Dun Dwell

Kishan and I had some time while waiting for the rest at the airport, and we chatted. He is one of the most interesting 'beppuh' around. When he is not a 'beppuh' he's like a teacher, picking on everyone's grammatical mistakes, calling people like Yue Chi 'China Man'.

He brought up a very interesting word today: Self Loathing.

I looked it up and found that (according to Wiki) self-loathing, or self hatred, also sometimes autophobia, refers to an extreme dislike of oneself, or being angry at oneself. The term is also used to designate a dislike or hatred of a group to which one belongs. For instance, "ethnic self-hatred" is the extreme dislike of one's ethnic group.

The term "self-hatred" is used infrequently by psychologists and psychiatrists, who would usually describe people who hate themselves as "persons with low self-esteem".

The term self-hatred can refer to either a strong dislike for oneself, one's actions, or a strong dislike or hatred of one's own race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, species or any other corporate group of which one may be a member. When used in the latter context it is generally defined as hatred of one's identity based on the demographic in question, as well as a desire to distance oneself from this identity.

From another source: Self-loathing is an extreme form of poor self-esteem. It is the sense of loathing one's self -- a common complaint from people with poor self-esteem.

Many people who get to the extreme of self-loathing become self-defeating -- even self-sabotaging. This is the prize one wins if one can sustain a really poor self-esteem for long enough while being emotionally abusive to one's self.

Self-loathing is a pattern of thinking where individuals believe they are bad, worthless, evil, unsuccessful, unlovable, and/or incompetent.

This pattern of thinking is a common reaction to childhood abuse, trauma, neglect, or overwhelming loss where no substantial adult support was available to help these children deal with their painful situations. Thus, these children are forced to cope alone, as best as their immature minds can, sometimes with disastrous results, such as relying on drugs, alcohol, gangs, crime, promiscuous sex, and other self-destructive behaviors.

Very often these children grow into adults who do not know how to take care of themselves emotionally, physically, spiritually, or in relationships. Thus, these patterns of thinking emerge as a reaction to the original pain (the childhood trauma or dysfunction) and then persevere into adulthood when these individuals struggle, often unsuccessfully, to find their places in relationships and in the world.

The shortest solution to self-loathing has to be 'dun dwell', though the effectiveness of which is beyond my knowledge in this area.