Does anyone actually like themselves?

[Aurora]

Does anyone actually like themselves?

It's something i often wonder cos i know for a fact i don't like myself so how the hell can anyone else like me if i don't.???
Something i just can never answer????

Everything about me is one big mess, i'm no good at friends, daughter, wife or mother....

I don't see anything at all what is likeable about me....

Is this just me thinking this or does anyone else feel like this?

[Shyguy64]

I don't like myself that much either.

I really don't understand why some people talk to me now and then. I always think they must want something from me, rather than talking to me because they genuinely like me. I feel like I am the most boring and strangest person in the world.

What is there to like in me?

Very similar thoughts to Shyguy64. I don't hate myself, but like......not really

I'm a pathetic person, which may be worse than dislike, I don't know.

[Aurora]

Thanks guys, thats exactly where i'm trying to come from too, i feel like i have nothing to offer anyone, well of anything interesting at least.
People just come and go.....which has made me think lately i must be a really unlikable person or just plane dull

[Wings]

sorry to rant in your thread but i'm so annoyed at myself right now i've just been lurking in this forum for the past hour waiting for the arranged pairings draw because i'm nervous about it and didn't think i could sleep unless i found out who i'm paired with. but the draw isn't even going to be around this time because i just looked at arranged pairings 6 and it's obviously going to be done at the END of today. so i've been nervously checking the thread every 2 minutes for nothing! why am i such a muppet ok i'm going to shut up now and go to bed

[Ben1981]

Glad Im not the only one doing this. Time to investigate.

[caughtbythefuzz]

I like myself; have had some good successes despite SA and things. There are some elements of my character that I'm not so enamoured with, but I think that's the case for the vast majority of people anyway.

[Catkin]

Sometimes I quite like myself, but at other times I really hate myself...it fluctuates a lot. I have more self esteem than I used to tho.

[Jules07]

I still get down, i still screw up and astound myself with my lack of self-control.

But i like myself, yeah. because ive taught myself to go easy on myself, to not beat myself up, to not expect miracles from myself, to accept myself while still trying to improve myself.

disliking yourself is an unnecessary and wasteful form of self-torture.

why choose to dislike yourself? to what end? who does it benefit?

do you think that you objectively deserve to dislike yourself? according to what objective rating? you believe there are judges out there who can say 'you there, in the red top, youre officially dislikeable, so you better go and dislike yourself for the rest of your life'?

or are you officially and objectively dislikeable because of all your failed relationships? this is how most of us live, perhaps - if a social situation with another person goes well, we go away feeling good about ourselves, thinking we're more worthwhile. if it goes badly, we go away feeling less good about ourselves, like we're less worthwhile.

so maybe this is why you dislike yourself, because your relationships are not ideal with others, so you choose to reject yourself.

but then youre stuck in a vicious circle. you dont get on with others, so you beat up on yourself and hate yourself. but because you hate yourself, you dont get on with others. and so on, and so on.

you need to break that circle. choose to accept yourself and be kind to yourself, even if others are rude to you or cold to you. choose to nurture positivity and self-acceptance. gradually the outside world will wake up to it and a positive circle will be established.

[eriksendk]

I have hated myself intensely, but also had some short moments where life just plain seemed great.

So to me self-esteem is not constant over time. Having low self-esteem can also be connected to surtain situations where as high can be present at another event even on the same day.

I think hatred toward myself is what others call low self-esteem. And in turn I think that that state is due to not being able to control ones own happiness. If you felt in control, then you would also have other feelings to resort to than that of unhappiness (yes I find low self-esteem and unhappiness to be closely related).

Then when relying solely on the social contact as the means of getting satisfaction in life, and that does not seem to get you anywhere, then the selfhatred can start again.

One thing I do to combat this, is to get joy from many different parts of life. Not just from other people but also from the computer, music, tv, sleeping, sitting in the park and so forth.

Hope this could spark some interesting thoughts
Rune

[CeeJay]

Starting to like myself more with age...but becoming intolerant of other people who are arrogant and selfish. Wish I could just pretend to like people!

There's things i like about me and things i don't... i have identified the things i don't like (they're not bad things) but just things i wished i could improve but it seems very difficult to do

Self loathing & feelings of lack of value are very destructive you know. It’s something I personally have struggled with all my life. A lot of what Jules says is true, somewhere along the way you have 2 give yourself a break.

Think if you would be so hard on others as you are with yourself?

Jules you need to break that circle. choose to accept yourself and be kind to yourself, even if others are rude to you or cold to you.

[talisman]

I like myself generally...it's other people I'm not so sure about lol

[Aurora]

Thanks to all that replied and have took on board all you help

Originally Posted by Troy

Think if you would be so hard on others as you are with yourself?

This is a good point cos i would never treat someone as harsh as i treat myself but is such a hard habit to break!

[W!llow]

There are things about me I don't like but I kind of like myself. I don't always feel liked but that's different.

