Here is what I am working on:

I am in charge--of my head.
What I say goes--in my head.
I decide what's important, what's true--in my head.
I'm responsible for my thoughts.
I have the power, the freedom, and the responsibility to direct my thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes.
It's nobody's business what goes on in my head--period.
I don't owe anybody anything when it comes to what goes on in my head; I make the rules--period.
I can, want to, and will choose better thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes.
I can, want to, and will pay more attention to what is going on in my head.
My thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes can be augmentented or erased at any time (it's not easy, but it is definitely possible).
I can, want to, and will have thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that generate happiness and well-being.
There is nothing that I HAVE TO think, feel, or believe.
Blank canvas.
The sky's the limit.
I can do this.

It's tough. I struggle. Mostly I keep forgetting and lapse back into old patterns without realizing it. Meditation will help.

It's especially tough when the messages you get from outside run counter to the narrative you're trying to establish for yourself. It took me a long time to really understand that I don't have to take those messages seriously. Now that I've attained that level, I'm still working on not letting the discrepancy bother me.

I've struggled with self-loathing for years and have finally started turning it around. It's almost like I've had to become a mother to myself and recognize and comfort and protect the hurt child inside.... Last year I found a visual that helped me. If you know the movie "Aliens," Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley takes a young girl, Newt, under her protection, the only survivor of an alien invasion on a space outpost. When the alien queen starts to go after Newt, Ripley turns to her with her blaster and yells, "Get away from her, you bitch!"... When my negative voices start to take over, I find myself wanting to protect myself from them, and find myself channeling my "inner Ripley"... Because really what the voices are, are all the crap we've taken from people, especially those who supposedly love us, which we've internalized, so it means getting past that to recognize our innate goodness, which has been burried underneath.

Hey, don't take this harshly, I tend to be a bit ummm, blunt>?

A comment in the book, "Illusions" by Richard Bach. "Argue for your limitations and they're yours".
If we tell ourselves we can't do something , we will prove ourselves right.
I read your posts they are well thought out and much better grammar and spelling than mine.

You seem consumed by self doubt, your comment, "People tell me I'm beautiful a lot, but I've been telling myself they're lying to make me feel better.". How does that make you feel better?

I am similar, I really have trouble accepting compliments, I brush them off, they make me feel embarressed, uncomfortable. I always give credit for my achievements to others. I am scared of the limelight, scared of drawing attention to myself. Something from my childhood I know.

This may or may not help. I like to pretend I am one of the only people in existence, I do not care what people think if I can avoid it. I often consider myself a different species, so comparisons are unhelpful. Silly I know. My pets don't think I am ugly, my kids love me and don't care what others may think of me. In other countries and other times I would have been sought by women, my girth a sign of obvious wealth and power, my ability to solve problems combined with my height and physical strength. Hell even having all my own teeth would be a plus in some places.

Many people put themselves down fishing for compliments, so many young girls I know do it.
Others want sympathy, neither comes across well.
I know I do it as well, but more for the humour value.

An extract from Desiderata.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Perhaps get yourself a poster of it and hang it on your wall,
simple elegant and thoughtful.

Any people that are telling you these things are obviously immature, insecure, and likely jealous of you. You already recognize the absurdity of their insults, so don't buy into it.

In a nutshell, STOP SPEAKING NEGATIVELY ABOUT YOURSELF. When you catch yourself doing it, change the dialog. If you make an error, instead of "Oh, that was stupid," say, "I made a mistake. I'll learn from it."

This is something that I am just learning, with the help of a dear friend. You can do this. Start by loving your amazing self, and shine!

I can only speak from what I've done. Tell the voices to STFU, it's your head, you get to define the conversation. It's not easy, but making it a concious decision helped me. (NB Don't do this aloud at work)
Also, do a self check when the thoughts occur. How long since you last ate (low blood sugar is a BIG one for me)? Have you had enough water? I find that just identifying a physical thing that may be, not neccessarily is, contributing puts the voices into some perspective. They don't go away, but knowing there's something I can do to reduce them helps me cope.

