I hate myself.

[Amadeus]

I've read and applied a great deal of "self-help" philosphies in my day. The one philosophy of all philosophies in my opinion is the Bible and the word of Jesus Christ. When you accept the fact that God (Jesus) loves you so much then you start to love yourself and accept yourself. God has taught me that I am perfect the way I am. God doesn't make mistakes (yea this is corny but true). Before, I use to throw my hands up in the air and say, "what is the use or purpose of life". However, when you start to read the "word" you realize that everyday matters and you must live for today, not worrying about tomorrow or what you don't have. God taught me that we need to live with our hands out and hands unclinched. The opposite would be to take and to have your hands clinched ready to take anything at the expense of others.

[Logodae]

Originally Posted by The_One_Free_Man

It's not that I want to look like that..it's that I want to look "normal." I feel like I'm a freak that no one wants to look at. I guess it's more psychological as people tell me that I look normal, yet I feel extremely ugly. I also feel like people just say "hi" out of pity.

This sounds like it could be body dysmorphic disorder. The good news is, you probably do look normal... the bad news is, your brain may not let you believe it.

Belugagirl's got some good advice, though.

[Mnemosyne]

Belugagirl, your post is truly inspiring! I hope that other people, including The One Free Man, can find it helpful and actionable.

[The Protagonist]

From one teenager to another, what you need is self confidence - it is the antidote to what you are feeling right now. How you can obtain this is (and how I obtained it) is through:

* bodybuilding
* boxing
* dressing well
* meditating
* getting your chakras in line
* doing something that other people can't do. case in point: my friend got accepted into Stamford Univeristy, a place that accepts only 8% of those that apply. His self confidence is ridiculous because he KNOWS that he has something over all these people. He knows on the inside that he is the sh!t, and that is only affirmed by his acceptance into Stamford.

You should start working on this now. I too was like you once, so I empathize with your situation. But the sooner you start working on yourself the better.

[WayToTwilight]

Hi One Free Man,

Hopefully you have waded through all the great posts before me and gotten to mine!

Anyways, I was (and still am a lot of times) like you. I was always depressed and wanted people to like me. For a while I wanted people to like me out of pity. I felt like my situation was completely out of my control and I wanted others to lift me up, and give me encouragement. Some people gave me encouragement, some gave me looks of disdain. When I got encouragement, I thought they weren't being sincere. When people reacted negatively I fed on that and just put myself down more.

Eventually I began to realize that I was doing this to myself. For a while I had kept denying it. I felt like I wasn't in control, and I was too worthless to do anything even if I did have control. I just continued to feed myself negativity, it felt... like the right thing to do. I was about 14 when I was very depressed. I smothered that depression with video games all throughout high school and depression set in for the first year and a half for college again. But with the help of a couple close friends and Steve's website I could see there was light somewhere in my darkness.

I can see a bit of light shining in your darkness too. The fact that you came upon this forum... to find help... it's like others have said before me, there is something in you that's telling you ARE worth it. You know something needs to be changed. The best thing I think you can do now is find as much support as possible. I know all these posts might sound cliche and we're all saying it "out of pity" but not really. Many of us know where you're coming from. The teen years were turbulent for me, and as a young adult they still often are. No one wants to see someone so depressed all the time. Please take our advice as genuine, we want to see you happy!

First... I would say, find some people to give you support. Talk to your parents, if they still tell you to "get over it," find some good friends. Find some real friends that will listen to you, that will reciprocate, that will encourage you. If you can't find any, make some! At the very least you have us, and you can keep coming back to us for more support. This community has grown... it's huge... you'll always find someone here with open arms and an open heart. We're all friends here.

It may take time to feel better, but don't let that daunt you. The time is going to pass anyways right, so why not start spending it by focusing on the good things? Don't forget, you'll always have a place here. You're not alone.

[makebetter]

TOFM, as much as you don't want it to make a difference, the fact that you are 16 makes all the difference. I'm just a few months shy of being twice your age but, believe me, I can certainly remember the misery that was my life when I was your age. In retrospect, it is nothing but unfair that I couldn't have known then what I know now about life. Nobody ever told me, but I never did ask, nor did I have anyone to talk to about things. I don't know that I would have listened anyway, but that's not going to keep me from saying what I believe.

The one big thing you need to understand is that much of what happens in life just happens. You can and should try as you might to make things go your way, but understand that a lot of things are just pure dumb luck and all you can hope is that it is good luck and not bad luck.

When I was sixteen I had the following faults: I was overweight (5'9" and 170lb at a time when most kids were not overweight). I had only one friend. I had no social skills to make new friends, and people in general took an instant disliking to me for reasons I could never understand. That's not just my perception, that was my reality. Kids picked on me, very few people ever stood up for me, I could not much stand up for myself, even teachers disliked me. I don't think I'm particularly ugly, but I'm nothing special for sure. To put it another way, I would never cause anyone to take a second look at me for any reason. I am smart, but was unmotivated by my classes and my teachers and just saw no light at the end of the tunnel to make it worth doing anything.

