- Hi, there.
I got a message this week from a viewer who was writing
to tell me about how she just didn't like herself very much
and she was finding herself having these self destructive
tendencies, these habits that were developing
that she didn't really want to do,
but she kept finding herself in this pattern
of self destruction because she just didn't feel
like she could face life.
And of course, this was putting a strain on her family.
She's a bit younger.
Because when you have someone in your family who is being
a bit self destructive and can't face their own problems,
it causes others to have to step in for them.
And so, she said, could you address this?
What am I supposed to do?
'Cause obviously, you don't wanna be there.
You don't wanna be that way.
So, why do you keep doing the thing you don't wanna do?
It's something that I've dealt with a lot.
It's actually something that I think
a lot of people deal with
going back even to the apostle Paul in the New Testament.
Why do I keep doing the thing I don't wanna do, huh?
And why can't I do the thing that I wanna do?
It's an age old question.
These two things are really linked of not liking yourself
and then having self destructive tendencies.
They go hand in hand.
You're really not gonna find people who are self destructive
who really like themselves.
And it's difficult also to find people
who don't like themselves
who always are doing the right thing in life
and are not self destructive.
They're comorbid, if you will.
Self destruction basically is a coping mechanism,
albeit an unhealthy one.
It basically stems from the belief
that you can't trust yourself to face your own problems
and to face life, to deal with life in a healthy way.
And so, instead, you indulge in self destructive behaviors
and that's your way of skirting around the problems.
And I think this not liking yourself goes hand in hand
with not trusting yourself because how can you
not like yourself and then say, oh yeah, I trust myself?
That goes hand in hand as well.
This comes from for whatever reason in your life,
from childhood you were taught that you're not good
and that you shouldn't trust yourself.
Who knows who it was, parents, teachers, society in general,
the message you were getting through the TV.
I don't know where it came from.
And maybe it was intentional, maybe it was
purely unintentional, but somehow you got the message
loud and clear that you should be ashamed of yourself
for whatever reason.
You're no good, you're not good enough.
Who you are as a person is not acceptable.
And furthermore, because of that, we don't like you.
You shouldn't like yourself
and you shouldn't trust yourself either.
So, a good way of coping with that is to hate yourself.
It's a defense mechanism.
Because if you're hating yourself,
if you're beating yourself up,
then it kind of deflates the people around you,
doesn't it?
If they're coming after you and they hate you and they
wanna beat you down, if they come around and they see
that, oh, he already hates himself,
he's already beating himself up, our job is done here.
We don't need to do anything.
So, you learn this as a defense mechanism,
like, whew, saved myself there by hating myself.
And unfortunately, while this may have been a great thing
to have learned to deal with childhood, now you're an adult.
It's not really gonna serve you very well anymore.
Because now that you're an adult, it leaves you feeling
like you can't trust yourself and guess what?
You have to trust yourself now.
It also makes you feel like you are not worthy
of good things and you're not worthy
of getting what you want in life.
You're not worthy of having your needs
and desires fulfilled.
And that's really rough to go through life that way.
To think that you're not good enough for happiness,
you can't live that way.
There are so many people, me included.
Look, I'm not some guru from the top of a mountain
talking to you.
I'm slugging...
What's the word I'm looking for?
I'm schlepping my way up this mountain with you.
I deal a lot with this and it is this issue
of feeling like I don't deserve good things in life.
Like, it's just this belief that is very difficult to shake.
And when you believe things like that about yourself,
then the way you cope with problems is not healthy.
It's going to be avoidant and self destructive.
Because ultimately, you are not going to trust yourself
to face things and you're gonna think, well, I shouldn't
have this worked out in a good way anyway
because I don't deserve it 'cause I'm no good.
Of course, the most extreme form of this self destructive
behavior would be suicide because it's a way of...
It's basically saying that the relief of ending everything
is preferable to facing my problems.
But there are a lot of self destructive behaviors
way down the spectrum way before you even get to that point.
