Self-Hatred

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I hated myself for the first twenty-five years of my life, give or take. (I still do sometimes, but it's much better.) I thought I was pathetic. I struggled to do things that in my imagination came naturally to other people. Talking to girls, for instance. Or talking to anybody, for that matter. For years, I could not for the life of me hold a conversation. I tried to pay attention, to come up with interesting things to say, but inevitably I'd feel the conversation dying on the vine and I'd know it was my fault and I wouldn't mean to but I couldn't help but kill it.

I tried to study other people and how they talked to each other, though I don't think I did it with a critical eye so much as an envious one, thinking to myself I wish I could do that. What's wrong with me that I can't?

You're allowed to have a low opinion of yourself as long as you come by it honestly. But at some point self-pity becomes self-serving. It gives you an out. I can't be bothered to put in the effort? Great, I'm too stupid to figure it out anyway.