Stop believing that society norms apply to you

you are too negative, fuck what people say

Look into Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. It's pretty much designed to defeat negative self talk and is something one can do oneself once one learns how.

First off you are very nice looking. Second I've read quite a few of your comments and I know your not stupid. I believe that so far in life you've had people around you that were intimidated by you. People that feel intimidated usually strike out first to cover their insecurity. One of my daughters writes notes and leaves them around the house that are positive thoughts so when she passes by them it gives her positive energy. I believe you need some self induced positive energy.

Years ago, I started this thing where I'd post one good thing each day. It lasted for about a year and a half and helped alot. The first thing I posted was this picture with this statement:

See the good in everything you can, because then you will see more good in everything... need proof? if you look at vases or even talk about vases, then you are more likely to see a vase in this picture...

If you train your mind to find good in things, you will naturally start to see more good in everything, including yourself. I'm still battling depression, but the acute negative thoughts are gone now because I really do tend to see the good side of things.

The universe loves you just the way you are.

I think you’ve kinda answered your own question by saying people who don’t get what you throw out don’t/can’t understand and think you’re stupid. If they are the ones that are not intelligent enough to ‘get you’ then don’t listen or pay any attention to the thoughts or advice of idiots. Believe in yourself enough to realize you already figured them out so you’re none of your misconceptions. Self esteem and self awareness comes with time, effort, experiences and your own perception of self. We are the designers of the life we design for ourselves.
Negative thinking will always get you a negative outcome.

Different meathods work for different people. In my case it took a great deal of conscious effort. Sor some it is easier if they take up meditation to first clear the mind, and then to focus on positive affirmations or thoughts you want to have.

I don't know of any "easy" way to correct it. It takes a lot of work. I tackled it a little at a time. I first looked for negative self talk, which I could prove to be false thinking and not actually real. For instnce i ws always told I was ugly, but i knew that others foudn me to be attractive. I know the thinking was false, and so focused on changign that and other false thinking/thoughts first.

Don't exp[ect overnight results. It is aconstant life long process. Only ask for a constant gradual improvement over time.

I was there. Here are some things that worked for me:

Do not argue with anyone giving you a compliment. It is rude to insult other people's taste.

Correct yourself when you have a negative self-thought. That "replace it with a positive statement" advice from counselors and therapists never worked, but analyzing it and coming up with a factually correct non-negative statement is a great first step. For example - just knowing this little about you, when you think "I'm stupid" correct yourself with "I can spell well, and use good grammar and punctuation."

I'm joining this conversation after seeing a wonderful amount of reassurance for you @sarahroo29. I like the positive attitudes from everyone about how to handle this.

Let me ask you if you've ever seen the movie "What Dreams May Come," with Robin Williams. About Robin's character seeking his soul mate in the after life after he has died which was preceded by his children's deaths. There our multiple references to "how you want to be seen is how you're viewed in this after life invironment. One of his guides is a Younger looking Stewardess. Turns out that this stewardess is actually his daughter's spirit; she comments that she chose to be seen as this stewardess because of an off the cuff comment made by her Father about how attractive that stewardess was. My point is that sometimes, we have been introduced to a standard and are unable to reconcile our image with that standard; a lot of people here have said similar things.

Is it possible that you are holding onto an image, standard, or something else as a result of some earlier indirect comments, actions, or anything else?

By asking the question you have insicated you want things to change. What do you think you would do to change what your Ideal/standard is? More importantly what will you do? Are you the type that would just blow off the comments or tell then to F-Off even if a little less profane?

