What do you do when you don't like yourself?

[bumblebumble]

That's it really. I can make all sorts of excuses for myself - horrible father who treated us like sh1t and most importantly spoke to us as if we were dirt, 2 siblings with mental illness, no contact with any of my family now, never close to my mother, run-ins with in-laws, 2 children under 2 etc etc etc. But it is all excuses. I just feel that I am a nag, I see the negative side of things, I show my feelings far to easily and don't keep things to myself and just get on with things. This in itself is whinging but I want to change for my children's sake as well as for my own.

The first step I know is to stop saying things - it just does not help, stop complaining, stop being oversensitive. The next step is to smile, keep smiling and finally to stop thinking these things altogether. I just can't do it. I do have a lot to be happy about now, a good husband - not very emotionally supportive but he does his best, nice house, no money worries. Don't have a lot of social support and feel isolated. FIL has been nasty and said on more than one occasion that he hopes the children inherit my husband's personality - my FIL is not sweetness and light the whole time and reminds me at times of my father.

I just feel I am the villian and because a lot of it is justified, I do nag, I do criticise and I don't like myself very much. How do I feel better and start being more postive about myself?

What figrollinthehay said. CBT is all very well, but I personally needed someone to bounce things off, a professional, who could steer me in the right direction, and help me to express the things that I found most difficult to face.

Seriously, it makes the world of difference - it's so difficult to change the way you think about yourself on your own.

Find someone you can work with, who you trust, who can help you to see yourself in a more positive light.

Nobody's perfect, but you don't have to be perfect.

Firstly, I think that it's great that you are first looking within yourself before criticising others. That in itself is more than an awful lot of people do.

Personally, if I feel that I've wronged someone specifically I'll try to right that, but if more generally feel like I don't like myself I'll do something altruistic, in fact lots of altruistic things because helping other people, being kind or thoughtful actually makes me feel 100% better about myself.