Jessica wants to come to terms with her self-hatred by accepting and loving herself.

Jessica's Question:

Dawson: What’s going on?

Jessica: Well, I've been listening to your show for a while, and you seem to be very direct. That's a good way to put it.

Basically, my question is how do I come to terms with loving myself as a person? I just, I always see the glass as half empty. I have a lot of great things going for me in life, and it just seems like I have never come to terms with happiness.

I completely fixate on the fact that I'm alone. I feel like there has to be a guy in my life at all times to feel like I'm worth anything. And to this day, I still don't know why I have so much self-hatred inside of me.

Dawson: Who have you talked to besides me about this?

Jessica: I've been in and out of counseling since I was 15.

Dawson: And… did they do you any good?

Jessica: No, not at all.

Dawson: Why?

Jessica: They just gave me antidepressants and told me to go on.

Dawson: They didn't talk about your issues, like the fact that you were abandoned?

Jessica: No, but the thing is I've had my dad around and I've had a stepdad around too, but I had a stepdad who was very verbally abusive. And when my parents divorced, my dad was there, but he just didn't know how to be a father.

Dawson McAllister's Answer:

Dawson: That’s abandonment. You've been abandoned by men in your life. And now you're trying to prove to the world and to yourself that you can keep a man.

Jessica: There’s a little bit more to the issue with myself. I'm very self-conscious. I'm not a skinny girl. So, I am actually currently battling a drug addiction because I do drugs to lose weight. Because I feel like if I lose weight, then I would be pretty and appealing to somebody.

Dawson: Who’s managing your medicine?

Jessica: Myself

Dawson: Yeah, you must have a fool for a patient. Your moods are not going to lift until:

A - You get off of whatever drugs you're on. Get under a doctor's care.

B - Secondly, you and I in three minutes, have talked more directly about your issues than anybody else - that's because you didn't let them in on the inside.

So, you've become pretty self-absorbed, and just go in a circle with your thinking. Get back with your counselors, tell them what we talked about and begin to focus on forgiving the men who have abandoned you. And [deal with] the false feel good you use to feel good about yourself, which is trying to get a man in your life.

Many people struggle with this negative thought, "I hate myself." Here are 5 things to think and do when you hate yourself.