[IAMNC]

I'm starting to like myself, sort of like getting comfy in an old pair of jeans. It comes and goes though (this year has been quite bad).
I am starting to accept who I am and that parts of me can't be changed but thats ok because other parts can! Its me.

[Pal]

Like Moose there are parts of me i do like and parts of me i don't. I always take comfort though in knowing that change is possible and the parts of me i don't like can be improved, no one has to stay as the person they are.

Dont think anyone else should bother to like me either!

I dont think Ive found one person in life yet that I dont feel inferior too even though I pretend sometimes (like dirty skunkrat neighbours)

[Ruby1]

Originally Posted by Sidney Ratbag

Dont think anyone else should bother to like me either!

Sorry can't help it.....quite frankly Walnut thinks you fab



Sometimes i think i'm the scum of the earth and a terrible waste of life.....sometimes i think i made 4 great kids who love their mum and i trust their judgement that i can't be all that bad. Mostly i think i get confused i HATE what sa makes me act like.
I HATE that i couldn't go up to my uncle yesterday and hug him goodbye everyone else did cause we won't see him til Christmas but i thought to myself i'm a bad person cause i just stood there looking stupid rooted to the spot. I hate the way sa makes me a pleb which in turn sometimes makes me think i hate me. Yikes i'm all confused now...

[Wheelie Bin Bird]

I like myself as I am a nice person, i just don't like what I've became

[Innervision]

I'm as uncomfortable with liking oneself too much as I used to be with hating myself.

I used to utterly despise myself and the air that I breathed. To call it "self loathing" would have been an understatement I think.
I've never liked overblown self-importance either, so I hope I've learned to aim for the middle ground where I've learned to give myself a break. OK, I'm not the best person in the world, but I'm not the worst either. Of course I could be better, but I could be far worse too.

I'd not say that I really liked myself, but I would say I'm comfortable with myself now, and realise that although I'm very much flawed, I've still got got some qualities too. I can work to improve both. I still make some monumental errors, one recent one was horrendous, but rather than hate myself for doing it, I just dislike what I did and now aim not to repeat it and to hopefully learn from it.

I think I've also learned to identify what are someone else's issues and what are actually my own. So in the rare instances where a person may be rude to me without good reason, I see it as their rudeness and not what I somehow 'deserved' because I am a bad person. In short; their issue, not mine.

When you've grown up to be constantly negatively evaluated it can be really hard to recover enough self-worth to feel comfortable in your own skin, but it can be done eventually. Taking away that perfectionist streak can really help, because we can never be perfect, so such unrealistic aims are always bound to see us feeling a failure. Learning to like ourselves more is often about learning to accept we are not perfect.

I did something recently and wished the ground would swallow me up. It could have had real bad consequences, and still could actually. I was mortified with myself. In the past I'd have crucified myself for it for months on end. Relentlessly going over it and punishing myself over it. Sometimes we have to give ourselves a break though. In the past I'd have seen it as evidence of me being a useless person, but now I see it as me being a decent person who made a mistake. There is a big difference in those two attitudes. I've managed to recover, although it was painful, but if I still adopted my old approach I'd still be hating myself and beating myself up even now. I suppose it shows we can still be comfortable with our core self, even if we are uncomfortable with some things we can say and do at times.

[GoldFish]

I don't like myself realistically i don't seem to have a lot going for me in character so its like im walking in the snow without leaving any footprints. im here existing walking around but most people dont notice me.

[Ross PK]

I like myself.

Whenever I get the question 'If you could be anyone who would you be?' I always say 'me'.

[Andist]

I like myself most of the time, I think

I don't like myself realistically i don't seem to have a lot going for me in character so its like im walking in the snow without leaving any footprints. im here existing walking around but most people dont notice me.

That was very poetic.Maybe you underestimate yourself.It can be very difficult to show your true character with SA ,but im sure everyone has something positive to offer(cheesy as that sounds)

[paulthequiet]

I like myself insofar as I'm not a bastard who'd set out to hurt anyone, I try to be a good person. I don't like much else about me though particularly my personality which I just see as boring.

[Aurora]

Ok, i know i have said i don't like myself very much and reading through all your post the whole 'not liking myself' post is to do more with what SA has made me cos don't get me wrong when i say i don't like myself very much i don't but it's not because i'm an horrible nasty person really, infact it has to do more with being too nice i guess.
I just get so taken for granted is the problem i guess, it's like i'm here just for everyone else in my life and thats it! I hate the fact i'm like a door mat sometimes and am such a weak person as that i can't bring myself to say no to things i don't really want to do.
Sounding all confusing now aren't i?
Guess i don't like my weakness in all aspects of my life is what i'm trying to get across, not that i'm a horrible nasty so an so...

[W!llow]

I understand that Aurora, I feel like that about myself quite often.

[ClaireLou]

Nope, I HATE myself. Just everything about me sucks.