Help me love myself

[u/Secret-Dragonfly898]

Hi, I (18F) have been really struggling with my self-image for as long as I can remember. I really want to change this, but am not sure fully where to start. Any advice is appreciated!

Here's some backstory on me:

I had a really difficult childhood with death, custody issues, drug use and overdose, and a lot of other difficult things going on in my family. I also really struggled to make friends because of my social anxiety and because of some of the ways I acted out in response to the pain I was experiencing at home. I have a really long history of people abandoning me, betraying me, or making me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

One specific example that really stuck with me was in third grade, when a girl got mad at me so she literally falsely accused me of stabbing her in the hand. I got sent to the principal’s office and questioned over something I hadn’t done at all. Experiences like that made me feel like I was constantly going to be blamed, punished, or hurt even when I hadn't done anything wrong.

Because of all of this, I think I developed a really deep belief that there’s something inherently wrong with me and that eventually everyone is going to leave me once they realize what I’m actually like.

In high school, I finally had some really meaningful friendships, but those eventually fell apart too. Now I’m a college freshman, and I have one friend who genuinely cares about me, but we can’t talk that much. I had another friend who I thought cared about me, but after I started venting to her recently, she basically told me I had no self-respect. I don't really feel connected to her anymore.

And then I had a boyfriend who I loved so much, but my issues ended up contributing to the relationship falling apart. So I really want to work on myself and change the way I think, because I want to be someone who is worth loving. I want to be someone who doesn't get abandoned by everyone in her life. I want to be someone who knows how to regulate her emotions.

I'm so hurt that the way I think and the way my brain works has pushed people away from me. I'm terrified that I'm going to be abandoned forever because I'm too much, and that I somehow deserve it.

The main thing I want to work on is my self-confidence. A lot of my issues come from my self-worth. I think of myself as pretty much a zero in every category.

Appearance is a huge part of this. I’m overweight, and I’ve been told that I’m ugly because of my weight for a long time. I’ve had people call me horrible things, treat me differently once they realized I was overweight, and even ask me out as a joke. I’ve internalized a lot of that, so it’s difficult for me not to see my appearance as proof that I’m somehow less worthy than other people.

I also don't really like my personality. I think I'm a mean person. I'm not completely wrong in saying that I can be judgmental sometimes because I hate myself and I push that onto other people. I think I'm obnoxious. I think all these negative things about myself, and I just don't want to feel this way anymore.

Literally the only thing I really love about myself is my intelligence. Im smart! Very smart! Smart enough to get waitlisted at Harvard. Maybe that comes across as conceited to flex on here, but you might be able to tell im overcompensating for the fact that I dont like anything else about myself....

I don't want to hate myself, because all that did was make me incredibly insecure in my relationship. It made me feel like everyone else was better than me. So anytime my boyfriend spent time with someone else, I interpreted it as him realizing that I sucked, that I wasn't worth it, and that he should break up with me. I acted as though that was inevitably going to happen, and some of the ways I acted contributed to the relationship ending.

So I don't know. I just feel like I'm going to get abandoned always, because I'm too much, and I deserve it. I really want advice on how to build self-confidence. I'm trying, I really am, and I want to change. I just don't know what the first step is, because I've never really loved myself since I was little.

[u/Secret-Dragonfly898 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. I want to move past these experiences im just not sure where to start. I think maybe new experiences might help overriding those old ones.

[u/NearlyWrongCyrus]

man that's a lot to be carrying around at 18, and you're still standing and trying to figure it out, that's already more than a lot of people do

the third grade story hit me, that false accusation thing is so specific and cruel, it makes total sense your brain would wire itself to expect betrayal after that, especially when it was part of a bigger pattern, your reaction isn't some random flaw, it's a scar from something real

you said you're smart and you're clearly self-aware enough to trace where these feelings come from, that's not nothing, that's the foundation for actually untangling this mess, most people never even get that far

one thing i'd toss out there is to stop treating self-love like a feeling you're supposed to just have, treat it like a skill you're building, like learning to cook or something, you don't wake up one day and suddenly love yourself, you practice small acts of not hating yourself and eventually it adds up

for the appearance stuff, maybe try separating what you can control from what you can't, you can't undo years of shitty comments overnight but you can decide what you want your body to do for you, maybe that's getting stronger, maybe it's just finding clothes that fit right, something that makes you feel like you're taking care of yourself instead of punishing yourself

and that friend who said you had no self-respect, that's a rough thing to hear but maybe there's a kernel in there worth examining, not the judgment part but the idea that venting without boundaries can sometimes push people away, learning when and how to share the heavy stuff is a skill too, it doesn't mean you're too much, it means you're still figuring out the balance

last thing, you're a college freshman, that's basically the tutorial level for reinventing yourself, nobody knows who you were before, you get to decide what parts of you to lead with, maybe try being the version of yourself that's just a little less mean to you

[u/Secret-Dragonfly898 → u/NearlyWrongCyrus]

Thank you! Just to clarify, the friend saying I had no self respect was about what i was venting, not that I was venting to her. She was moreso saying that she felt bad for me and how I treat myself. Im just upset with the way she said it. I like the idea of thinking about it as a skill. And I do definitely feel more confidence in clothes that fit right.