Help How do i love myself

[Leonard_Bangley39]

Mentally I've been through absolute hell these past few months. I've made ctb plans, cut myself, hated myself constantly, called myself worthless, pathetic, a failure.

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to talk with friends online more and it's helped to improve my view on some things and now I don't want to ctb anymore. Before i was planning on taking a vacation to Japan next month and then killing myself at the end, but now im going to go with one of my friends and i want to have fun. And at the end of my trip once i get back to America, i plan to have myself committed into a mental hospital and sell professional help.

I think i might be bipolar. Despite wanting to get help, i still can't stop getting suicidal thoughts everytime i go through a depressive, self loathing episode. I want to improve and become a version of myself that i wont hate. But I just don't know how. Its like my mind is a giant house of cards right now. On its own, it's fine. But as soon as the slightest guys of wind passes by, everything shakes until it inevitably collapses.

When im busy or distracted, or having fun, i feel happy and fine. But the moment a single negative thought about myself passes through my mind, it rips everything away. I get this weird feeling in my chest and my mind just loops over and over about things like how I have little to no social skills, or how im worse off than my peers, and it just turns into a self hatred feedback loop.

I want to love myself but i just don't know how to. I want to be able to face the flaws myself without breaking down every time.

 

[Lycoris]

I personally dont think there is a way to love yourself in the way a lot of people keep saying is the way to do it. Especially when you have so many mental health problems... The only thing that really helped me is having an epiphany about the ego. I feel like our ego protects us a lot and has a way of making us feel inferior or superior to others to shield us from terrible or confusing emotions when you are treated poorly. Even with all the work i've done over years of therapy I dont think I can bring myself to completely love myself. The closest i've gotten was probably complete self ambivalence because I dont think I can really ever trust how biased other people are to think their view of me is complete, but in the same way I don't think my own view of myself is complete either because I know depression and trauma can warp your self view so is it anyone ever truly able to judge the real you? At that point, I just decided to go with ambivalence because its just the most useful position to have. To give myself some grace through everything i've experienced and that i'm not any more or less special than anyone.

It's comforting to me but thats just me. It sounds like in a way you do love yourself if you're still here fighting another day and the fact you want to be better means you believe on some level that you are capable of growth. Self love feels more like a way of framing things rather than something you achieve in a way. Either way, i'm rooting for you ^^