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Why do I hate myself so much?

270 Answers
Last Updated: 05/18/2022 at 6:43pm
Why do I hate myself so much?
1 Tip to Feel Better
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Jennifer Patterson, LMFT

Art Therapist

Life can be messy. Sometimes you need a little support to make your way through it. I love to help guide people through their challenges & to find the beauty in our messes.

Top Rated Answers
wonderingsoul212
August 11th, 2018 1:01pm
I hate myself so much because I live with myself. I do lots of thing with myself therefore I know myself more than others. I see what others don't and I set a lot of goals for myself. I demand myself to be excellent and I want to lead a perfect life. That's why.
Anonymous
August 12th, 2018 10:10pm
Then you clearly don’t know yourself! You will learn to love yourself and accept who you are, and begin to look differently
HelloChell0
September 5th, 2018 3:59am
People tend to hate themselves because of unrealistic expectations. Whether it be to do with grades, work, income, perhaps even social expectations. If you judge yourself and everything you do harshly, you're going to start resenting yourself. Learn to love yourself and understand that expectations are only that, expectations. You should take life as you go and push for what you want rather than doing what you think is 'right' in regards to social constuct and what others are doing with their lives. Just do you and persue what you want to do. Faliure is normal, so when you do - don't beat yourself up over it. Take it as a lesson and learn from it.
Sciamach
September 8th, 2018 8:35pm
only you can say why you hate yourself, but even then, it often is accompanied with a feeling of complete inadequacy. whether out of abuse, peer pressure, or the like, you feel like you're not good enough. you want to please others, but first, you have to please yourself. stop focusing on whether you're good enough! comparing yourself with other people doesn't make for a good time at all, and you need to change your mindset. there's good, and then there's also good. improve yourself and focus on living a happy life, and perhaps at that point will your feelings subside.
MarkPeace
September 26th, 2018 1:13am
There are multiple reasons why people hate themselves. But what I noticed is that most people don't hate "themselves" persay. But they hate their inability to take action. They see themselves stuck on the same place not going anywhere. They can't challenge themselves and they hate that. They feel stuck and frustrated. Climbing out of this hole can feel hard, sometimes impossible. Which makes us even more frustrated and the cycle repeats itself. The solution is not simple or easy. And I don't claim to know the answer since the question didn't ask for an answer. But what I found to work for me is discipline. Cultivate discipline and get up and do what you need to do even if you don't feel like it. Eventually it will get easier. And after a while you might find yourself enjoying it.
Anonymous
October 11th, 2018 8:41pm
This is a question I asked myself quite often and I knew the answer. For me, it was any failure or anything that I was or performed less than perfectly and the accumulation of these faults over the years. I always had an idea of what the perfect version of myself would be in every reimagining of a situation or future daydream, so that was my comparison and I hated that I could not achieve it. That is my insight and I hope it might connect. If you are having these negative feelings about yourself without genuinely knowing the fault, I hope talking more about it can help you discover the direction you can take to become happy.
Anonymous
November 11th, 2018 4:16am
Because you’re around yourself more than anyone else is. You are the only one with your thoughts and your feelings all the time so naturally is normal to feel...stuck with yourself. It’s reversible though! The first step is to realize that it is human nature to see the worst in ourselves. It is not an accurate reflection of your character or worth. It may sound cheesy, but try writing down every time you discover something you like about yourself so that you become self aware. Therapize yourself. Try to realize when you feel the feelings of hatred and try to find the root of it
ryanjsmith
November 21st, 2018 8:23pm
Often, your self hate comes from a lack of self confidence, which is usually due to the people around you. If the people around you aren't nice to you and don't treat you well, you're bound to lose your self confidence and as a result, begin to hate yourself. My main point would often be, there is nothing wrong with you as a person, it's the people you have surrounded yourself by / have been forced to be around that are causing these negative thoughts about yourself. Other people have a large effect on us despite us believing they don't. Try to find other friends, people that treat you as you deserve; everyone deserves someone and that someone is always out there for you, you just need to go and find them.
