Ehhh. The usual story. I was raised in family which taught me that I’m loveable if I act the right way. I still felt like I wasn’t enough. My own mom told me I’m not pretty.
I spent my 20s in abusive relationships. I tried so hard to make them love me. In some dimension, I know I’m not ugly, I take care of my body, hair, makeup and nails and I have a good career. I make guys at work laugh all the time and I know I’m somewhat funny. But I just can’t let myself to think that someone would or could actually love me the way I am. Maybe for the things I do. I just don’t know how to fix that?
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For me, it’s been therapy. I started this activity where I plot my negative and positive memories from age 1 to current, and label how they make me feel. Sooo many core memories are rooted in other people telling me all about myself, and me believing I’m not good enough. So I’m learning what parts of me are MINE, and what parts (like my low self-esteem) were pushed onto me by others. It’s going to be a loooong journey to healing but I finally feel like I’m starting somewhere.
It’s cliche but you have to learn to love yourself, flaws and all. Therapy can help, words of affirmation (to yourself) can help, but it’s a long road to self acceptance and self love, and it’s something you have to work on daily.
DBT and EMDR have helped me.
Therapy. I had the same problem and it honestly took me years in therapy to get over it.
For dating, I had a big break when I realized I was picking the wrong guys to date. I was dating guys with avoidant attachment styles not because I thought they would make good partners but because if they “picked me” I was worthy of being loved. Men who were secure did not fill that validation I so desperately needed, so I was uninterested.
Once I realized that, I stopped dating for a while, reset a little, and was more aware of my choices. Things changed after that in a positive way.
The good thing about being an adult is we don’t have walk the same path we were dragged on as children.
Once you realise the old path wasn’t right, you’re no longer bound to it. All other paths open up to you. So it’s then a choice: you decide you’re loveable and enough.
Maybe write down what this means to you. It could be the opposite of how you were treated in the past that’s a good place to start, then expand on that. Then accept only what you deem acceptable, and walk away from it what isn’t.
It’s a process but it starts with you deciding.
I’m so sorry you’ve gone through all that. When we are told that our beauty and worth is tied to the way society deems “acceptable”, it’s super hard to grow out of that internalized misogyny. There are few things you can try: get a professional therapist to help you rediscover your self esteem. Secondly, start having some girl friends who can be your support system to acknowledge and encourage your self worth. They’ll all go a long way to improve your confidence in yourself.
Back in the early 2000’s when I was a teenager the answer was always “you have to love yourself”. Therapy taught me how to do that. CBT and DBT specifically.
Highly recommend the book Self Compassion by Kristin Neff.
Therapy and spending time on your own. Honestly with the being taught to perform for love you get lost in the sauce of everyone else around you to be liked to be wanted. Being alone let’s you pay attention to that little kid inside of you. So when you date you can feel worth those needs and express them.
It takes time it’s not linear it’s an easy thing to fall into.
Therapy and tuning out the shit. Alone time and loving me. I’m great and I could give no fs about what others think
I’m good to others but I’m also great to myself
You literally have to gaslight yourself.
It’s more than just making a decision and spending time alone. Therapy is a long, difficult process and not everyone has the time or can can afford it. None of it is wrong, all of that is good advice.
Do those things too. And review the past in your mind. You need to give yourself some time to “sit with your feelings.” Like, really relive your past trauma in your mind, while also observing it from your current place as an adult. Have compassion for your former self.
As humans, it is our nature to turn away from negative emotions and feelings because they are unpleasant. The pathway forward is to get more uncomfortable for a short time so you can work through that discomfort and no longer be burdened by it. It puts you into a better place than where you started.
It may take you a long time. You may start and stop and start again. It can bring up other strange feelings or memories that surface at inconvenient times. Make note of them, then further examine these during your “alone time.” You may even want to schedule this time for yourself as if it was your therapy appointment. Making notes can be helpful. Some people like to journal as they go through this process, or rather, go through this process by journalling.
It is tough and takes a lot of fortitude. It is what therapy is getting you to do, and the therapist is there to guide you to stay with those uncomfortable feelings. But it may be something that you can start working on, on your own. Maybe you will be able to do therapy, maybe you won’t. Good luck!
I know it sounds basic, but you start working on loving yourself and becoming someone you like by your own standards, not the standards of others. And what follows that is you then set standards for what you find lovable in others and decide what you deserve and can accept from those that say they love you.
As lots of others have said – therapy. I used to be terrified of commitment (and I’m still working on it) but I’m a lot better than I was. I’d go for the typical bad boy/ emotionally unavailable because in my head it’s only surface level. Any nice guys I’d actively sabotage a relationship with them because if I liked them, I knew they could hurt me. I have a bad long term health issue a previous partner said they couldn’t deal with so I spent my early 20s avoiding anything meaningful because I didn’t think I’d ever get there.
