I know everyone has flaws and things they don't necessarily like about themselves. And I'm pretty sure that's normal... but its to the point where I can't even look at myself anymore. I'm 15, and I'm not one of those girls who say 'i'm fat' just to get told I'm skinny (for the attention). I seriously say it because I mean it 100% a million people could tell me I look fine or well skinny.. but I think I never look good enough, I never feel fine. I'm always looking at myself constantly.. I'm always pointing out my flaws. I hate looking at myself HATE IT! But I have to because if I don't know how I look I won't let anyone look at me. I can spend hours in front of the mirror..

I get so upset when I look at my body it get to the point where I have to hurt myself in order to feel better, I feel like I'm not good enough.. I've always though I was fat. I always hated who I was and I never though I was good enough for anything, but it was never this bad before. I never had to hurt myself the way I do to feel better..

I have no confidence.


And I never told anyone any of this and its hard for me to talk about this so its probably hard to understand where I'm coning from and its hard for me to let people in on how I'm feeling because I don't really express my feelings or talk to anyone about my problems... I just can't take feeling this way anymore. I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to accept myself for who I am, and every time I try I just get upset because I don't want to accept who I am because I don't want to be me. And I don't know what to do anymore.

I seriously hate myself.

Have you discussed this with a parent or school couselor

Gabbby darling. I agree with the other answer in asking if you spoke to a parent or counselor yet but you already say that you haven't and can't. Gabby, when you say you hurt yourself, do you mean physically? If yes, then you are saying you'd rather feel physical pain in order NOT to feel the emotional pain?? A trade-off so to speak? I have many more questions but it is up to you if you want me to ask them. I do wish you would talk to a parent but maybe there is a reason you can't?? I'll bet you anything that you are beautiful but you just don't know it. I'm not going to say I know how you feel because I don't know if I do, yet. Or if I ever have felt the same way. You are suffering and I don't want you to be. You have to get this out. Don't be afraid to talk more or write more. If you are afraid to talk to a counselor or therapist, it is not what you may think and by all means, you are NOT crazy and NOT ugly. I wish I could meet with you and talk to you directly but I know that is not possible. You may email me anytime if you wish. In the meantime, please reply to this post and let us know how you are feeling still. Please don't be so hard on yourself and DON'T GIVE UP on YOU. Don't. There's a little girl in there that is saying, "Gabby, I LOVE YOU!! Don't hurt me." I know this may be hard and too much for you to understand right now but I hope that I am reaching you in some way, shape, or form. Lots of Love over here for you and I do care. So write back soon OK?

I never do the mirror thing.. never have.. just know who I am and I am attractive. (Enough) I am not who I look like.. I am who I am.
By the way Whoopi Goldberg doesn't look in mirrors either.

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Originally Posted by Gabbby

i know everyone has flaws and things they don't necessarily like about themselves. and i'm pretty sure thats normal... but its to the point where i can't even look at myself anymore. i'm 15, and i'm not one of those girls who say 'i'm fat' just to get told i'm skinny (for the attention). i seriously say it because i mean it 100% a million people could tell me i look fine or well skinny.. but i think i never look good enough, i never feel fine. i'm always looking at myself constantly.. i'm always pointing out my flaws. i hate looking at myself HATE IT! but i have to because if i don't know how i look i won't let anyone look at me. i can spend hours in front of the mirror..

i get so upset when i look at my body it get to the point where i have to hurt myself in order to feel better, i feel like i'm not good enough.. i've always though i was fat. i always hated who i was and i never though i was good enough for anything, but it was never this bad before. i never had to hurt myself the way i do to feel better..

i have no confidence.


and i never told anyone any of this and its hard for me to talk about this so its probably hard to understand where i'm coning from and its hard for me to let people in on how i'm feeling becuase i don't really express my feelings or talk to anyone about my problems... i just can't take feeling this way anymore. i just don't know what to do. i don't know how to accept myself for who i am, and every time i try i just get upset because i don't want to accept who i am because i don't want to be me. and i don't know what to do anymore.

i seriously hate myself.

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Humm..? Indeed, this is a difficult pickle. Tell me, why do you need to be beautiful? Like all things, beauty must fade. Why do you put so much stress on this one thing?

What about you is not attractive? Why?

Now this is the important part! What is beautiful, find just one thing that is beautiful about yourself. Then Focus on it, look at it in the mirror, and just see it, let go of the rest. After you have taken a week or so to see that, then pick another part and repeat the steps.

If you can not find something beautiful, you need to ask yourself what is beauty? If you even for a second think of the celebarties, then you are treding down a dangerous road. They have make up experts, hair stylests, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to look that way. Honestly, most of them look like some barbie doll/ governmen expierment gone wrong. Half human,the rest plastic. Balh.

