"Mom, can a person really hate themselves?"
I looked up in great surprise. "What? Why?" (See how articulate I was in this crucial teaching moment?!)
"Oh this guy in a book," (Whew!) My older daughter proceeded to tell me the plot of a novel she had been reading where the main character had been abused, believed that everyone he cared about died (therefore people shouldn't love him), and had come over time to truly hate himself.
