We can begin to dig ourselves out of the mine-shaft of self-hatred by becoming a better historian of ourselves – and therefore being able to hold on to the idea that we hate ourselves only or primarily because we were once not loved as well as we should have been.
We need to start to notice what unfair story tellers we are: how many decades of practice we have had at always turning ourselves into the villain, of justifying the behaviour of others way beyond what they deserved and at putting ourselves invariably at shameful fault.
We may eventually reach a very weird-sounding insight: that we aren’t exceptionally awful, we just had an exceptionally unfortunate introduction to existence. We need to learn a vital art, from which so much else good can then flow: that of being on our own side.