The Mental Health of Haters

"A lot has been written about the mental health effects on those who are victims of hate. (For example, see the APA publication: "Hate crimes are on the rise in the U.S. What are the psychological effects?") There's also a lot of published material on why some people hate. But you'll find precious little on the mental health effects of hate on those who hate."

"In my clinical experience, people who hate typically suffer continual agitation and distress, not to mention low grade anxiety and depression. The adrenaline stimulated by hate can mask these conditions at least temporarily. Hate has a way of generalizing. It grows quickly from hating one person to hating others who remind you of that person and eventually to groups of people who remind you of that person. Expressing hate in public, including on social media, amplifies and magnifies it."

"Haters feel like victims, and that blinds them to the poisonous effects they have on others. What's more, the paranoid features of hate make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's hard to react positively to someone who expresses hate. No matter where it starts, hate eventually makes its way into our homes. If you hate a politician, you won't be so patient, kind, compassionate, or loving to your loved ones as you might otherwise have been."

Hate produces continual agitation, distress, low-grade anxiety, and depression in those who harbor it, with adrenaline temporarily masking symptoms. Hatred tends to generalize from one individual to others and to whole groups, and public expression—including on social media—amplifies and magnifies that hatred. Haters often feel like victims, which blinds them to their harm toward others, and paranoid thinking can create self-fulfilling negative interactions. Hate corrodes personal relationships and seeps into homes, reducing patience, kindness, compassion, and love toward family. High self-righteousness often accompanies low self-value, and hate functions psychologically to suppress self-doubt.

Read at Psychology Today