Do you like youself?

[Clementine]

Most of the time I loathe myself with a passion.

[Tembo]

More than I used to. I think I'm quite interesting with a good sense of humour.

Its definitely a work in progress though, and sometimes feels like I'm taking one step forwards and two steps back.

[Omar Little]

I’m completely indifferent.
I don’t ever feel like ‘Oh, I like being me, I’m alright’. Nor do I ever feel like ‘Oh, I hate being me, I’m awful’.
I hate my circumstances but feel nothing one way or the other about 'me'.

[girlinterrupted]

It depends,I have times when I feel like you Muggins and other times when I think actually,I`m ok,I`m a nice-ish person (or at least I try) and if someone doesn`t like me that doesn`t define me. Then there are yet other times like now when I really don`t know what to think,so hard to judge what is objective reality and what is subjective inner voice b******s,especially when your inner voice is also nutso like mine.

[Silent Treatment]

I actually love myself...but sometimes get the impression others don't feel the same way.

[Appear]

Not really. I think I can probably identify a few things I like about myself, but they don't outweigh the shittier things. My auto-approval rating would probably be -20%.

[Gomen]

I think I'm a good person so yeah, I do.

[Clementine]

Originally Posted by Purplesnarf

^ i know them feelings Clementine, i went through years and years of that. i think I have improved the last couple of years and I really hope that happens to you as well as you don't deserve to feel that bad.

Thank you
I do have moments where I like certain things about myself, I have the sort of brain that automatically rejects anything positive like that though so I'll always find a way of dismissing them and finding a reason to dislike myself again.

[Merritt]

Something that complicates it for me is that I feel like I'm an inherently bad person, so liking myself would be wrong, and the more I try to go easy on myself the more guilty I feel because of that.

[Clementine]

^ Yes, me too. I think that's pretty much what I was trying to say but wasn't sure how to. Thinking anything positive about myself goes against everything that I've grown up believing. I can tell myself that I'm a decent person in many ways and logically I have no reason to doubt that that's true but it makes no difference, it's as if I'm hardwired to hate myself no matter what I do, it's too deeply ingrained.

[Tembo]

Originally Posted by Aleks

More than I used to. I think I'm quite interesting with a good sense of humour.

Its definitely a work in progress though, and sometimes feels like I'm taking one step forwards and two steps back.

Scrap my original answer.

I think I'm just pretending to like myself. To be honest, I hate everything about me, and I'm sick of the sight of my face and the sound of my voice.

[Ajax Amsterdam]

Originally Posted by Clementine

^ Yes, me too. I think that's pretty much what I was trying to say but wasn't sure how to. Thinking anything positive about myself goes against everything that I've grown up believing. I can tell myself that I'm a decent person in many ways and logically I have no reason to doubt that that's true but it makes no difference, it's as if I'm hardwired to hate myself no matter what I do, it's too deeply ingrained.

I remember my old counselling supervisor talking about this kind of thing. It was extremely relevent to me at the time. He used to mention 'templates'. We can sort of grow up to develop this rigid, entrenched view of ourselves (our template) and in later life we tend to absorb or reject experiences, thoughts, feelings etc depending on whether they fit our template or not. So, positive thoughts about ourselves get rejected if they do not fit a negative template that we have established. Similarly, people with a more positive, confident template tend to brush negativity off like a duck shrugs off water.

We tend to measure everything against these templates. Many people here will be familiar with the scenario where 99 perceived positive things can happen or be said, but it's the 1 perceived negative thing that happens or is said to them which gains all their focus. Why? Because only the one fits their template. It confirms what they already believe about themselves. The rest are easily rejected because they don't fit.

I sort of knew all this anyway, but I'd not heard it said in quite that way before. It made sense to me, and it helped me to break those old templates (which are often imposed on us by external experiences and other people) and sort of learn to live more by my present lived experience rather than subconsciously try to fit current experience into outdated templates.

Old templates feel rigid and unbreakable, but they aren't. They can even feel comfortable simply because they are what we know, and breaking free of them can feel dangerous because we are going into unknown. Sometimes, the discomfort we know well is preferable to the discomfort of change and the embracing of new outlooks.

