If you're familiar with that ubiquitous Marianne Williamson quotation ("Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure …"), you might also have come across its slightly more reserved cousin: "If someone talked to you the way you talk to yourself, you would have kicked them out of your life a long time ago.
The irony of those feel-good sayings, which can be found on many a Facebook wall, Twitter bio, and Pinterest board, is that people who believe that they deserve validation are likely already on the right track. (Much quieter are people whose insides shrivel at the thought of laying any claim to Williamson's "power beyond measure, or even basic kindness—not necessarily out of cynicism, but due to a single-minded conviction in their own worthlessness.)
In a sense, a self-loathing person believes that he or she is the realist. Well coming to reality for someone who is self-loathing. It depends on the person and what their fixation is. Some people think they're really stupid; some people think they're weak; some people think they're ugly. Whatever it is, it colors their daily life. You dress as fast as possible to hide your body without looking at yourself in the mirror because you can't stand it—and then you've put on an outfit that maybe isn't the most flattering. You become fake because you're covering up your own self-loathing, and you can't really pay attention to your spouse, or your boss, or the friend that you're going out with, since part of you is absorbed in, how do I look? How do I sound? Terrible?
The way I see it, we make ourselves hard to love. There's a certain negative narcissism aspect to having low self-esteem. People who totally adore themselves are hard to love because they only see themselves and it's hard for them to care about you. But people who hate themselves are also hard to love because they, too, are so self-absorbed that their own needs and miseries obstruct their view of another person. You can't see into someone else's heart if you are so wrapped up in yourself. If you're sitting there, sobbing on the bed and there's someone beside you saying, "But I love you," and you reply, "No! I'm so worthless!" you're basically saying 'screw you' to that person. If we can have compassion for ourselves, then we are inviting ourselves to have compassion for others, which makes relationships fairer and more equal.
I've seen how difficult it is for people that are in relationships with a person who hates [himself]. They feel that they are not being listened to, and that their care and concern for the self-loathing person is being rejected.
If you are the friend, understand that they are living in a state of delusion, at least for now, and that arguing with them is just going to make them more firmly entrenched in their incorrect beliefs. Complimenting people with low self-esteem often doesn't work because it's very difficult for them to accept simple praise. Humor often makes a difference because people with low self-esteem are so down on themselves and so depressed that if you make them laugh, you're bringing them out of themselves.
The way to save ourselves is, among other things, to break those habits that keep us rooted in our self-loathing and in the way that people see us—which make others feed back to us our wrong beliefs about ourselves. If you are always apologizing, some people will feel sorry for you and some people will stomp on you, but in either case that's probably not the real you. Do you really feel that sorry about everything you do? Do you really feel like you need to beg everyone for permission? Probably not. Look at the things you do as if they were on a movie screen and take away the I did it because I'm an idiot. The more you become aware of that thinking and those habits, the easier it becomes to shift them.
For me, I'm in a state of acceptance, and that is a huge, huge difference. In my 20s, I have a friend who literally would, in earnest, look in the mirror and say, "I look handsome" — and he means it. I was always like, 'Whoa, that is so weird.' I'm not saying let's all be like him, but we can get to the middle and just be. It's funny: I'm not looking in the mirror, or complimenting myself, or thinking about myself very much. I'll walk through the day just thinking, "Oh, there's a crow," and I'm so grateful for that.
