If you hate(d) yourself, what helped?

[Merrow]

I'm in trauma counselling, and it came up that my crippling self hatred was having an impact on how I was responding to events, and that it would be helpful if I did something about that (obviously paraphrasing massively).

However, I'm not sure what to do. It's just so ingrained. I remember being 5 and assuming that other children wouldn't like me, and to be honest that assumption has followed me ever since. I'm not entirely sure why DP is with me (although I'm very glad about it!). I worry that my children are going to grow up and not want to spend any time with me.

But there's no obvious cause for this, just a strong belief that there's nothing innately likeable about me. It would be nice to change this, but how on earth do I start?

It is hard feeling like you hate yourself, I'm sorry.

There's a good meditation on the Insight Timer app - it's called Taming Your Inner Critic. If I'm having a difficult time of it I try to do that (sometimes a few times over a few days) and it helps.

(Just to clarify I've had a long history of depression and low self-esteem, but don't want yo go into it all now.)

CT therapy helped me but it involved me walking away from many family.

My family are fine to be honest - I really can't trace this back to any abuse or rejection. My parents are pretty solitary, but happy to be that way. They like me!

Thank you for the app recommendation, I'll have a look.