Two of the most common phrases that have been forced down my throat throughout my adventures in therapy (and in high school, and college, and really as a human being living in this world) have been that “nobody can love you until you love yourself” and “you can’t truly love anybody until you love yourself.” These two statements, while well-intentioned, are painfully, cripplingly toxic. What they really say is this: you aren’t worth love, and you aren’t capable of loving.
To say that your ability to be loved lies in your ability to overcome low self-esteem shows a complete misunderstanding of how it feels to actually have low self-esteem. Nobody chooses to feel miserable and uncomfortable with themselves. Nobody wakes up one day and says “Hey, I think I’ll hate myself today!” and, conversely, nobody can wake up one day and say “I don’t hate myself anymore. I’m choosing to not hate myself anymore.” It just isn’t that simple.
You can be loved when your self-esteem is at rock bottom. In fact, you need love most when you hate yourself. And your inability to provide that love for yourself does not render you unworthy of love from others. You are always worthy of love.
Furthermore, nobody learns how to love themselves until they have been loved unconditionally. Bruce D. Perry, a psychologist considered to be an expert in the field of childhood trauma, writes in his book "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog," “For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that ‘unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.’…The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation.”
“The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation” brings me to my next point: a person who has yet to learn to love themselves is in no way incapable of loving other people. Admittedly, this kind of love is different from other types of love—any kind of relationship (romantic, platonic, familial) with a person struggling with low self-esteem will require more validation and more careful attention than would a relationship with a person with healthy self-esteem. But it is still love, and it is still very real.
I fluctuate between loving myself and hating myself—I bounce between the two extremes so frequently it’s dizzying. Those closest to me will always continue to love me, no matter what, and I will continue to love them back.
Do not tell me that I cannot be loved. Do not tell me that I am incapable of loving. Those statements have no bearing on my experience of life; they only stand to say that you have absolutely no understanding of or sympathy for people who struggle like I have.
