it would trigger obsessions about either religion or Satan.

[kimmydawn]

((((((((((((((((( esthersvirtue ))))))))))))))))))))

this one took me a long time to make any progress on and is still a work in progress. my self loathing was extreme and the only way i felt good about myself at all was by what i did for others...the bigger the extreme, the better i felt. it was doing me in. i couldn't keep up as i started getting older. i was every person i know's "therapist". i was in fear of opening my mouth to ppl cause i just knew i would repeat something someone else told me in confindence. it was sad.

in therapy, my t would often point out to me that if a friend of yours had done what i had done, what would i say/feel about their actions. i would be understanding and forgiving, but i can't/won't allow myself the same?

one time t was very confrontational with me and said, "what makes you think you have the powers of God?" i was angry immediately and said, "what are you talking about?" he then said, "that's what you do...you expect perfection, no mistakes, no weakness and are highly judgmental. only God can be all of those things all of the time." oh, i was SO angry. he was appropriate in saying this when i went home and reviewed the session. i expected myself to be something akin to God and beat myself up bad when i failed...creating massive self loathing and depression. that is one of the things that has stuck with me all these years. i now realize that i had unreasonble expectations of self then i would berate and hate self for not living up to them.

it's taken a long time to allow myself things that i allow others. i think the self loathing thing for me goes back to childhood and what was said to me...creating demands on self.

i wish you well with this one. it's one i still have to work hard at...continually. however, i've come a LONG way on this and pray that you will too. it's not a fun place to be.

be safe and best wishes,

kimmydawn

Malady,
So sorry love seems to be triggering for you (religion also). In a way its triggering for us all. Deep inside i know I want to fight each time I say I forgive or accept myself. For me, its the most crucial step for me in recovery and a big one. Best of luck to you on your recovery!

Kimmydawn- I totally understand how its hard to accept and forgive yourself. I feel that way. Its so easy to justify. I am just taking one step forward each day though and getting up when I fall. Its the only thing I can do.

[Malady156]

Love isn't triggering for me, at least, I don't think it is. I have a boyfriend who loves me very much and treats me wonderful, and I don't know where I'd be without him. True, sometimes I have to "force" myself to open up and receive his love, but he's always there giving it regardless. The real trigger, as you have noted, is the religion that wants to tell me God loves me and yet damn me to hell because after 20+ years of being a complete indiscriminate slut I finally have a man I WANT to be "monogamous" with but since I've already been married twice and am living with him without my divorce being final, it is supposedly "sin" to have a WHOLE relationship (sex included) with him that HE DESERVES for being such a loving and caring person to me. For that alone this supposedly loving, forgiving God has decided I'm worthless garbage to burn in the Lake of Fire. And that's just for starters.

(((((((((esther)))))))))) i'm venting about this here hon, i'm not upset at you though and please don't let it upset you. you are fortunate if your perceptions allow you to find comfort in God that way.

[Myzen]

Kimmydawn wrote - "it's taken a long time to allow myself things that i allow others. i think the self loathing thing for me goes back to childhood and what was said to me...creating demands on self."

There have been so many wise words on this thread, but kimmydawn's quote sums it up for me. We find it soooo terrible to allow ourselves to make a mistake, to maybe be ignored, or rejected - OUCH those things hurt so much.

I think that for regular people rejection is a pain, but they can encompass it as part of the ups and downs in life. For people who have been overdosed with rejection in childhood, another rejection is a pointer to a (false) truth, that we are fundamentally 'bad' .

We take the downs as evidence of our badness, evidence that we are different from regular people.

Of course, this is self hate. It feels like it has taken me forever to gradually strip back the layers and find - to my absolute amazement - a regular person in there!

I imagine myself running through the streets singing and shouting, "I'm a regular person, I'm a regular person!"

It's not much to ask, but when you haven't got it................

Cheers, Myzen

hugs back to ya, Malady.... I can feel your frustration. I'm not offended.. I got nothing to be offended about

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We take the downs as evidence of our badness, evidence that we are different from regular people. Of course, this is self hate. It feels like it has taken me forever to gradually strip back the layers and find - to my absolute amazement - a regular person in there!

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yep.. so true!!!!!

One thing that I turn to when I am aware of just how much self hatred I am participating in is to think of my life's hardships and diseases on/in another person.

