The one person I hate
Hate is a strong emotion. A bit of an ugly one too. One says it's the polar opposite of love but at the same time so close to it. For my sake I really hope that's true.
My mother told me from a very young age to not hate people. Not for some ethical reason or because she was trying to label it as wrong. Her reasoning was or more is, that if you hate someone (again a strong emotion) you're giving someone you really dislike, a lot of power over you and your energy. And that really resonated with me, so my entire life I have tried really hard not to hate anyone. Sure there were a fair few people I disliked but I'd never let myself hate them, no matter what they did because they just weren't worth my time or energy.
For years I thought I'd been successful. Regardless what other people threw at me I wouldn't let them get the better of me. But obviously I wasn't; otherwise I wouldn't have titled this "The one person I hate" now would I? Although...I guess it's not 100% accurate anymore. Anyway...the one person I hate...or more hated...was me. I know. Shocker. Although it did come as a bit of a shock to me, that I had put so much effort into not hating others but none at all in to liking myself. Of course this realisation caused (at the time) a whole wave of more self-hate and to be honest at the time I thought this was just how it was going to be. After all, I knew all my flaws, all my mistakes, all the lies I told and excuses I made. How could anyone ever see anything good in me if they really knew me?
Thank god for therapy am I right? Well not just therapy. My friends played a rather big role in my progress too. (Thanks you amazing people!!)
So I guess the question now is why do I not hate myself (at least not as much as I used to)?
Has someone ever told you "To move on from something, the first thing you need to do, is accept the reality of it"? Now I really wish I could say this wasn't the case for me (because accepting reality isn't always (or often) a nice thing to do) but it really is. And that wasn't just the case for my self-hate but that's for another post.
Back to the matter at hand. The first thing I did was, as said, accept that I hated myself. The next thing to happen was, that I realised I didn't want to hate myself. I realised I did do nice things, I was an okay person, that if I really was so bad why would my awesome friends waste their time on me? That there had to be something I was missing. So, I gave myself some time and space (the lack of school and job actually help with this so there's that). I tried to encourage instead of bringing myself down. Whenever a negative thought tried to push itself to the forefront of my mind I'd take a deep breath and literally tell it that it was wrong.
I'm still working on turning my self-hate into self-love but in conclusion therapy definitly helped a lot (still does actually) and so did my friends (not that I think they're aware of how much they helped...) but another thing I can most certainly recommend is meditating! It really helped deal with the negative thoughts and get a hold on them.
I'm not really sure how to end this one...so I guess that'll be it for now.
Take care and wishing you a lovely day
Shaura
My mother told me from a very young age to not hate people. Not for some ethical reason or because she was trying to label it as wrong. Her reasoning was or more is, that if you hate someone (again a strong emotion) you're giving someone you really dislike, a lot of power over you and your energy. And that really resonated with me, so my entire life I have tried really hard not to hate anyone. Sure there were a fair few people I disliked but I'd never let myself hate them, no matter what they did because they just weren't worth my time or energy.
For years I thought I'd been successful. Regardless what other people threw at me I wouldn't let them get the better of me. But obviously I wasn't; otherwise I wouldn't have titled this "The one person I hate" now would I? Although...I guess it's not 100% accurate anymore. Anyway...the one person I hate...or more hated...was me. I know. Shocker. Although it did come as a bit of a shock to me, that I had put so much effort into not hating others but none at all in to liking myself. Of course this realisation caused (at the time) a whole wave of more self-hate and to be honest at the time I thought this was just how it was going to be. After all, I knew all my flaws, all my mistakes, all the lies I told and excuses I made. How could anyone ever see anything good in me if they really knew me?
Thank god for therapy am I right? Well not just therapy. My friends played a rather big role in my progress too. (Thanks you amazing people!!)
So I guess the question now is why do I not hate myself (at least not as much as I used to)?
Has someone ever told you "To move on from something, the first thing you need to do, is accept the reality of it"? Now I really wish I could say this wasn't the case for me (because accepting reality isn't always (or often) a nice thing to do) but it really is. And that wasn't just the case for my self-hate but that's for another post.
Back to the matter at hand. The first thing I did was, as said, accept that I hated myself. The next thing to happen was, that I realised I didn't want to hate myself. I realised I did do nice things, I was an okay person, that if I really was so bad why would my awesome friends waste their time on me? That there had to be something I was missing. So, I gave myself some time and space (the lack of school and job actually help with this so there's that). I tried to encourage instead of bringing myself down. Whenever a negative thought tried to push itself to the forefront of my mind I'd take a deep breath and literally tell it that it was wrong.
I'm still working on turning my self-hate into self-love but in conclusion therapy definitly helped a lot (still does actually) and so did my friends (not that I think they're aware of how much they helped...) but another thing I can most certainly recommend is meditating! It really helped deal with the negative thoughts and get a hold on them.
I'm not really sure how to end this one...so I guess that'll be it for now.
Take care and wishing you a lovely day
Shaura
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