On Hating Myself
And on trying to stop hating myself
Whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught […] But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
I deal with embarrassment a lot. I especially feel embarrassed when I’m chopping vegetables in my kitchen. It’s a Pavlovian response to garlic and onions. I’ll get flashbacks of horrible things I’ve done, indiscretions, things I shouldn’t have said, things I shouldn’t have done, people I’ve offended, people I’ve hurt, bridges I’ve burned, the way my life is over and will never get better because I’ve ruined it for good and have no one to blame but myself, minor faux pas… all of it, all while I’m cutting up a carrot or whatever.
I’ll say things out loud like “I hate myself” or “Should I kill myself?1” or “[expletives]”. This makes it worse.
Some consolations:
Sometimes I remember that hating yourself too much is a form of narcissism. Then I remember that if I was a really good person I wouldn’t think much of myself at all. And then I focus on the vegetables again.
I don’t really remember anything older than a year or two ago
Sometimes I remember divine grace. But usually I don’t.
I’m very sensitive to rejection and social slights. That’s pretty common, but I think I feel the pain more frequently than I should because I put myself out there a lot more than average and am very quick to anger. I do not think that either of these things are good. They are masochistic and shameful and they bring me a great deal of grief and frustration.
The root of my embarrassments lies in the fact that I am pathologically extroverted and - to my own eye - obviously, painfully socially starved. I have a strong intuition that it would be more virtuous and respectable and stable and better overall to be a private person who likes to keep to themselves and who does not seek social comfort or validation. Someone who prefers to sit in the garden and drink tea. Someone who says things like “I don’t go online” or “I don’t need a lot of friends” or “I don’t like to go see and be seen.” My intuition can’t be totally right; I know it takes all kinds. I know my introverted friends feel equivalent pains for their own perceived faults. I know there are virtues in being outgoing. But I do not enact them very often, and the world around me seems to reinforce the superiority of the other model a lot. It is hard for me to kick against the pricks.
The solution I try to work my way back to is in trying to see myself the way God sees me. I try to remember that God doesn’t talk to me the way I talk to myself. I try to remember what it was like when I was a little girl. I loved being a little girl. I was myself plainly, before God and people alike. Falling down and messing up and then getting back up again and forgetting the scrapes in an instant. This is harder to do the older I get. The falls feel bigger, and the scrapes seem more noticeable. The wounds are deeper and more complicated, the problems more tangled up. I am not a child as I was. I am no longer exclusively surrounded by people who want me to grow or people who love me just as I am. I can’t chop carrots and let them be chopped carrots. I chop carrots and remember that I hate myself.
You would think maturity would correlate with the ability to bounce back after failure. You would think that after forgiving and being forgiven a thousand times I would be quicker to turn to God in my grief and quicker to stand up again after falling. Faster to forget and faster to fall into God’s arms. What does it look like to have the spirit of a child and simultaneously to put away childish things? I barely know. I only pray that God will show me. I pray that He will reveal to me what it looks like to live a good life with the personality I’ve been given, and the strength to change what I should. I don’t believe He dropped me in the world the way He made me just so I could curse at myself in the cold.
A friend pointed me to the writings of Teresa of Avila. The table of contents made me laugh:
I know this sounds extreme. I don’t mean it. It’s just another thing I shouldn’t say.
There are moments when you read something, and feel as though it speaks to a truth or experience you've always felt but never been able to express, reading this piece is one of those moments for me. Thank you for writing this.
i was just thinking again today that i need a bible study book for people who hate themselves. i've googled "bible verses for self hatred" and other answers, but i've found that the frankly generic answers given by people like john piper are insufficient. i've thought as much even as a child. Your specificity provides a much greater consolation to me.
I quite relate, and i'll share my thoughts here too--on finding a "logical" explanation out of negative self talk (https://janesingasong.substack.com/p/the-logic-out-of-negative-self-talk), and on a slightly related note that you might find interesting, the way that Christians decry idol worship without considering that sometimes, idols quite literally force your hand (https://janesingasong.substack.com/p/idol-worship).
And in terms of a Gospel for the Self Hating, the stories of Sarah, Leah, and Cain, as interpreted by Tim Keller, have been a great resource. I admit, it doesn't seem like the source of their self loathing and insecurity was extroversion and rejection sensitivity per se, but in Sarah's case, her failure as a woman to conceive, in Leah's case being unloved and unwanted, and in Cain's case a need to "earn" his salvation through good works. I really enjoyed the specificity and contextualization of these stories, and in each of them God reaches out to them directly, in a way that they can understand, to show them love. And God talks to each of them differently, which feels pretty representative of what we're supposed to get.
https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/sarah-and-the-laugh/
https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/the-girl-nobody-wanted/
https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/east-of-eden-sin-and-grace/