So, if you have a reasonable idea of what beauty is, and you still thing you are not... Then you need to find a healthy way to change that. Exercise, but be forwarned if you try to get maller, more toned, or what ever too fast you will be risking your health. Real beauty comes from with in, and is earned not simply acquired.

Something you should know about cutting, it releases endorphines. They are one of the bodies natuaral pain killers, but they are also addictive. So the more you cut the more you will want to cut. Also, the reason you feel better is more than likely due to the dose of endorphines, it may be seritonin (not 100% on that.). Any who they both are chemicals that help us feel happy, motivated, focused, etc. Be careful about that, there are better ways to get that endophines, or seritonin. FOr example, running, exercising, eating healthy even. Or all of them.

Now I'm going to give you a quick run down of Neuro psychology. The brain is capable of a great many things. A women born with half a brain can live a happy life, she is slightly troubled with some tasks such as abstract ideas, and appropriate behaviours in some ways. But she is also brilliant with details, telling you what happened on what day at what time. She does make some mistakes but few and far between. The reason this girl can function with only half her brain is due to the brains ability to change and adapt. So, in the case of the girl with half a brain, her half brain took on some of the other hemasphers functions.

I learned from the book that spoke of this that we have the ability to alter the way our brains work. The book states that neurons that "fire together wire together." We can apply this to how we think, so we can change it. The trick to changing our thoughts is, become aware of the thoughts that are undesirable, break it down, rearange the thought to be positive, be consistent (keep reminging yourself. We won't be able to change in a day it takes time, patience.) Then hopefully it turns around for you, if not repeat steps.
The phrase that gives me an idea about how it works when you are trying to stop a behaviour is, "if you don't use it, you loose it." So for you, if you can stop yourself from thinking negatively, and start thinking positively; you will find a way to be happy with yourself, or more accurately comfortable. (the phrases and ideas came from the book, the brain that changes it's self.)

Do you really hate yourself?. Then why did you come here? Any one who really hate themselves never tries to get better, which you are simply by coming here. There for you do not hate yourself, you are confused lost and afraid, just like every body else. Only, it apears you focus in on that which you want gone, and by doing so make it so.
"we often meet our destiny on the paths we would choose to avoid it."- Kung fu panda

I will post some cognitive psychological coping or recognition tools.

Peace be with you.

Have you ever heard of Cognitive psychology? This approch gives the "client" more responsibility and forces them to find their own way through their ordeal, what ever it is, stress, diet, thinking, fear, anger, mental illness, etc... It puts a lot of emphises on one's thoughts, and how they lead them into feelings, and actions. You want to bring your instant reaction to any give situation into more conscious thought. So lets say some one says something really mean to you like, "You are fat." It's no true, but you're first thought maybe, "Am I fat?" But then your next one is "F- that!!" The thing is, you acted on the first one, and didn't take the time to rationalise it, so you feel the hurt from the first thought, then you react in an aggressive way to protect yourself. That's due to our basic flight or fight respons system. But the problem sits in us and festers, stews and grows with out us really understanding it. Then we seem stressed but can't tell why, and stress has huge effects on our bodies. Thus the phrase "pain in the neck."- unknown. THe way to avoid this unwanted, and usually hard to find stress is to be very aware of our Thoughts.

You seem to be worried about your parents and dissapointing them, or letting them down. Bummer, I'm sorry I wrote notes for a book, but over the years I've forgoten the important bits to connect the notes to the book.

Here, is a basic run down. Drivers motivate us in a negative way. Stoppers, prevent us from going forward with things, asking a boy out, or asking a simple question. Confusers, are when a person makes assumptions in a very ill advised way. I'll explain a bit later.

Drivers:
The be perfect, all or nothing: You may think, "Either i can do it all now or i can't do any of it ever." It's like narrow minded assumptions. So, there is no real room for learning, only getting it right the first time. As Yoda would say, "Do or do not... there is no try." But his phrase doesn't narrow it down, it gives room for growth, mistakes, learning, and doing.

Hurry up: Feeling the pressure of time, watching the clock trying to hold everything in line and in order. If one thing is not done just right, that's it, game over. "I have to be done at noon or I'll miss this..." Far too much stress on time.

Please others: "If I can help them, then they will like me." Give all you can give, for those you enjoy having around or care about.

Try Hard: "I will do this at any cost." This is when you give up the rest of your life for one thing, often leads too much suffering.

Stoppers:

Catastrophizing: When a person keeps replaying/rehearsing negative scenarios. "Last night I couuld have taken him. He'd be like,"F*** you! " And i'd be like, "What's your deal buddy, bring that s***." He'd through a fist, and I'd move out ot the way and side step him opening my side but then I'd grab his arm and through him to the ground..." Then going over it again. IT can also happen with future scenarios, like if you have a test coming up and you stress on it too much. (I do this a lot, or used to, I'm learning to control it now. Very hard if you've done it since you were 4-5.)

