You’ve probably heard the ‘love yourself’ advice a million times by now. It’s nauseatingly common, and there’s a good reason for that. A lot of people don’t like themselves. Some downright hate themselves.
I’m not a fan of irrational optimism, but I’m not a fan of irrational pessimism either. I advocate rational and realistic thinking over positive or negative thinking. Granted, it’s not an easy mental state to achieve, given that our minds are prone to black-and-white thinking.
People knee-deep into self-hatred usually show irrational pessimism. Their self-hatred doesn’t exist in a vacuum, though. It’s supported by a history of adverse life experiences, bad attitudes, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
What causes self-hatred?
While many factors feed the beast of self-hatred, common causes of hating yourself include:
- Low self-esteem
- Depression
- Guilt
- Negative beliefs
- Past trauma
- Poor body image
- Social comparison
- Extreme self-criticism and self-blaming
Self-hatred can quickly become a self-perpetuating vicious cycle, a never-ending downward spiral.
Something bad happens to you, and you blame yourself for it. Because you tend to blame yourself unfairly, you blame yourself even more when another bad thing happens.
Taking the self-hatred test
This test consists of 18 items with options ranging from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree. It’s based on the common symptoms and causes self-hatred.
To get accurate results, answer as honestly as you can. Your results don’t get stored in our database, and only you can view them.
Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MA Psychology). I’ve been writing about Psychology for 9+ years. My work has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Reader’s Digest, and Entrepreneur. If you have any queries, use the contact form or reach out to me on my socials.