Do you feel worthy of love?

“You really get to know your “loved ones” as well as you know yourself. Or, maybe, it would be more accurate to say as little as you know yourself.”

-Erich Fromm-

These people who consider themselves undeserving of love, what are they like?

It seems like an easy thing to do. It seems that it should be completely natural for one to give and receive love in a healthy and beneficial way. But this can sometimes get complicated, giving way to an uphill task. Human beings are so complicated!

Today we are going to talk about a specific affective style. The affective style of people who don’t consider themselves deserving or worthy of being loved. These are people who see themselves as despicable and, therefore, disappointments. The value they give themselves as people is lousy and loaded with self-loathing. It makes them incapable of seeing anything good within themselves.

They are “unworthy of love”. They don’t feel deserving of affection. Actually, these people see themselves as monsters that should live in solitude and deep ostracism.

But…where does that deep abuse towards oneself come from?

Many times that deep-rooted belief that “I am despicable and no one should love me” has its origin in the most significant relationships and attachments the person has had. These relationships have forged a way of interacting and exchanging affection that is difficult to change. Not only have the person’s emotions been based upon it, their thoughts have been, too.

In some way, these people have built their life based upon this disabling and crippling belief. They make all of their decisions according to it.

Building your life upon the building blocks of “I’m not worthy of love” is a life sentence. It is the most lonely and painful prison that someone can end up in. If I consider myself unworthy of love, I will never seek affection because I do not want to disappoint anybody. In fact, I’ll reject any affection offer to me. I will subtly distance myself so that no one will be able to discover what I believe my true nature to be.

Masks cover the monster I don’t want anyone to see

Thus, I will cover my relationships with multiple masks of deceit. Masks which will camouflage me and allow me to interact with everyone else from a certain distance. If I don’t consider myself lovable, I will not want to show my true essence. If I don’t show off my essence, I will have to manage to show a more attractive face. One that is less disappointing for others.

This is how someone stops being authentic. They lose themselves in that dance of masks and falsehood. They stumble over their own masks. Other people may fall into their trap and fall in love with the someone that they are not. But these masks are made of a material which ends up rotting over time.

If they foresee that they will be discovered, they disappear. They won’t hesitate to excuse themselves with various explanations. Anything so as to not feel so despicable and unworthy again.

Everything goes in this war against yourself. A war which paradoxically seeks to get you to come out as badly as you were before. To not get even more soaked in the rain.

If you think that you don’t deserve love, it will be hard for you to receive it

For these people, any means is good in order to achieve their objective. Their objective is to not let other people discover who they really are. If others discover “how little value they have” (the little value THEY THINK they have), these people will only end up confirming what they believe about themselves. And this will be an even deeper cut that their previous affective wound.

That’s why when someone gives them love or affection, it is uncomfortable for them to simply receive it. Since, in their heads, that love is undeserved. It is undeserved because they don’t truly know them. They only know the mask the person shows the world. This only makes them feel even worse.

That’s why at some point they start preferring people who are not interested in them over people who show curiosity and interest in getting to truly know them.

It is impossible to be happy and live at peace if you don’t truly love yourself

Having this affective style in life is really crippling and exhausting. The person is unable to give love and incapable of letting themselves receive it. They will not be able to have a healthy and fruitful intimacy. Their partner will not understand what they are going through and will suffer due to so much contradiction.

Psychotherapy is a very useful and profound tool when it comes to working out these problems. Since what you have to explore and understand is how this belief came into your life. This way, you will be able to work towards your authenticity.

Others might appreciate the things that you hate about yourself

Because the fact that you consider yourself “undesirable” or “unlovable” doesn’t mean, by extension, that everyone else also perceives you that way. They surely have a much more friendly and permissive view of you than you think…

“You’ll know that they truly love you when you can show yourself as you are without fear of getting hurt.”
-Walter Riso-