Negaitve self- labeling: "I'm ugly, dumb, don't know how to do anything, and no one likes loners, etc..." This is just straight up negative assumptions about one's self.

Which messages: Telling yourself, "Don't be differnt, don't talk about sex, don't let people know the real you, and so on." This one makes it very hard to accept yourself.

Setting rigid requirements: Narrowing your choices and blocking feelings and actions. "I'll go talk to that person if they smile at me again. Ok they did it again, I'll see if they do it agian..." This prevents people from moving on in life. One seggested means to solving the problem is, "I'll go even if they smile at me, or even if they don't." Be mindful of appropriate behaviours though.

Confusers:

Arbitrary Inferences: A conclusion drawn without careful consideration for the facts. People have a habbit of saying,"I'm broke." This tends to weigh on a person, and it makes a person feel they can not afford to do things they can. It's like self brain washing.

Positive Inferences: Generally lead to a positive out come; however when it starts to distort or change one's view of reality too much it can be damaging. Self-affrimations, they can be dangerous, in that, you will be self-affriming Love. A great person comes a long and says, " I love you." Then you, will take it too far and out of context. So you'll think,"Oh they said they love me, they will be with me for ever, and they wont like any one else..." What if they have a good friend they love too..

Missatribution: Placing the blame for how you feel on some one else. No one can "make" you feel anything, emotionally. You control your feelings, and how to interpret things. So when some one says, " You made me mad!" that's not true. Also, if some one says,"They make me happy." That is not true either, they are assuming that the other person is inflicting these feelings upon them, but really they are inflicting the feelings upon themselves. We choose to be mad at some one for doing something, if we chose to look at things differntly then we'd more than likely let go of our anger, and see that the other person, is really just afraid. As for the love bit, You are not happy because some one, you are happy because you, think happily, therefor feel happily, act happily. It is just easier to be happy around some people than others. When you love some one, make no mistake, you love them because you are happy, and so are they. Together you are happy with one another.

Cognitive deficency: IT's like selective hearing. You ignore important factors, giving your mind a kind of tunnel vission. Depenging on weather you are an introvert (focus everything inwards), or extrovert (focus everything out wards.) you will see things as some other issue, or see everything as your issue.

Denial(1 type of cognitive deficency.): People look at only the side they feel is important and will not open themselves to the full picture. They do this some times because it is too painful to see the "truth"/ entire picture, or they will need to make an undesired change in behaviour.

Over generalization: Recognizing only the similarities between people and events. The ignore the differences. Lets say a girl is beat by an Ex BF, then is way from him for a time, then meets a new guy. The new guy is similar to the other guy only he is calmer, and understanding/empathetic/compationate. The first guy, angery, impatient, aggressive. Those are the differences but all she sees is, two guys, big muscles, rough rugged look, firm grip, laugh a lot (though one is happy the other cinical, but she don't see the difference.), both have big trucks, big dogs, and so on.

Vague language and either/or thinking: Using to vague words to define lifes good things. If one wants to achieve something, they have to be able to see their goal clear cut and dry. With out the clear piture of the goal, it is hard to tell when one has accomplished their goal or not. "I will be a Doctor." All find and noble and what have you but, where, when, how, what, why, and so on. Be specific. "I will be a doctor in the local hospital on the psych ward, after finnishing my schooling from the local university, in such and such years."

Unanswerable Questions: People ask questions that are best left unasked. This is a subcategory of vague language, so the questions are too big and open for any one to really define the properties and or situation/s. These queastions include but are not limited too, "Why am I here? What could i have done differntly? Should I have got married? Did I make the right choice?" Best to focus on the situation at hand and stay in the now.

Magnification: An over estimation of an event or situation. Ex: some one who sees their physical beauty as a measure of self worth, will blow a small thing like gaining an extra pound or two out of proportion. This magnification can go both ways, negative things, and also positive things. One way to deal with this, is to break it down in to smaller parts, so you can manage the information with out getting worked up, and hopefully come to a rationalization that is realistic.

So all that is from a book called, "Talking to your self." No it's not about being crazy, quit the opposite as I'm sure you can see. It gives you an idea as to what you want to bemindful of so you can find it's source and alter it into a healthy constructive thinking pattern. Sorry I don't have more, but I didn't get to finnish the book. Very self empowering stuff. It helps the reader learn to take responsibility for their life, and yet keep the person prepared to cope with it.