Indigochild611
November 24th, 2018 4:00am
Because we have yet to tap into the beauty, potential and love that we are capable. We are all meant to do something... You just have to self evaluate find out who you are, become your support system ( your own best friend/ therapsit) love yourself, believe in yourself and you will go so far. You have to want to thrive in this life but i promise you that you are capable of it. If you don't have a reason why be your own reason, or let the sky be your reason or a butterfly or a tree or the wind. You will find it. Just don't give up on yourself. You will regret it and everyone will miss you.
Anonymous
December 14th, 2018 4:13am
When we do something that we are not supposed to do, or a deed that you find unkind, but unfortunately do it, you start feeling bad about your own self. That's called self loathing, when you keep loathing yourself, it turns into hate. Self hate is experienced by all of us at some point in our lives, you need to find the reason behind your hate, and do try to forgive yourself by bringing change to the situation, which bought you this hate.The answer to this question, can only be answered by you. You know yourself better than anyone else, you need to find the answer within yourself, and maybe a little support from a kind human being can be a big help.
Anonymous
January 16th, 2019 12:39pm
I feel like I am never enough for anyone in my life. My family doesn’t understand me and I just want to prove I am a good person. I have graduated highschool early. I have proved that I can be independent, yet everyone treats me like I am just a mistake. And when someone who has done me wrong or treated me badly is going through a hard time, I don’t feel bad for them. Which makes me feel guilty because everyone deserves sympathy no matter how bad of a person they might be. I hate myself so much because I’m not the person I want to be.
Luna19993
February 7th, 2019 4:12am
It could be a number of different things. Emotional instability, mistreatment from a young age, mental conditioning. It could be that you're simply a perfectionist and you don't like that your skin feels bumpy on the tops of your arms. It could be anything. I can only give advice on it being a weight issue. So here is my bit on that. And if your daughter came to you, crying with hunger, would you tell her no? Would you tell her she is too fat, she wants too much, she must shrink into society? No. Then why would you tell yourself the exact same thing? You are somebody’s daughter. Be careful not to inhale others' thoughts. To absorb them like a sponge. To house them deeply within you. They will enter, swim through your veins, and enter your mind. They will penetrate your walls and start conversations with your heart. Be careful, for these are not really your thoughts. Don't allow for them to take hold of you. You matter. You're important. You're loved. And you're presence on this earth makes a difference whether you see it or not.
Anonymous
March 6th, 2019 4:08pm
Sometimes there are things about yourself that make you different than what is portrayed in the media. In our society, it can be hard to go against the norm, so you attack the parts of you that don’t fit into it. The world is changing, but everything happens so slowly, as does loving yourself for who are. It’s not easy to accept every blemish, every wrinkle, every trait that makes you you. Even if there are parts of you that you deem acceptable, sometimes it’s hard to see past the parts that don’t fit your picture of a “perfect” person. But the reality is that perfection doesn’t exist and every single person is unique in their way. That’s what makes the world beautiful.
friendlyPossum007
March 31st, 2019 8:38pm
In my experience, hating myself seems to have come from judgment from my parents and others who had influence on me in my youth and in times of weakness. They seem to impress self-hatred into a person because this was done to them in similar fashion. Self-hatred also is part of our society at large. For instance, advertisers tend to use unusually perfect looking models against whom we can compare ourselves. The less satisfied we are with ourselves, the more we'll buy. This may not make sense when we think about it explicitly, but in many cases it tends to work.
Chelsea199820
April 4th, 2019 9:43pm
Hating yourself, or self-loathing, is the feeling that you are just not as good as other people. You may feel like you are not good at one thing or another, that you are not good at anything, or that you mess everything up all the time. You may be feeling like everyone else is better than you or that you are just a stupid loser. This may be due to something that happened recently or something that someone said to you or it may just be a feeling inside that started for no reason. Whatever the cause, the emotional consequences of not liking yourself can be devastating. It is very important to get to the bottom of these self-esteem issues and identify what beliefs are creating them.