There are obvious ones like binge eating, abusing alcohol,
engaging in any kind of risky behavior where the point is
to kind of get some momentary pleasure and escape
rather than face a problem in life
or face some kind of difficulty.
It's a way of finding relief right now because you don't
trust yourself to work through a problem
and find a real solution.
Self destructive behaviors can also be a bit more subtle,
not just like going out and doing some drugs.
But it could be if you're in a relationship
and there are some problems arising in the relationship,
some conflict...
Or maybe not even that, maybe just stuff going around
in your head thinking that,
oh, what if this person's gonna leave me?
Rather than addressing the issue or working through
the problems, the self destructive behavior
would kind of just be to push the person away
or to do things
to make the other person dump you, basically.
To create a distance so that instead of facing problems,
you just cause the relationship to end and you're like,
oh, I'm relieved now.
Great, I didn't have to deal with those problems.
Whew, that is a weight off my back.
Because ultimately you don't trust yourself and you're like,
I can't work through these problems.
And I'm not good enough for this person
to wanna work through it with me.
I'm a loser.
Well, let me just prove it to this other person
that I'm a loser and then everything will be confirmed
and I will feel justified and vindicated and yeah.
It sucks, but that's just who I am, right.
But here's the weird thing
is that these self destructive behaviors are not like a part
of you that is actually trying to destroy you.
It seems like an oxymoron, right, because we call it
self destructive behaviors, but when you engage
in these kind of tendencies that we would call
self destructive, it's actually a part of you
that is trying to help you out.
It is trying to help a brother out in a sense
and this part of you is all those other people
or whatever it was from your past that got the idea
into your head that you were not very good.
And that you are not trustworthy
and that you should be ashamed of yourself.
There's a part of you that is now taken on that perspective
and that part of you is like, yeah, look, you're no good.
You can't work through these problems.
Let's not even try.
Come on, I'm trying to help you out.
Let's get out of this situation.
Man, you're depressed all the time.
You can't work through it.
Instead, why don't you do some drugs.
That'll be much better.
That's gonna help you out.
You can't work through this new job.
You can't get a new job, so why don't you just not even
put any effort into your resume and into the interview?
See, those are self destructive behaviors,
but it's ultimately meant to kind of save you
from what this part of you thinks
is gonna be a much worse outcome
because this part of you doesn't trust you.
This part of you doesn't think that you are good.
And so, you ask, why can't I do the things I wanna do?
I don't wanna do these bad things.
Why do I keep doing them?
It's because you have kind of split yourself
and one part of you is the part of you that wants to do good
and wants to believe in yourself and wants to love yourself.
'Cause obviously there is a part of you that wants all that
or else you wouldn't have written to me
asking why do I hate myself.
If all you were was self hatred,
you wouldn't think to question it.
You would just be like, yeah, of course.
But there's clearly a part of you
that wants to love yourself and a part of you that wants
to face life, that realizes that
that is what should be done.
But that's not all of you.
There is a part of you that thinks that you are no good
and thinks that you can't work through it.
And it is important to realize that's why you keep doing
the self destructive things that you don't wanna do
because there is a part of you that thinks that that is
the way out, that thinks that that is your best way to go.
So, really the answer is to this, the simple answer
is to accept yourself.
And it's meaningless for me to say just love yourself
because if you are in this position,
the phrase, just love yourself practice self love,
that's meaningless.
So, you need to start off a bit slower
than just jumping full into let me love myself
because I'm not sure that we know how to do that
if you've been struggling with not loving yourself,
with disliking yourself for so long.
So, what I would suggest is take a look at this part of you
that doesn't like you and this part of you
that doesn't trust yourself, this part of you
that thinks you should be ashamed of yourself
and that you don't deserve good things.
Take a good look at that and ask yourself,
where did this come from, why do I feel this way?
Now, I'm not asking you to go find a bunch of people
to blame.
Blame my first grade teacher, blame mom.
I'm not saying that we need to pin the blame on people
and call them up and say,
how could you have done this to me?