What would I think of that person? Would I loathe them for having major recurrent depressive disorder and PTSD? Would I think less of them for reacting with anger when triggered? Would I judge them in today's world based on their experiences growing up?

NO!

The tricky part is placing myself into that role of 'other person'. I can muster up sympathy and empathy for just about anyone else but when it comes to applying it to my own life I come up dry.

Learning that I am that injured person who has survived some horriffic things and am still breathing today despite many attempts otherwise takes time.

I'm learning that if I wouldn't hate another in my shoes then I cannot realistically express so much self hatred as I'm just as worthy of love and acceptance as anyone I would freely give those things to.

I really admire the things you are examining EV. You're showing a lot of compassion for yourself by your questions and your self-care. I'm proud of ya!!

heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy awwwwwwwww THANKSSSSSSSSS .. Now if feel like a kid.. in a good way.

[hamstergirl]

I've had so many downs that I need a ladder to get out of the hole that's been dug.

Being sent to a psychiatric institute for being bad, at age 7 didn't help matters either. Nor did being yelled at by a father who may have been more screwed up than I was. (But I didn't know it at the time.)

My friend, Doug, observed that I didn't have very much love for myself. He's told me to start believing that I'm a great person. I wish it were that easy.

I spent a year and a half in a psychiatric institute for "non-compliance." I've felt like a freak ever since. A freak who deserves to be yelled at.

I would never dream of calling anyone on here a freak. But I freely call myself one. Why?

Well, when your parents point fingers at you and say something's wrong with you and you refuse to fix it...when they call you a cripple every day before heading off to school....when you were stuck in storage rooms for bad behavior...when you've been told that everyone's abandoned you and everyone will abandon you...and that family members won't come near you because your disabled.

When it's your own parents telling you this, this thing tends to stick, especially when you have no one else to tell you otherwise...when no one else knows that the yelling is happening. And by the time you free yourself from this influence, if you are lucky enough to do so, the damage is already done.

If you're disabled, you may never get out. I did only because I "chose" a lifetime of poverty over a lifetime of yelling. No one should have to make that choice.

Now I am left to clean up the mess my parents helped to create. Granted, my father was a man in desperate need of help, but to my knowledge, he never chose to seek any help. He chose to keep everything a secret and take out his guilt and anger over two disabled family members on the entire family, as well as the deaths of his parents, while trying to keep my disability a secret from the family. (My sister didn't know I had CP until she was 11 and she found a letter by accident.)

Now I am left to pull my psychiatric records from my childhood and other parts of my past. My shrink wants me to write a novel based on experiences I have spent 25+ years blocking out. I fear what I may find.

If anyone is inclined to feel sorry for me (though I don't recommend it!), save it for my father, because he is more psychiatrically disabled than I will ever be and he will likely never know peace as long as he lives. And he doesn't need to suffer like that. It's not his fault that I was born the way I was. Dirt happens, it just keeps on happening in our family and it will keep on happening to me.

If anything, I blame myself for all that's happened, including what's happening now. And I wonder how much of it is payback for the psychiatric institute.

If I am so worthy of love, then why am I living on $1067 a month? Why have my hip joints disintegrated to nothing? Why am I on morphine? Come to think of it? Why do I hate myself so much? Why are people with disabilities excluded from everything?

Have we done something wrong to be punished like this?

If we are no more evil than the next man, then why are these things happening?

[Maya]

That is a really hard question. I am also working on it myself. My T does what others do - ask me how I would respond to, say, my niece, or another person I love, if such things had happened to her or if she had done something and of course my answer is I would take care of them - and then he offers me the look to take care of myself the same way. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to do that. I have found that yoga and meditation have done a great deal to make me feel better about myself - that in combination with my therapist, my lexapro and my xanax have improved my mental outlook a great deal during the past 11 months I have been in therapy.

[wisewoman]

You are GOOD, Have no doubt just reading this. No one deserves pain and torture.

The past few weeks I have been cooking healthy meals and keeping my house really clean. Its amazing how that changes my self-image. I do feel better just by eating better and being neat. Anyways. .. just another note on the journey towards self-acceptance and love.

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The past few weeks I have been cooking healthy meals and keeping my house really clean. Its amazing how that changes my self-image. I do feel better just by eating better and being neat. Anyways. .. just another note on the journey towards self-acceptance and love.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> Awesome esthersvirtue!! Sharing the good stuff helps others realize that the good times and good feelings can happen.

Great job on this and thank you for sharing your journey here.