A lot of good suggestions here already. I guess I'll speak from my own experience. We're all fucked up. The only difference is some of us don't know it, or don't want to know it, and the rest of us know it and are at least trying to do something about it. It sounds like you are in the second group. That might sound unimportant but figuring out that you have some issues and at least attempting to do something about it is a HUGE step. I'm not gonna blow smoke and tell you do this or that and it will all go away because odds are you'll have that self-negating perspective, to some degree or another, for the rest of your life. I know I still do. That doesn't mean I'm not changing my behavior. It just means I've realized that this fucked up behavior is so deep and was learned so young it will always be a part of me. It is one of my limitations. A limitation that I struggle and fight pretty much every day of my life. That's another lesson I've learned. As you can tell from all these helpful suggestions there are so many different ways to fight for your emotional health. If one doesn't work after awhile try another but keep fighting. This is also something you will need to take time for. No one ever 'finds' time for anything. If you want time to do something you must TAKE the time. Also try to surround yourself with good and helpful people otherwise the negativity will make things even worse. After years of trying so many different things I've settled on 12-step groups and a good therapist. I hope I've been helpful and not too much of a downer. I've learned to embrace my limitations. It's a gift that reminds me I'm just another fucked up human being. One of billions.

I laugh at mine, it/they get(s) embarrassed then runs and hides..

I was dicussing this very subject with a friend of mine last night and what I told her is what I would tell you. Be the best person you can, be kind and thoughtful. wash regulaly. Then the rest of the world can take you as they find you or do one. As to beating yourself up about stuff. Take pride in your own atchievments, be they ever so humble. You have your own place, which you keep nice. You hold down a job, youre going to collage to better yourself. Thats just the little things that I already know about you, there must be many more that you can come up with?

Sweetie, your posts are very well put, and intelligent - I seriously love the way you come accross , gentle and kind - One of the things I like to tell myself every now and then is "What other people think and feel about me is none of my business!" there will always be people out there who feel the need to put us down because they feel threatened in some way by innocence and beauty they cannot find within themselves, but we all have to find our own way out of that mire - Consider that the people who are putting you down are only trying to put themselves up by using that technique. Ignore the pinpricks and see if you can getover them a bit faster each day - shoulder shrugging might work as if youre brushing off the unkindness. 'Nolite bastardes carborundorum'

You are an intelligent hot bit of stuff.

It is hard to retrain your thinking after you have been in a certain thinking pattern most of your life. I found it takes some time but can be done. In the past when I recieved compliments, I also would never believe them. Instead of accepting compliments, I would just point out all all the negative things.
Now I try to just say "thank you" if someone says something nice. It is a happy moment and I try to be present in that moment with them.
Also try to focus on what you are good at. Many of those negative comments are just peoples opinions and they don't define who you are.

Stop letting other people define who you are. Nobody is perfect. I guess Jesus was close and look what it got him. I have read some of your posts and you seem intelligent and more important than that, you seem very nice. If you don't like yourself how do you expect others to like you. Be confident with who you are. No one Is liked or appreciated by everybody.

It takes a LOT of effort to change the way you think about anything but it certainly can be done. It takes time. Consider how say advertising works. You continually bombard people with a message and eventually they take that message on board. The message of almost all advertising is pretty consistent. You are lacking in some way ( you're fat, skinny, wrong car, job.... etc) and only such and such product will allow you to be happy.
On the surface we can all quite quickly see how silly that is BUT those things are so deeply ingrained into our psyche that letting them go takes quite a bit of doing. After all society has spent 20 or 30 years telling you your shit. It's going to take a lot of time and energy for you to counter that. And perhaps even longer for you to realise that your ugly, your beautiful so what? None of that really matters or makes you happy. We are all going to end up old and wrinkly (I'm there now ) with bits that don't work quite as well as they used to. Happiness is not an accidental function of hair colour or the geometry of my face.... Happiness (imo) is a very deliberate result of living a good life.

I started a FB group for positive thoughts. It's small but our members believe in ourselves and the we are enough. We don't need to conform to what we think the world expects of us. It's called I Am Enough! [facebook.com]