The impossible task of loving oneself.

I starve to be thin, I bleed to have feeling, I practice till I am exhausted, I fake to make friends, yet I still can't love myself. Why? What will it take just to not be disgusted in a mirror.

quit watching tv looking in magazines i felt the same way but the tv and magazines those arent real people it special effects and airbrushing none of its really and it buggs the $h!t outta me because i almost hospitalized my self

To actually love instead of aiming to please. I should know cause thats how I used to be. But I should start practicing what I preach cause I still can't seem to love myself.

@}---}---

This might sound very contridictary, but I think it's easier to accept who you are, than love yourself. I have accepted that i am different and that I could NEVER be beautiful or live a "normal" life. But do I love myself f@#k no! Damn, life sometimes sucks!!!

hmm Bob talks sense. I just wanted to add that I heard this once and it seemed true... How can you love someone who doesn't love themselves. If you dont respect yourself enough to love who you are, how on earth could you expect somebody else to???

lol um be yourself.....its not hard. if your aiming to just please others youll never be happy

are you seriously asking us that, everything you just mentioned you do will not make you love yourself it will make you hate yourself. try changing what you just said

beyond is 100% right. You are doing nothing that shows you love yourself, that is why you dont feel like you do.

You don't love yourself because you aren't yourself. Be yourself, accept yourself, and you along with others, will love you. You can't love a visage...at least not forever.

Love the image in the mirror and accept that image is you.

Because what your striving so hard to change isnt you. If you want to love yourself you need to love yourself, not the image of yourself, not what you appear to be.

Love WHO you are not WHAT you are.

xxxxx

Be yourself and don't change for others. It's as simple as that.

All of you guys are making it sound so easy...
But it isnt that easy... Not for some anyways.
When you have really low self esteem, when you hate yourself so much... its never easy...

But anyways to the orignal poster, you cant just wake up one day and say you love yourself. You cnat just go form barely standing your reflection to suddenly becoming in love with it.
It sounds like you have really low self esteem, so start with that. Like i said you cant suddenly love yourself, so write down things youl ike about yourself. This may be hard for you if your slef esteem is really low but try and make a list. Add to that list everyday at least once if not more. Read that list. And steadily... hopefulyl you will grow to like yourslef, and then to love yourself. Steadily you'll accept your faults, and realise no one can be perfect. Just take it a step at a time... Its not impossible no matter how impossible it seems...

Yeah it is a tremendous start. I agree with you. But if it WAS really easy then it wouldnt take time would it? It would just be there. So its not that easy becuase its a working process... self esteem is something that once its low its really hard to build up again...

I guess youv got a point..
But i guess it also depends on the perosn.
It might take someone 15 mins to finish a puzzle of sudoku off but for others it'll take longer.. (Ok it's a weird comparison but you get what i mean right?)
Some things are harder for people then others...

Tv and magazines sure do it all worst, but once my philosophy teacher said something intersting, that might apply to this...
he once said that we all are teached to love others like we love ourselves and that we only "listen to" the "love the others" part and forget ourselves...
he also said that most people are arrogant or feel less than the others, there's usually no balance and, so, not self-esteem...

i also don't love myself, but is because i listen too much to others opinions and end up forgeting my own...so, when i look in the mirror i think that:
- a said i'm ugly
- b said i'm fat
- c said my hair would need a cut
- d said my clothes are horrible
and so on...
so, it's actually a little bit hard that i can love myself...

Think about all the reasons why other people love you, you'll realise all your good points and eventually you'll learn to love yourself too.
xXx

Faking to have friends, striving to be thin and looking at yourself and feeling disgusted...Those are all the symptoms of a beauty and youth worshipping society...

Those who truly love you for who you are, are those you want to keep. But if you wanna look at yourself without feeling disgusted. Ask yourself?

What makes you you?

and

Why do you want to do this to yourself?

I once told a friend:
"You're an idiot for not appreciating your reflection, Jen. I don't want to have anything to do with what you are trying to make yourself. So, goodbye."

Consequently, she walked her path and death almost took her when she was diagnosed with anorexia four months soon after.
Fortunately, she came back to school a year and a half later but with utter remorse in her eyes and she begged for me to 'accept' her again. So, for once, I put my callosity aside and befriended her. I didn't have to, but I realized that as time went by in her 'dieting' days, she had no control over her actions and became ill for such reasons. Pretty much like what you're doing to yourself right now.

Don't wait until someone turns their back on you, Maddeline. Thinking your right when you couldn't be more wrong is the biggest mistake one could ever make.

"self love will never be some thing i experience"

Purely by choice and your own actions.

First off screw everything that you watch, don't pay attention to anything that can make you think of changing yourself and just build a whole new you.
With everything changed. It it getting tiresome of hearing someone like this every few days. Suck it up and change because you can, everyone here knows you can and even if we don't totally know you we care for you in one way or another.

'I starve to be thin, I bleed to have feeling, I practice till I am exhausted, I fake to make friends'

^^ That is why you hate yourself, my friend.

Change it.
And, things will change.

Elysium

Thats a really touching story...
Thanks for sharing that, i know you meant it for the orignal poster but i needed to read something like that right now...

This happens to me...occassionally. When I feel like I don't measure up to other people, I think about the qualities that make me feel good. Playing with my hair or putting on make-up makes me feel better, but that's not the right way to make yourself feel better...cos underneath it all you're still the same. So i try not to focus too much on my appearance because I have my friends and family who don't care about what I look like. It's all about the REAL love, not the FAKE opinions from people you don't need to know...

does the mirror reflect your diverse personality to everyone else??--i think not!!