Loving and hating

Is it possible to live with so much love for others and yet so much hate for yourself?

My faith ensures my love for others but that same faith cannot help me to love myself. On the contrary, I feel like I hate myself and wish I didn't exist. Strange isn't it, how so much love and so much hate can emanate from the same heart. 

God says live, so I live. Why can't I love myself the way He loves me? Why do I have so much hatred inside me, alongside so much love that I just can't express? I'll explode one day, I'm pretty sure I will. 

  • Yes. I'm a fixer. Constantly trying to help others, while I feel like s**t.

    My Artist friend can be a pain. But we end up all chummy, in the end. We're the real Odd Couple; I'm Lemon, he's Mattheau!

  • I read your testimony. Heart️ I wish you the continuing blessing of the One who has saved you on your onward journey. Pray tone1

    Thank you for your insights into living with neurodiversity and faith. It is enlightening and I often find that first-hand experiences (testimonies) speak the clearest to me, as if God Himself is speaking to me. I believe that He works miraculous deeds through His servants. 

    Suicidality and matters pertaining to mental health are to be found throughout The Bible and, as you surmised, through Christian (esp. Catholic) tradition in the lives of the saints. Prophets who longed for death, disciples who longed for blessed release. I regard myself as somewhere within this camp - a disciple filled with self-hatred and doubt and a prophet filled with foreboding about what God has planned for me. Trying to 'blend in' has worked, to some degree, until now in my life but I don't know how much more I can do and where it is leading me. I've taken to dressing differently to try to stand out, lowering my mask and revealing how something is 'odd' about me, egging the devil (the worldly power) on to persecute me, knowing that I am protected. 

    The future is always a misty-glassed mystery to me, and I take comfort in this because 'knowing' God's will is scary. I try to make sense of the present based on the past (the historian in me) and defer to God, trusting in Him, handling His Word and looking for the signs around me. His will out - the good will out. Pray tone1

  • Thank you Rachel. Pray tone1

  • Hi, I have enjoyed reading your  thoughts on your faith in this forum. I had similar thoughts recently regards the duality of beuaty/versus pain existing in one body. The beauty of the Holy Spirit and then pain from my own physical body. i don't know your journey and what has brought you to where you are today. I think many people who do have a faith can become quite critical of themselves trying to measure to the requirements of their faith and confronting sin. Saint John of the Cross used to declare himsef as a big sinner when he clearly wasn't.

    I wrote my testimony on my faith which I linked to on this forum.. I think it speaks to those who are neurodiverse or disabiled physically or mentally.. With your inner battle I thought I would mention it

    .racheltestimony.blogspot.com/

    I wish you the best

  • I talk to god but the sky is empty - Sylvia Plath

  • Possibly 'ashamed of being an animal with a mating instinct'. I've never seriously considered this before but, yes, I do find solace in the saints who tried hard to regulate their base sexuality in line with being a child of God. The dual nature of man - the animal and the spiritual - are bound to conflict and pull the 'person' in opposite directions. 

    It's nothing I've done. My faith derides the power of works - both positive and negative - on having any bearing on salvation and my conscience is battered but not broken. In a way, by living because of love, I feel less reliant on the need to be a corpse without the animation (or 'soulness') that this will leave me as. I can't live without my soul. Dying will free my soul from my body but without my body I cannot live. It is a Godly paradox and should remain so. 

  • Flipside of. To love is to be capable of hate. And vice-versa. God loves the sinner and hates the sin, for example. The one highlights the other.

  • Possibly yes. The love, often overwhelming, of a mother can be a double-edged sword. Pretty much everything I do/want to do, I feel that I need permission or something like that from her. Pretty fucked up, I know, but I'm sure I'm not alone. I don't know who I am without her. My parents brought me into the world but, as with doing well at school, I've just never known what to do afterwards. Just trying hard not to end my life but getting nowhere fast.

  • Why do you hate yourself? Something you did? Something you want to do but are afraid of? Do you have feelings that you wish you don't have? Are you ashamed of being an animal with a mating instinct?

    If any of the above, I have lots of experience.

    And I have even more experience if it's because you were raised by a CRAZY mother that you didn't know was crazy so you had to readjust all your perceptions and beliefs to normalize her craziness β€” and in the process, twisting and breaking you into an unrecognizable wreck.

  • Love is certainly a healthier emotion than hate is.