Why do people on this website have such low-self esteem? I keep seeing users say that they hate themselves. I don't understand this. Personally, I don't really have an opinion on myself. I'm just me, it's not like I can be anyone else anyways. If anything, I hate the world and other people instead.
Having low self-esteem is a very common part of being suicidal. Not mandatory, of course. There is no one type of suicidal person. But is is very common. I think maybe for a couple of reasons, but I'm speculating:
1. Seeing yourself as worthless makes the thought of suicide more appealing. If you hate yourself you devalue yourself enough that you don't feel like you're throwing much away by ending it. In fact, living with yourself may be painful. And you may want to lash out and hurt yourself that way.
2. If you're isolated and alone you're probably more likely to not feel valued by others (correlating with low self-esteem) and you're less likely to have a strong social support system. A strong social support system is one of the best predictors of NOT killing yourself.
3. A lot of neglect, abuse, etc. causes both suicidal behaviour and low self-esteem. If someone was abused by their parents or partner or whatever, it can often make you suicidal and usually one of the first things abusers destroy is your self-esteem.
4. The people most likely to end up suicidal are outcasts from society. Because those people for whom the system works, are more likely to live lives that are full of meaning, happiness, etc. Whereas those for whom the system doesn't work are more likely to end up here. If the system rejects you it isn't only likely to make your life worse, but also your self-esteem. Because our self-esteem is at least partially dependent on how others see and react to us as well as how well we conform to societal ideas of success, etc. So the worse you fit into the system, the worse your outcomes and your self-esteem are both likely to be.
5. On top of that feeling depressed can often cause people to devalue themselves to cope, I think.
So I think it's really that low self-esteem helps increase the chance of suicide, depression often takes a toll on self-esteem and at the same time suicide is correlated with other factors which also correlate with low self-esteem (like abuse and social isolation).