Dear Saman:

You wrote: “I started to hate the drugs as much as I hate myself”- I hate myself, you wrote. Unfortunately, hating oneself is a common human experience. I believe only humans do that, turning aggression against self. (Maybe some animals when caged, overcrowded and distressed, as well). It starts with aggression from the outside turned against a person, most often in childhood. Then, what follows, is that part of the brain takes on the job of aggressive expressions against self.

That aggression against oneself takes place in the form of self talk, the thoughts going on in one’s brain, negatively criticizing, attacking, shaming, bullying.

Those self attacks keeps the person in an ongoing state of anxiety, because the person is, in affect and effect, under ongoing attack. And understandably, depressed.

There is a way to detect those thoughts, then insert a different kind of self talk, come up with thoughts that are congruent with reality. For example, an aggressive thought may be: “You made a mistake! You can’t do anything right!” A corrective thought congruent with reality would be: “It is okay to make mistakes. Everyone does. I do a lot of things right. I just didn’t do this one thing right.”

As you correct your own thoughts, the distress is diminished. Over time… you stop hating yourself.

anita