One of the more peculiar aspects of self-hatred is that it may go unnoticed for the majority of our life. Even when the disease of self-hatred wreaks havoc on a variety of psychological conditions and chances, we may just be unaware that we don't like ourselves very much.
Though we are unrelenting critics of others, we rarely take the time to give a unified assessment of our own personalities. We may recognize our approval or disapproval of ourselves in relation to specific actions; we may recognize when we are irritated by being slow to complete a task or pleased to have gained a colleague's approval, but we are generally uninclined to take a step back and consider ourselves in totality, as we would a stranger. We are too preoccupied with ourselves on a daily basis to notice the finer details of our own personalities.
There are only a few times in our lives when we are asked if we like the person we are. As a result, our self-doubt frequently persists in undetected forms. We don't realize how widespread endemic self-loathing can be, and how a formerly normal and possibly energizing type of self-questioning has devolved into a savage barrage of attacks on everything we are and do. We can be both depressed about ourselves and oblivious to the fact that we are depressed.
We should assess our sense of self in order to understand what we're up against. There may be no better way to do this than to use the questionnaire, that clumsiest but most useful of psychological tools.
On a scale of one to ten, we can rate how much we agree with the following lines, with ten representing a strong agreement and zero suggesting no agreement at all.
- People would be shocked if they realized who I truly was.
- I'm disgusting on the inside.
- I can't stand myself a lot of the time.
- I'm revolting.
- I'm ashamed - I'm helpless
- Others have a valid reason to despise and injure me.
- Given who I am, it's only a matter of time before bad things happen to me.
- I'm sexually unattractive
- I'm physically repulsive
- I'm unworthy of forgiveness
- I'm an easy target for mockery
- I'm doomed to fail
- I'm not deserving of sympathy.
- When people see me on the street, they are often disgusted.
- Throughout my life, I have been a bad person.
- There's a basic flaw in my personality.
To arrive at an indicative image quickly, we don't need to undertake rigorous calculations. Some of us will reach for tens on almost every occasion; others, thankfully, will be perplexed by the whole thing. This is not the book for them. If we find ourselves striving for large numbers, we may be inclined to conclude something forceful but completely incorrect: that we are awful people. The truth is both less personally devastating and far more redeeming: we aren't all that bad, we're simply sick.
The survey is informing us about a disease, not about our past, what we deserve, or who we truly are. The extreme nature of our responses should alert us to the fact that something is afoot that far beyond anything any human is ever deserved. We aren't inexcusably evil; we are afflicted by a horrible illness that relentlessly destroys any self-confidence or generosity we may have.
We're treating ourselves with a level of brutality and pitilessness that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy. Unbeknownst to us, we have come to regard the person we have to accompany through life with an unprecedented level of coldness and hatred.
It's past time to accept our suffering and reject the delusion and cruelty of self-hatred.