Seventeen was no better. I graduated at eighteen, never having so much as spoken to a girl for any reason other than mandatory school projects. The pinnacle of my loserdom was lying to my parents about having a friend so they would let me go to a rock concert with my friend. I had to buy two tickets and still have the other one, unused, to this day. The only good thing that happened to me in school was the one time I reacted to being picked on by punching a kid in the mouth. I still feel bad for that, but it earned me freedom from being picked upon. In retrospect, I realize that it was not so much for my fighting prowess as it was for the fact that it was the one normal thing I ever did in front of my peers.

I moved from Florida to Boston on my own to start college, mainly because I wanted to get as far away from my life as possible. Needless to say, my life followed. I went to both a private and a public university and was never picked on or bothered by the other students. Some went out of there way to befriend me, though I suspect it was more because I could help them out with their schoolwork than because I was much of a friendly person. Nevertheless, a few did see me for who I was and appreciated me and became true friends.

Anyhow, what I'm getting at is that I did nothing to earn my way out of my situation. I tried to talk to other people occasionally, but it never worked. I went out of my way a few times to put myself into social situations and ended up being miserable and uncomfortable and leaving when I could stand it no longer. My weekends were spent alone in front of the pc or taking long shopping trips to the music stores. That's it, that was my life. I also experimented with starvation and dropped myself down to 120lb. So I can say my looks improved in that I was no longer fat, but that did not cause anyone to look at me as being attractive.

From the time I was about thirteen I had my own pc and dial up access to the Prodigy online service, which was in the days before the internet was commonly available. I had a few online friends. By far they were the easiest to make. When I was in Boston I managed to get talked into coming down to NJ to meet up with one of those friends to go see a concert. That friend was a girl and we've been inseparable ever since. I moved to NJ the following year, and we married four years later. All of that, all of it, just happened to me.

I've made good decisions that have gone bad and bad decisions that have gone good. You can't calculate anything and you can't rely on anything, you can only do your best to make it through the tough spots knowing that along the way there will be good ones. When you get to the good ones, just remember that there will more bad ones and you'll be able to power through them because you did before.

You'll struggle with lots of things in life. Some of those you'll look back on later and wonder why it was so hard, others you'll be thankful you've left behind. The point I'm at today, with the family and friends and job I have today, have come about almost entirely from the randomness of the universe. What I've come to accept and love is that I wouldn't have it any other way. I have two beautiful kids who cause me endless frustration and joy. They are the reason I can still go on for those days and weeks and months I have where I don't see any point in continuing.

Also, I look back upon my bad teenage years with an added insight that makes is all different. I recently learned that I have Aspergers Syndrome, which is basically a high functioning form of autism. My problems in life kind of make more sense now. I can see that people did not like me because I was different and didn't respond properly to their social cues because I never saw them. I'm learning how to manage around that now, but I'll never be rid of it.

It seems to me that much of life is a waiting game where you just make your way through one more day that was the same as the last in search of the day that is going to be different and better and life changing. Then you start over and search for the next one. They will happen and, for better or worse, you won't be where you are right now and things will be different and you will figure them out. What you can't do is just wait for the one day when things will be perfect, because it will never come. You can only focus on what's going to come and on how what you do today can make that better.

Consider yourself lucky to have the limitless support you can find online. It helped me through many times. Don't ever think you can't have a good internet friend, either, because you most certainly can find very caring people online who will see you through. One thing that helped me through some bad times recently was listening to Buddhist Dharma talks. Don't get put off by the religion aspect of it because that is not what it is about. It is really all about handling life's difficulties and bettering yourself. I particularly enjoy Ajan Brahm's speakings and he has a huge collection for free download here:

Ajahn Brahm Dhamma Talk Podcast :: Buddhist Society of Western Australia

The one called "Smart Thinking, Boy Wonder" is a good place to start, but they are all excellent.

[The_One_Free_Man]

I'd just like to say thanks. I've been reading all your posts for the past little while and it's already been helping been. I've already started to make strides in improving how I think about myself and how I interact with others.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Jesus, with all these posts I'm going to need photoreading for sure. I have nothing valuable to contribute to this conversation that hasn't already been said. Good luck and accept yourself for who you are.

[John Hill]

If you keep saying you hate yourself of course you will continue to feel depressed, have no confidence and feel like you are not good looking. If you want to change your self image and change what others think of you, you need to change your self talk.

Your internal negativity is giving off a very low vibration that others pick up on. Positive or happy people give off a higher vibration and like is attracted to like, meaning positive people will be staying away from you and you will be drawing only negative people into your reality. So to improve your life you need to increase your vibration and you will never be able to do it with your current negative self talk.

I wrote an article about the law of viration on my website, you might want to check it out along with some others in the universals laws category.

Good luck mate,
John

[dpvtank]

I have little advice to give you, but as a teenager who is just one year older than you, let me just say: Hang in there!

[Eli]

I would say: don't give up yet. some of those people you want so much to be like, maybe you should follow home and see how they really live and I think you would change your mind because all smiles and jolly making is not happiness. And as far as the way you look you can always change that to soome degree. Hang in there and smile a little. Peace. Eli