Written by JJA

Of Not Liking Myself

In a moment of self-hate last night, I told my husband how sick and tired I was with myself and my “stupid brain”. I told him how tired I was of trying to keep things together when I know that I don’t have it together.

He expressed that he still loves me regardless and all I could say in return was, “At least someone does. I know I don’t (love me)”.

It must just be the stresses of the end of semester when all deadlines pile up on top of each other and big projects are due while test and exams are administered.

I sure am tired of my own negativity though. That part is quite true. I know I shouldn’t ruminate but man, it’s so hard.

Perhaps I just need some prayers or positive vibes from you nice folks who stop by here.

23 thoughts on “Of Not Liking Myself”

  1. Stress sucks and so does self-hate. I understand, I’m in that place all the time. It’s not easy to juggle all of your personal issues when you’re also dealing with school issues–I had to drop the majority of my classes for that reason this semester. Just remember that you’ve already come this far. I don’t even know you or anything about you, but I can tell you’ve come far in your life dealing with this negativity. That’s an accomplishment. Struggling with it, even if you feel like you’ve been beaten by it, is an accomplishment and you should be proud of yourself. I wish you all the best 🙂

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    1. Thank you so much for your comment! It means a lot to me! And sometimes I feel like just hearing things from a third person makes it a little easier to believe that it’s not all in my head and that I am worthy to love myself. (I guess that’s why therapy is such a comfort!).

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      2. Quite true! And that whole no-judgment thing is really liberating! Also, I like how my therapist listens to understand and not to respond. I’m sick of people saying to me, “So tell me more about your problems…” and when I start to say a couple of sentences in, they start to interrupt and I’m thinking to myself, “What was the point of asking me to tell you more if you don’t care to listen?”

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      3. lol! Exactly! I had a counselor who used to do that to me, the whole experience was insufferable. Or I’d get finished speaking hoping for some compassion and she’d just stare like I spoke in Hungarian. Your therapist sounds like a good one, I’m glad they make an attempt at understanding; I’d say they’re a keeper! 😀

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      4. See, I’d expect that from “normal” people but not from someone whose job is to LISTEN. It’s already annoying enough that everyone else does it to us – what more those we look to for help, right? My therapist is awesome – and sometimes, I think I’m thinking too highly of him – as in in a transference sort of way. Not the erotic kind, just the kind where I want to put him on a pedestal and listen to everything he wants to say kind of way. LOL. We’ve talked about it before and it’s helped my awed feeling diminish a little. I’m now at a point where I recognize the transference happening and am able to ask myself, “Am I agreeing with him because I want him to continue liking me or is it because he’s right?” kind of way. Still doesn’t stop me from thinking about what he’ll think or say to me throughout the week though. It has lessened considerably though which is great! 😀

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      5. haha well see you’re aware of it, that’s the good thing! And you’ve been able to talk to him about it which is even better, some people can’t bring themselves to do that. It’s easy to fall into transference though, when someone finally treats you like a human being, it’s so natural to suddenly cling to their every word, especially when they’re one of the only people who listen like that. I’ve had issues with my current psychologist where I sugarcoat what I’m actually thinking or saying just so I don’t sound like a horrible person lol. She has to drill it into my head that she accepts me even if I said “yo, I murdered four people yesterday ”
        😀
        She’s awesome lol.
        Some therapists just know how to talk to us. Thankfully!

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      6. Hahaha… You’re so right. I think I was enamored with him because of how he treated my problems as real instead of trivializing it or half-listening. Aside from my husband, he’s actually the only other person (outside of people who stop by my blog) that gives a crap. So it was easy for me to idolize him and want to see him all the time. XD But you’re right, knowing it and being able to bring it up to him was probably the best thing I could’ve done. I had mentioned something about it earlier into our sessions but he didn’t really take it seriously then. He had just said, “Oh transference happens all the time” without elaborating that he means the transference in the sense that we all transfer our feelings into everyone daily while I meant the therapist-client kind of transference. I brought it up again about a month ago and he realized that I didn’t mean just transference like “Oh hey that boss treated me like crap the way my mom did so I hate him now” kind of way. Then he had said, “Oh. I’m beginning to understand what you mean better…” and we were able to kind of hash out why I felt that way towards him (turns out I am just desperate for real friends and he just embodies everything I want in a friend – plus he’s super geeky like me).

