Sometimes it takes a person a long time to fully realize how much they hate themselves.
Type One-- For some people it is easy, their environment has taught them that they are without worth. In fact, a lot of the time for those people they are taught to hate themselves for reasons that they really should not hate themselves for which only compounds the problem.
Type Two-- Others do realize they hate themselves at an early age, often for the same reasons above. They deny it, however, and continue to live their lives with only a slight hollow feeling that nags them when they go to sleep and have nothing else to think about.
Type Three-- Then there are the ones that don't realize that they hate themselves until far into their life, usually after their personality has caused some catastrophic event. (Say, they realize they are self destructive after subconsciously orchestrating a break up with a lover.)
Cases one and three aren't the most interesting to discuss. The first having been beaten to death by after school specials, and the third being fairly epiphanic (a word I made up derived from "epiphany") but caused mainly by retarded puppy syndrome (that is, they are devoid of instrospection to an extreme and cannot be or have not been spoken to about it either).
So, that leaves us with the second case-- the denial of self hate. Those who are of the second class generally have some set of personality traits they associate with unhappiness or simply "badness" or maybe "wrongness" that they either naturally want to suppress or have been taught to suppress via upbringing.
The classic example of this is the "heart of sin" where a puritanical sort desires to commit a sin (often lust), but cannot due to his morals. Or something. I'm really better at analogies then examples. Maybe take the Disney "Hunchback of Notre Dame" with the cardinal guy wanting the gypsy, but that fucking with him and making him creepy.
Where was I?
These people tend to wear masks, a "public face" that they don't hate. Some of this stems from a person's need to be accepted. Because they hate themselves they assume that everyone else will hate it too. This is a fairly mild form of self hate, and often is overcome when they are with a comfort group who they do not feel will judge them on the basis of their having that trait.
An example might be the attractive girl who acts stupid because the other pretty girls who act stupid are their friends and would face ostracism otherwise. See type 1.
Others have a more deeply embedded form of the mask. They simply enjoy being the other creature more than their real self. In a way the mask becomes reality. They've come to associate pleasure with the mask and pain with reality. They come to the point where to be happy they need the other reality.
Over time this mask becomes like reality to the point where the person forgets who he or she use to be, except maybe at night when there is nothing else to think about, or maybe (more commonly?) it becomes second nature to the point where they don't recognize the shift anymore. They are themselves one moment, then a person comes by and they immediately become the masked version. They accept the mask as a natural, even better part of their personality until one day they realize one day, in the rare moment of introspection, that they are putting on a mask. See type 3.
I think that nearly all self hate comes back in some way to the need to be accepted in some way. People are not confident enough to walk alone so they make up their new selves. In our society there is even a certain level of antagonism put on being strange or even being a loner. There is a myth that all people who are alone really just want someone to come and connect with them, and due to some failure of personality or logistics they simply cannot make that connection on their own power. (Like Beauty and the Beast.)
This is kind of like the Simpsons episode when Homer gets smart. Suddenly the community of lackwits ostracizes him because they are all stupid and complacent, and his smartness is perceived as a threat. Homer develops the want to be stupid because that makes him accepted and happy.
Our culture likes to think of itself as accepting diversity, but it really does not. Even the most devaint groups demand conformity to their own standards. They are often destructive, violent, or at the very least retarding when they pose as liberating and allowing the individual to be themselves.
What is most interesting is the few who do not put on masks to find acceptance. There are some who simply want to be the mask. They had some personality trait that they found, ultimately, to be disatisfying and attempt to change it. They want to be a better person. This is not uncommon, many people change who they are (for better or worse) due to the many trials and tribulations of life. Those who I am talking about don't change in the same way. They still have their normal selves, and even engage that part of themselves at times (like above). They now have multiple personalities, all of which answer to the same stream of conciousness. They crystalize facets of themselves in a way, and are often drastically (purposefully) different from one another. Not only does no element of one facet remain when another is in focus, but it also does things competely opposite what the other facet would do, or does things the other facet would not do.
Taken all of this, after a long time that person looks back at the various episode of their lives and realizes how much they have fucked up their life because of it, how unhappy they are inside because they have not dealt with the root behind the mask or because the mask has made them do things that they regret deeply.
I think this is partly because of the repression of our culture. Or mothers, fathers, peers, and other assorted figures of importance in our life often teach us behaviors that are opposite our nature which causes discord. Maybe they even teach us to fear expression. Others are caused directly by our own social nature. As I've said earlier, school life can just fuck people up. Part of it is definitely that some people are just plain fucked up.
And then part of it is that we aren't taught to actually be ourselves, to make virtue of our eccentricities. People are taught only to be themselves as far as it is to be socially appropriate. You can be yourself only superficially. You can be proud of a heritage, an interest, or that you have a minor but sometimes useful quirk. You can't be an odd fucker. Of course there are plenty of odd fuckers who are in fact dangerous and/or frightening to others. Those who stalk or peep, for example. I'm not talking about them. They can still go fuck themselves, although that is probably caused by some form of repression too.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
The basic fact of the matter is that some people just don't realize that they don't like themselves. They are abundant in self esteem only as long as the mask holds, and if something happens that makes them rememember what they mask they can become depressed.
So, for your own sake, spend a day thinking about how you act. When you interact with others wonder "why did I do that" or if you know it is a common behavior for youself "why do I do that" and try to be honest with yourself. Find the causal root to your personality(personalities) and wonder if you have a good reason to be the way you are or if they are caused by something that no longer applies. If it is the latter, and negative, try to change. Just stay concious of the way you act and work against your masks.
Just think about why you don't like yourself, and make it so that you aren't that person. Agree with you to actually change, don't just hide it for fear of discovery.
(This incoherent ramble has been written at 3:33 am, since my thing is set to Vatican time otherwise. Just to give an excuse for poor grammar and spelling as well as the general repetion of points and topics.)
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