I know how you feel I truly do and I will tell you want to do. You need to start with matthew the sixth chapter and also john starting with the first chapter.god never puts more on us than we can bare. The thing that worries me the most about you is what happen to you in your pass to make you feel so low about yourself,because coming from someone who knows mine was one of my moms ex-boyfriends you shouldn't have touched me.Whatever it is that is hurting you in your pass let god have it, because I don't know you and never seen you but I bet you are beautiful and you know your not ugly its whatever your holding on to on the inside and haven't let go yet. If you really want to stop saying "i can't even look at myself" then let go and let god.

God bless.trice1

hey, I am a 15 year old girl so maybe I can help a little bit. I know what u mean I had those days I actually locked myself in my room and didn't come out till the next morning but then I relaise that people should like and love me for my character not for the way I look. I get told that I look good and stuff but I still don't believe them but about 4 months ago I had this friend he told me that I should try to build my confidence up and I have. Every time I look in the mirror I don't look at how scruffy my hair looks or my smudged make uo but I say oh what lovely green eyes I have today... try to look at the beautiful things that u have. And I don't think that u are ugly or any of the above because you should feel pretty the way u are... and hell what anybody thinks.. if u feel great going out in your underwear then why not! I'm like one of those emo kids u know :/ and some people actual do tease me but I manage to bring myself up and instead of thinking hmmm he is right I am a freak I think the opposite that even though I have a different style I am not different then anyone else and if people tease then they are jealous and well loser :] just accept yourself the way u are... God sent u like the way u look cause he thinks your pretty so go on and show everyone how georgously sexy u look ^^... I hope it helps just a bit and instead of feeling 100% fat u feel ermm 10% less :D enjoy life cause u only live one and don't judge yourself k?

I've seen this type of disorder on dr. phil where girls can't look in the mirror because they are so disgusted that their brain plays tricks on them and only lets them see what they think so fthemselves.. go see a psysciatrist.. I see one regularly for my mental health.. and sometimes they might just help.

Art lady, I'm slightly confused, what I put up there is Cognitive, deals with being aware of your thoughts and how they influence our actions/feelings, psycho theropy deals with subconsious and suppressed emotions which are acted out in physical ways.

Psycho anylitical theory was based off frueds theories. He was all about the unknown, where as Cognitive Psychology is about the known. We know that we have feelings, and our thoughts influence them, so if we feel low or bad, the idea is that we can change how we think to change how we feel/ act. Thus finding a state of happyness or rather content. I do see how you connected the two, by the self introspection, and not readily apparent in physical form. But they are not the same, there are more reasons but I'm not at home and can not ref. to my psych books, and med books.

Behaviourists criticize the cognitive approach because it's abstract and in the brain. There is not phyisical evidence proving that that's how things work. However, in this one book I read they did a study of how much the mind influences the body. The got a bunch of people to work out, then a bunch to sit and imagine working out. Very interesting results. OUr thoughts are what lead our feelings, and our feelings lead our actions. The book called, The brain that changes it's self, explains very well how these two can connect.

I was reading in a science magazine that they have the techknowlegy to impose memories, feelings, hilusinations, and what not. IT's very interesting, but I wonder if we are ready for such things.

Peace and kindness.

P.S. If none of this helps, just remember there are several ways to look at this problem. Each aproach has it's benafits and flaws. MAybe a combination would suit you best. But I do believe you should talk to some one. ITs up to you though.

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Originally Posted by trmpldonagn

Gabbby darling. I agree with the other answer in asking if you spoke to a parent or counselor yet but you already say that you haven't and can't. Gabby, when you say you hurt yourself, do you mean physically? If yes, then you are saying you'd rather feel physical pain in order NOT to feel the emotional pain??? A trade-off so to speak? I have many more questions but it is up to you if you want me to ask them. I do wish you would talk to a parent but maybe there is a reason you can't??? I'll bet you anything that you are beautiful but you just don't know it. I'm not going to say I know how you feel because I don't know if I do, yet. Or if I ever have felt the same way. You are suffering and I don't want you to be. You have to get this out. Don't be afraid to talk more or write more. If you are afraid to talk to a counselor or therapist, it is not what you may think and by all means, you are NOT crazy and NOT ugly. I wish I could meet with you and talk to you directly but I know that is not possible. You may email me anytime if you wish. In the meantime, please reply back to this post and let us know how you are feeling still. Please don't be so hard on yourself and DON'T GIVE UP on YOU. Don't. There's a little girl in there that is saying, "Gabby, I LOVE YOU!! Don't hurt me." I know this may be hard and too much for you to understand right now but I hope that I am reaching you in some way, shape, or form. Lots of Love over here for you and I do care. So write back soon OK?

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Yes, you can ask those questions if you want, I'm new to this and this is the only way I know how to write back... I don't even know if you're going to get this...