The Prison of Self Hatred
If you hate yourself, you're in prison.
No matter how comfortable your surroundings or loving your relations, if you're mired in self-loathing you might as well be the sole inmate in a barren prison cell a thousand miles from the nearest person. The joy that you could derive from even the simplest of life's pleasures is alloyed or even negated by the keen sense of yourself. The elation of beholding a lovely sight is dampened by the notion that you are the only unsightly thing in that environment. Yet, deeply embedded within you is the ardent desire to fully experience the exultation of being alive. You believe, however, that such an experience would only be possible if you were someone else. By being you, you are imprisoned: loathsome in some profound way, be it appearance or character or in your very nature. Your jailor (i.e. you) considers you unworthy of the world's beauties and will deny you access to them. Instead of allowing you to be truly alive to life's miracles, your jailor forces you to constantly seek out validation of your self-disgust in a world populated by many people who are very eager to provide you with it. The insults, derisive laughter, humiliating moments, and rejections are all retained in memory and are re lived innumerable times in your mind. Some of these excruciating memories could date back decades. They are all employed by the jailor to fortify the prison walls: to diminish your life force and, ultimately, to annihilate it altogether, either psychologically or literally. That statement is no exaggeration. According to the World Health Organization, during the minute and a half you have spent reading to this point, at least two people have removed themselves from this world forever.
If you're reading this article and you hate yourself, I need to tell you something. No, I won't tell you I love you. Though the expression of such a sentiment would be well intended, it is also disingenuous when offered to a stranger. I will tell you that you are worthy of the deepest love of which the human soul is capable. That you believe otherwise stems from a self-hatred that is as delusional as it is destructive. The aim of this article is to speak to you directly. Yes, to YOU directly. I know the jailor will be present. While you read what follows, your jailor will behave like a psychologically abusive spouse who is attempting to distance you from all positive influences. Every assertion I make will elicit an instant rebuttal that will probably start with "yeah, but that doesn't apply to me because..." or "Well, you're saying that to me because you don't know me and so don't know what I've done or what I am thinking or how horrible I truly am." I just ask you to listen, not only to me, but also, counter intuitively, to your jailor, as well. In fact, pay very close attention to what is being said to you internally throughout. If it is any comfort to you, your best friend will be allowed to be present as well. Yes, that best friend exists. He/she is the one who is silently encouraging you to keep reading. (Even if that best friend eventually considers this article to not be worth finishing, please don't forget that part of you that wants you to be free from this prison. So many great resources are accessible. Avail yourself of them.) Your best friend probably doesn't talk that often because you might have a tendency to ignore what he/she keeps telling you. You've invested much more time listening to your jailor so that he/she can and does speak constantly. Yes, you hate what the jailor says because it is tormenting you. However, that jailor is accustomed to garnering your attention and will likely interrupt more than your best friend.
Now we're going to move away from anthropomorphism for a moment. The internal jailor and best friend aren't real, at least not in the independent existence sort of way. They don't occupy space or engage with life in your absence. The jailor and best friend are highly complex sequences of thought patterns that evolved in your miraculous mind. They arose in response to myriad stimuli and experiences that have accumulated over many weeks, months, years or decades depending on your age. That you are crippled with self hatred is evidence that the destructive thought patterns have established a dominance over those that are positive and life affirming. In order to counteract the thought patterns that are imprisoning and killing you, we must craft other patterns of equal complexity. One should never bring arithmetic to a calculus fight.
You're a human being.
The simplest of all statements? No, the most complicated. Being human is so widely misunderstood and devalued in our society that we tend to exist as shades of ourselves. To be human is to be immensely powerful and intensely alive. Vladimir Nabokov described the human as a "spine tipped by a divine flame." At this moment that fierce, blue-white flame illuminates the vast galaxy of neurons encapsulated within your skull. Through 13.8 billion years, the cosmos somehow managed to craft that unfathomably intricate array of neurons out of vast fields of hydrogen and helium that crystallized out of radiant energy. Your mind is connected to every point in space-time by virtue of its origins. You are reading this strange array of symbols and the mind is instantly processing the information contained within. Whether you agree with these premises or dismiss them out of hand, your mind is engaging with thoughts. Moreover, your mind is generating 50,000 - 75,000 thoughts a day, a prodigious, unrelenting outflow. That mind's capacity is seemingly unlimited: from the ability to create art to attaining proficiency in a skill or fluency in a language. How many of those thoughts are rendered toxic by the self-hatred: like bubbles hatching out poison? How much neutral activity is devoted to your own psychological self-destruction? If you are afflicted with self-hatred, you might be surprised -and scandalized- were you to tabulate all the negative thoughts you generate in one day. If these thoughts have rendered you miserable, be consoled: you don't have to be imprisoned by them forever or even much longer. If you have the inclination to heal your mind and thrive, you will heal your mind and thrive by means of neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity
It was once believed that our brains were quickly calcified. Humans behaviors were quickly established in childhood and so any given person was powerless to alter their reactions to stimuli. The ill-tempered grouch and the serene poet were formed early and retained the traits associated with these dispositions throughout life. Thought patterns were believed to be as unalterable as height, ethnicity or fingerprint design. Only recently have psychologists discovered the brain's astonishing potential for reconfiguration. Now, instead of being condemned to a life dictated by reaction patterns over which a person exerts no influence, anyone can change those patterns merely because he/she truly wants to do so. The alteration might require great effort and unwavering determination, but it can and will be achieved if the desire for the change is sufficiently strong. The same principle holds true for the self-hater. You can literally turn away from the well-worn neural pathways that have been tormenting you and forge new, positive pathways that will prove life-affirming and life-enhancing. This article's aim is to offer more positive thought patterns to counteract the negative ones, much as a base serves to neutralize acid.