You have clearly grown up into a lovely, sensitive, caring, talented human being with a lot to offer. Next time your mind tells you otherwise for no good reason, just ask yourself if all it is doing is trying to fit current life experience into old, outdated and now irrelevant templates.

[Pandapop]

Yeah I do, its strange to me because since I can remember from my teenage years I've always had a positive vibe about myself whether that be looks or personality, even when people at school bullied me I would still like who I was.
Then in my adult years my abusive ex boyfriend tore down every little part of my confidence and I still had a positive outlook of myself.

I think with me I hate situations that I'm in instead of hating myself personally.

[Clementine]

Originally Posted by Ajax Amsterdam

I remember my old counselling supervisor talking about this kind of thing. It was extremely relevent to me at the time. He used to mention 'templates'. We can sort of grow up to develop this rigid, entrenched view of ourselves (our template) and in later life we tend to absorb or reject experiences, thoughts, feelings etc depending on whether they fit our template or not. So, positive thoughts about ourselves get rejected if they do not fit a negative template that we have established. Similarly, people with a more positive, confident template tend to brush negativity off like a duck shrugs off water.

We tend to measure everything against these templates. Many people here will be familiar with the scenario where 99 perceived positive things can happen or be said, but it's the 1 perceived negative thing that happens or is said to them which gains all their focus. Why? Because only the one fits their template. It confirms what they already believe about themselves. The rest are easily rejected because they don't fit.

I sort of knew all this anyway, but I'd not heard it said in quite that way before. It made sense to me, and it helped me to break those old templates (which are often imposed on us by external experiences and other people) and sort of learn to live more by my present lived experience rather than subconsciously try to fit current experience into outdated templates.

Old templates feel rigid and unbreakable, but they aren't. They can even feel comfortable simply because they are what we know, and breaking free of them can feel dangerous because we are going into unknown. Sometimes, the discomfort we know well is preferable to the discomfort of change and the embracing of new outlooks.

You have clearly grown up into a lovely, sensitive, caring, talented human being with a lot to offer. Next time your mind tells you otherwise for no good reason, just ask yourself if all it is doing is trying to fit current life experience into old, outdated and now irrelevant templates.

That really does make a whole lot of sense. I hope I can learn to do that, I am trying hard, believe it or not.
And thanks for saying such lovely things, that really means a lot

[Jane Doe]

This is a tricky question because, like everyone, there are things that I like and dislike about myself.

I've had quite a good upbringing. My parents are Boomers and I would say 'old school' working-class Christians. No pre-marital sex, no strong swear words, be honest, always say please and thank you, respect yourself and others (especially your elders), stoicism and taking responsibility for your actions. I've never wanted to rebel against those values because I think that, in spite of my problems, I've turned out very well. My morals have always been very important to me, even when I was much younger because they kept me safe from harm, particularly from men. My female peers who were less cautious and free with their affections always seemed to be in some kind of trouble - anything from getting a 'bad' reputation to being used and abused. I'm glad I avoided all that.

So, I'd say that my morality is what I like about myself the most, probably because it's something I can easily control.

I had a slight stammer when I was at school and because I often struggled to express myself, people thought that I was stupid. Teachers would tell me that I was thick and would allow the other pupils to mimic me. In time, I started to believe them and just gave up and became very withdrawn. Even though I now know that having a stammer didn't affect my intelligence, I still feel very insecure and constantly question my abilities. One of the reasons why I don't want to go back to college is because I'm terrified that they might be right.

The thing that I most dislike about myself is the fact that I always let other people's negative opinions, regardless of whether they're right or wrong, affect how I perceive myself.

[Rianne]

Hate myself totally. Hate the way I look, the way I sound, the way I talk, the way I think. And I'm pretty sure everyone else hates me too. My rational self tells me that people are far too concerned with their own lives to be bothered enough to hate me, but every social interaction I have gives me the impression that I am boring, irritating or just completely annoying people

[Quicksand]

Nope.