ObservesHumanity
May 10th, 2019 12:10am
I think you hate yourself so much because you are human. Yes, it is normal for all of us to hate ourselves because we tend to focus more on the flaws we have. This is similar to that one story where a student is given acknowledgement for getting perfect scores in all her quizzes. But she did get a mistake in one quiz and got laughed at. We tend to lose focus on the good things we have or we have done and let the bad things overcoat the good things. I suggest that you start looking for the beauty 💕 in you and start reminding yourself that inner and outer flaws shouldn’t make you hate yourself, as they make you, you.
comfortingRabbit47
May 17th, 2019 1:23pm
Two key factors come up in my mind. Comparison and Limitations. We always compare ourselves to each other. Bank accounts, material processions, friendship numbers, followers, etc. This is a natural way to gauge ourselves and our place in this society. Limitations come from us doing jobs for the sake of others. We may hate ourselves for doing it because we are not doing the things we want. Limitations such as chasing the education papers or getting that high paying high stress for the sake of upkeeping your social status. In the end, we will end up exhausted and hating ourselves for it.
Anonymous
June 12th, 2019 1:18pm
In the past, I loathed myself, simply because I didn't understand myself. for a long time I was confused about my sexuality and then due to a very conservative childhood, once I realized that I was bi, I hated myself for being LGBTQ+. I've since come to an understanding and come to love that part of myself, though it's still hard for me to talk about it to my family. Self-hatred isn't a good thing. it's harmful to yourself and to others, who may take your self-deprecating jokes as invitations to make fun of you, which may lead to more self-hatred! if you are feeling that way, you should try talking to someone, whether it be a close friend, family member, or a Listener on 7 Cups.
buchervurm1
June 16th, 2019 7:03am
There are many potential answers to that question, while I truly hope that the real answer is that you don’t. But, one reason might be because you hold yourself to an impossible standard or compare yourself to someone else, an idealized version of someone else that both doesn’t exist and also serves to destroy your self esteem. Such comparison worked in my own heart like a cancer, the feeling of guilt that I wasn’t as good of a son as my older brother was and the feeling of hopelessness, that I would never be good enough. I’ve heard it said that comparison is the death of all joy, and comparison to an idealized version of someone else is never going to have a positive effect. Instead, focus on the improvements, even if you feel that they are minute or insignificant, find the ways that you have grown and base your self esteem in that, rather than how you compare to others.
Anonymous
September 14th, 2019 7:38am
The reason as to why i hate myself is because i can only see the me of the past and the present,not yet knowing that I can become better in due time. With this fact instilled in ourselves, it is best that we give ourselves a chance to do something for ourselves and strive to persevere through the path we take. May it be filled with pain, sorrow, suffering, and regret, but with opportunities to grow, for us to be a better person overall, and to take self-care as second nature for our own betterment. Then maybe, we will hate ourselves a bit less in the future, knowing that we're making one step at a time to improve. Sure we may still hate ourselves from time to time, it's human nature to be self depreciating, but if we continue to do something, we can accept it a bit more, one step at a time.
Epikura
October 7th, 2019 10:40am
There can be multiple reasons for experiencing self hatred and low self esteem. Depression or other mental illnesses can be the reason for the hatred that you are experiencing and as you are working on the problem you will find that it gets easier to think more kindly of yourself. You’re not the only one who thinks that way about themselves and it’s important to keep in mind that ones perception of oneself can differ greatly from the way other people see you. What can be helpful is imagining to think of yourself the way you would think of a friend. You might find that it’s easier to forgive yourself mistakes, accept your weaknesses and recognize your strengths. Ultimately keep in mind that every person deserves love, respect and patience and that includes you, whether or not you’re able to recognize it at the time.
Anonymous
October 31st, 2019 8:20pm
I think my self hate comes from the word should. I constantly feel things should be different. This creates lots of ways to flagellate myself. Things I should have done. Things I should not have done. Things I should do. Things I shouldn't do. The word should is always pulling me away from now. Much of what I do on here is encourage people to think about how things would be different if they could forget about should. But, it is easier to see other people's shoulds as different then mine.
yourhelpingangle
December 12th, 2019 8:34pm
you don't hate yourself, you just don't realize that there are so many more things good about you than there are bad things. you are always amazing. no matter what others think of you, you need to love your self for who you are and what you look like. the first thing to succeeding in life is loving yourself. you need self-esteem. you don't need people to tell you that you are pretty or nice you need to know that you are. it might not be easy when others are pulling you down but it is possible. so you don't hate yourself you just aren't realizing all the good things about you.
