Self-hatred is perhaps the most debilitating thing we adopt in our struggles with addiction and mental health issues. For many of us, our self-hatred was the catalyst behind the development of our challenges in the first place. When we’re ready to heal ourselves, self-love is one of the most important lessons we’ll need to learn. We can’t recover if we don’t love, respect and accept ourselves.
Our self-hatred permeates everything in our lives and within ourselves. Our psyche becomes damaged by our self-rejection and lack of self-respect. Mentally and emotionally we judge ourselves and beat ourselves up. We become our harshest critics. We compare ourselves to other people and drown in jealousy and envy. We feel as though we don’t measure up. Physically we may self-harm, starve ourselves or otherwise cause harm to our bodies. Spiritually we’ve become so disconnected from our inner selves and our higher power that we no longer recognize ourselves. We feel as though we don’t even know who we are.
The recovery process involves coming to terms with our addictions and accepting them as part of who we are. When we call ourselves addicts or acknowledge that we struggle with addiction, our instinct is to feel shame. We want to deny the things about ourselves that we’re ashamed of. At the root of our self-destruction and self-sabotage are our feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, which often are a result of our shame. Sometimes we internalize our traumatic experiences or the problems in our families as having been our fault, as being reasons we should be ashamed of ourselves. Healing this shame means making the conscious choice to love and accept ourselves unconditionally, to extend forgiveness to ourselves and to all the hurt within us.
Hating ourselves keeps us from seeing all the beautiful, wonderful things about ourselves. We start to hate our lives and our stories. We see our experiences as evidence of our shame, rather than as important parts of our journeys, journeys we had to take in order to get to a place of fulfillment and happiness. Shedding our self-rejection opens us up to be able to create miracles for ourselves. We can only harness the power of our healing transformation when we leave behind the self-hate that has been holding us back. Self-hatred is a burden. It is a heavy weight. When we’re able to set that burden down, we free ourselves up to move forward, to rise higher, to learn, grow and expand. We become empowered to create the lives we want for ourselves.
Riverside Recovery is here to help you learn to love yourself and to shed the self-destructiveness of addiction. Call (800) 871-5440 today for more information on our treatment programs.