        Oh! The sugarcoating… Yes… I do that too. I’m glad I’m not the only one! Haha… I did tell him that I always seem to be trying to figure out the best way to tell him things because I want him to still like me – that I’m so afraid of being abandoned or rejected again. Heh… I’m glad you are able to get an awesome therapist too! 😀 Yay for our amazing therapists!!

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      7. Haha well that awesome thing about that is it’s perfect that he embodies everything you want in a friend, it must make it a little easier to talk to him. But I guess it would also make it easier to want to sugarcoat things too, to avoid being abandoned or rejected by someone you see as a friend. Lol it’s crazy how a little human to human contact can make you feel so . . . well, human! haha 😀

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      8. That’s quite true. I love that we both share geekdom. He made my day when one day I walked in to his office with a shirt that said “Blue Suns” and he said, as a greeting to me, “Firefly now?”. I didn’t even wear the shirt to show it to him and when I wore the shirt, I thought, “Eh. No one is going to know what this shirt even means…”. So when he did, I was so excited because it meant that he was a fan as it was an obscure reference. But yeah, it’s like you said, it’s scary to think that a person can just abandon you because you disagree with them and no one wants to feel that… For me, I’ve always been betrayed by people I call friends and have never really found real friends except for maybe 2 people. So sometimes the thought of termination (in the future) freaks me out and threatens to send me into a panic attack because I’m overthinking the situation. I know we’ll have to part ways sometime in the future but the thought of that happening makes me quite upset.

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      9. I understand, I share your life of betrayal by people haha . . . or at least what I perceived as betrayal. I think its a little scary for all of us to think about having to eventually leave our (good) therapists because they’ve been such a support and major part of our lives. But I also think there will be a time where we’ll be able to wake up in the morning and know for sure that we can cope well with whatever comes our way . . . I think that will ease our parting from them. As of right now though . . . I’m totally with you, I don’t want to part ways with mine either XD

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      10. Yes… It’s painful. Funnily enough, my session today dealt a lot with my relationship with my therapist. He was the one who brought it up. I don’t think I’ll get over the fact that I’m incredibly fond of him any time soon though so I expect us to talk about it more in the future…. Yes, you have a very mature point on that. I don’t think I’m at that stage yet. After all, this guy treats me with respect, candor, and maybe even a kind of love to a degree and he’s not related to me or married to me. So he’s symbolizing an outside kind of positive influence that I’m not really getting from anyone else…

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      11. Your fondness won’t get in the way of the therapy, will it? I’ve never had that kind of experience with one of my therapists so I’m just asking from pure curiosity, I don’t mean to sound rude or anything.
        Well I just keep it in the back of my mind because I know that time will come. As for now, she’s my only source of positive influence too, as you say he is for you too. So I definitely agree with you, he’s really symbolizing something you can’t seem to get from other people.

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      12. That is a valid question and you’re not rude to ask it are all. My fondness for him isn’t erotic and we’ve established that early on. Initially, I was very concerned because all I’ve read about transference were all about falling in love with their therapist. I had brought it up to him and he said that he doesn’t get the feeling that I want to be romantic with him at all. About a month or so later, it came up again and this time, we dealt with it more and I told him that I realized that my transference comes from my desperation for friends and he fulfills all the criteria of a friend I want. We gained a lot of understanding from that because now I know why I feel that fondness for him. He told me that it’s a good thing because it means I really trust him and now the hard work can truly begin. It won’t get in the way of therapy so long as I’m honest with him and don’t keep it a secret. For a while, I didn’t want to tell him because I was so embarrassed but by not talking about it, I was starting to obsess over him intensely. Now, though I still think about him throughout the week, I’m not preoccupied. So… My take on it is that if you ever start feeling this way to your therapist, chances are the real reason will reveal more about your mental state and why. And if you ever do, don’t keep it a secret. Tell your therapist. There is a lot of insight to be gained from this feeling!

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  2. You got it .. prayers! I understand this feeling, I really do! Self hate is the worst feeling because somewhere deep inside we feel we are worthy of being loved, cared for and heard, but how do you accept you are or can be? its a cycle isn’t it? I wish you find peace in your mind 🙂

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    1. Thanks so much Karen! 🙂 And yes, it’s like you said. It is the worst feeling because you just can’t believe or trust that another person can love you despite you not loving yourself.

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  5. I like that you realize that it was just a MOMENT of self hate JL… Unfortunately those moments visit every now and again but they don’t have to stay long enough to rob us of a good day… It’s always up to let go of those moments and embrace ourselves… Our lives… Our time…

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