FrostWire
January 9th, 2020 10:02pm
Hi there; I'm Frostwire, and Welcome to 7 Cups. From what I've read, it seems like you've been questioning your own intellectual response abilities. Alot about our individual selves becomes so overwhelming. This can cause hate torwards ones self; and, we don't need that do we? We deserve the best feelings do we not? But to better center your question, lets ask some more efficient questions; like: "When did I start feeling as if I hate Myself"? what took place before the commitment made towards myself? Is this individual thing the cause of other things that may have gone wrong? If this thing could be transformed into a strength; what could i do to make it into my strength? I've learned that mostly all forms of self hate have come from constant failures. These failures aren't always unknown about; but, can weigh the odds between growth and set backs. Hoping and thinking for your best intrest; I'm Frostwire, your 7 Cups supporting listener.
kindDreamer9743
February 21st, 2020 9:56am
Hate for yourself is built in from an early age which is more than likely been installed by a parent/s in the way of self esteem or should i say lack of! which which then knocks your confidence way down and so the spiral of discontent with yourself starts and you start to realize the bad and negative things that goes on and start blaming yourself for and then that becomes the hate that i feel which needs to carefully captured before it runs out of control and start causing other issues such as depression and anxiety which has been the case for me so in a nutshell i hate myself because of the lack of parenting skills my parents had.
JessDevris
March 9th, 2020 2:04pm
For most of us, the expression “you are your own worst enemy” holds a lot of truth. It’s a painful reality that much of what limits us in our lives is our own feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred. “I hate myself” is a fairly common thought. The point here is not to blame parents. However, it’s important to realize that no parent, or person for that matter, is perfect. Parents face a difficult struggle when they have children, as painful feelings arise from their own past. They may therefore react inappropriately or critically toward their children in moments of stress.
Anonymous
March 29th, 2020 6:53pm
Firstly, I appreciate your courage and bravery in asking this question; it takes strength to seek help and discover the answers within. It sounds like you are feeling frustrated and upset with yourself, which might relate to the past or present circumstances. However, irrespective of that, what has helped you persevere and address this feeling of self-hatred? Would it help for you to remember a time when you had good experiences and felt better? In doing so, perhaps, you will identify the goodness of the experience, how you felt, and how self-hatred might have been nonexistent at the time? Hating oneself is awful and can lead one to believe something they are not. However, discovering self-acceptance and inner strengths can give hope and positive energy. Once the mind becomes settled, then self-reflection becomes helpful and productive in realizing that feelings of frustration, self-hatred are not who you are, but will pass over time. Please take care of yourself and remember those feelings of self-hatred will pass. All the best!
Anonymous
April 8th, 2020 11:57pm
I’ve always felt like the black sheep of my family. Always left out of everything going down the wrong path, and i feel like my family dislikes me for that and it set hate upon myself. I’m currently trying to become my best self . . It’s really hard though, I’ve never had a good childhood and that definitely has an impact on the way i feel about my self . . I’m trying to love my self for once though and i feel like once i get there i will be the best me, and i truly hope it is.
incredibleTime3442
April 24th, 2020 10:50am
Maybe it's not the fact that you hate yourself but more the situation that you are in, and you blame yourself for the situation. Maybe you feel stuck.. But always try and change the situation and remember that EVERY single person makes mistakes! Forgive yourself and learn from them! Don't stop in one situation and think that "this is what I deserve" make your life better for yourself! Live for you, give your own happiness because if you give people controll on your happiness, you'll come to find that you are rearly happy, choose yourself, love yourself, and be yourself!
shannon3546
May 13th, 2020 2:06am
you don't hate yourself! your brain is tricking you, playing games all because it dosent know how to handle the emotion. You are perfect in every single way I know its hard to see at this very moment in time but it is true, I promise better days are coming, I myself once hated me I had a hatred so strong for myself it just took over I would constantly bring myself down, look in the mirrior and just cry my eyes out asking myself why why is it like this why can I love myself, anf thats the day that changed my life thats the day I reached out for help. And you can too !!