Honestly, my wake up call was meeting my current partner. He saw me like some cornered feral cat and realised it was all just because I was scared. He took the time to see past it and was the one to encourage me into therapy. He supported me when I had moments when I wanted to “run” out of worry.
I’d definitely recommend working on therapy first before finding someone but having his support alongside and that security made me able to calm down my constant stress response and actually start to trust what he was saying. X
I’m in the same boat, which led me to choose a bad marriage. I think you’re strong and brave to realize this now. So much of healing comes from this type of analysis of understanding where our pain is rooted and how that locks us into destructive patterns.
I don’t have much professional guidance on this, and I haven’t done therapy lately, but it helps me to really pay attention to my self-talk. Our narrative is whatever we tell ourselves. We can choose where we assign meaning and what we believe. I’ve been enjoying the book worthy by Jamie Kerr Lima. I also use positive self affirmations and try to surround myself with good people rather than those who reinforce negative beliefs. Hang in there, you deserve love!
Oh sweetheart… my heart aches reading this, and I want you to hear this loud and clear: you were never the problem.
You were simply taught to believe love had to be earned, performed for, or deserved through suffering — and that’s a damn lie.
You are already loveable, just as you are — not because of what you do, not because of how well you play the part, but because you’re you. Soft and strong, hurting and trying, funny and radiant. That little girl inside you, the one who was told she wasn’t enough? She deserved tenderness. She still does.
Learning to love yourself doesn’t happen overnight — but start small. Let yourself rest without guilt. Let someone compliment you and try not to brush it off. Start asking: “What if I didn’t have to earn love — what if I just got to receive it?”
Because the truth is, someone out there — and you yourself — will fall for the whole, unfiltered, imperfectly perfect you.
And babe, when that day comes? You’ll never chase scraps again.
Therapist here, so wanted to thank all of the commenters suggesting therapy! I think it could really help address how your past experiences and traumas inform your internal narrative and help you to work on adjusting it in a healthy way. The fact that you’re even asking this question is a huge step. Hang in there and do the hard emotional work; you are worth it.
Your value comes from who you are as a person and not what you can do for others. I relate, and it’s a very difficult internal belief to overcome. As others have stated, therapy can help. Reading helps me, too. “Too Much: Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependence” is a good book I read recently that helped a lot with this.
I still struggle to advocate and maintain boundaries with my family because they are so emotionally manipulative. I also had a slew of severely abusive relationships. My current partner is so wonderful. When he does things for me, it’s hard not to get scared of what the “repercussions” might be later. So far, there haven’t been any… He hasn’t held anything against me as ammo, nor has he “punished” me in any way, and he wants to support me by helping me get my needs met so I can be successful. It feels weird (but good). I do often have to remind myself that I’m worth loving so that I can accept his love.
Also, and this may sound weird, but BrainHQ games help. Highly recommend to check them out!
Therapy and meds, and learning to ask for what I want and what I deserve.
They say… get friends who uplift and energize you. Do things you loved to do when you were 8-9 years old. Love yourself the way you always wished to be loved. Live your best life. Do a career you love. Get hobbies you love. Fall in love with life.
But hey, we’re all trying..
This is going to sound silly, but I ultimately decided I needed to treat myself as if I am loveable, whether I believed it or not at any given moment. I was going to take care of myself like I actually did deserve to feel good and enjoy life and have fun. I started dreaming about what a happy life would look like if I stayed single and started working towards that dream. And decided I wasn’t going to let any man into my life who didn’t contribute to that happiness.
It wasn’t an overnight cure. But it slowly changed the way I think of myself. And it wholly changed the way I dated. No bs, no chasing approval, no second chances. I decided I was in charge of my worth and I acted like I was and eventually I began to consistently believe it.
To feel loved you need to enforce some boundaries with the men you engage with. Its all about choosing the right man who want to love you rather than making a man love you who doesn’t want you as much in the first place .
Who do I need to be enough for? Maybe they should be ‘enough’ for me instead? For the most part, I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, etc. The rest of the world will just have to deal with it.
What you shared is so incredibly honest. It takes so much strength to even put that into words. I can feel the little girl inside you who just wanted to be loved for who she is. Its so deep and it doesn’t just go away overnight.. not at all. it’s engraved in the brain.
When I read this, I wonder what would it look like if you started giving that love to yourself now. And not to like fix anything, but to kind of start reparenting that part of you that still wonders if you’re enough – to become the safe place that the little girl inside wants so bad?
Self-worth comes from not just the outside.. it’s believing you’re worthy on the inside – and sometimes, when we have small wounds from the past, relationships can make them big. So the healing isn’t about doing more. It’s about unlearning the lie that you had to earn love in the first place.. Happy to chat more woman to woman, just dm me 🙂