Because a lot of times, it's just not intentional
and it's just our reaction to it.
There could be someone else who goes through the same thing
and doesn't react the same way.
It's just part of your personality.
But identify where did it come from and just be like,
oh, you'll probably discover,
oh, that's not something I grew up with.
I wasn't two years old and hating myself.
This was something I had to learn over time.
This is something that was conditioned into me
at some point for whatever reason.
There's this other part of you that doesn't believe
that you can face life.
Who told you that?
Where did it come from?
Why do you believe it?
You'll probably find that it was a way of coping with things
when you were younger.
Is it even true?
I mean, maybe when you were a kid it was a good way
of handling things and staying under the radar.
But now, is it true?
Is it true that you don't deserve good things?
Is is true that you can't face life?
I mean, there are plenty of people out there who face life,
why not you?
What would happen ultimately if you let go of these things,
if you let go of these self defeating thoughts
of this self hatred?
What would happen if you let go of it and instead
of thinking, oh, I can't face life,
which is ultimately a coping mechanism,
what if you let go of it, what would be left?
What would you be missing out on?
It's good to...
This isn't something you can fix right away.
This is why you need to look at these things and say,
what am I afraid of letting go?
Because there is a fear even though this is self destructive
and you can tell that it's ultimately not good,
it's frightening to let go of things like this
because you're like, what if I let go
of this coping mechanism and suddenly my life is worse?
You know, what if I let go of
being self destructive and then I'm trying to be a person
who faces things head on and my life just goes downhill
and people don't pay me any attention anymore
because it's a good way to get attention.
Not that we do it on purpose to be manipulative, but when
you don't trust yourself, when you are self destructive,
it opens up a void where other people have to step in
and maybe you think I'm not gonna get attention anymore.
I mean, it's a low level, not high quality attention,
but it's better than nothing.
You know what I mean?
You know, maybe if I let go of my self hatred,
someone else will come in and hate me, you know?
If I say to myself, I love myself, I'm a good person
and someone else steps in and says,
no, you're not, you're bad, that'll hurt.
That'll hurt more than if I kept on hating myself, you know.
So, you need to analyze all these things and realize
what am I afraid of and
you need to find a way of coming to peace
with letting go of those things and really identifying
what are you afraid of at those levels
and facing that first.
And once you can face those things and let go
of the negative side of you that is trying to hold you back
for your own protection.
Once you're able to let go and say it's okay,
I can handle it, I don't need that protection anymore,
I don't need to hide, I don't need to run away
from my problems.
I don't need to sabotage myself and destroy myself
in order to prove a point, in order to avoid things.
I can handle it.
It's okay.
Be compassionate with that side of yourself and be like,
I'm just letting it go.
It's okay, I can take care of myself.
I don't need it.
It's a bit of a process.
You have to come to grips with a few things
and it's different for everybody and depending on how deep
you're in it, how long you've been in this mindset,
it's gonna be a bit of a hike.
It's nothing too hard, not Mount Everest,
but maybe more like, I don't know Mount Kilimanjaro.
Isn't that an easier mountain to climb?
It's still a big one, but it's a process.
And another good thing with any of this stuff
is to realize that you are not alone.
You are not the only person who feels this way.
It's just something that we don't talk about a lot.
You don't go to work and people are like, I hate myself.
You know, that's something that they keep up in their mind.
And it can be very alienating when you feel this way
and you feel like I'm just such a loser.
Everyone else is facing life and I can't face it.
What's wrong with me?
No, lots of people feel this way.
It's okay.
It's something that you can work through.
It's normal to be going through this and you don't need
to feel alone or alienated or anything like that.
It's something that you can get through and eventually
if you really work through this, I think that you will find
yourself maybe sooner than you think at a place in life
where you feel like, yes, I can face life.
I can face my problems.
I can work through things.
I don't need that part of me that's trying
to protect myself with these self destructive behaviors.
I can get through it.
Thanks very much for watching.
I appreciate it.
I hope you have a good day.
And I'll see you again here real soon.
(light music)