Self-Hatred

Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves, not self-hatred. To do that, one must love oneself, which is impossible if you are filled with self-hatred. My memoir, “Following the Whispers, traces my journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.

We aren’t born with self-hatred. Self-hatred grows from the early ways we are nurtured (or not), through assumptions we make about ourselves from interactions with parents, other family members, teachers, friends and strangers. My childhood created a self-hatred so unbearable, I shut down. I learned to distrust my perceptions to such an extent that it was impossible to separate what I thought and felt from what others thought and felt. I had no center—no core sense of who I was, only self-hatred.

Along with self-hatred, a lead ball lived in my chest and a whirling dervish resided in my stomach—sensations I now call anxiety—but as a child, it was all I knew and so it was normal. These sensations were so pervasive, I wanted to disappear from my own body and become someone else due to self-hatred. At first, I had no words for these feelings. But as I grew older, the self-hatred grew stronger and the long list of how I longed to be different began: blonde hair instead of black; straight, not curly; wanting to belong to another family—feeling like an alien in my own; being 5’3 ½”, not 5’7”; crooked yellow teeth, not straight white ones; freckles covering my face instead of clear, flawless skin. The list of character traits I had that I didn’t want because of self-hatred would fill an entire journal.

Following the Whispers shows readers how I overcame self-hatred by discovering who I am. My self-hatred led to disastrous choices in relationships and devastating consequences like losing custody of my child. I no longer have self-hatred, I now have self-acceptance—self-love is another story.

Want to know more about overcoming self-hatred? Get your copy of Following the Whispers today!