So my ex urges me to get rid of my attachment to him as a pathological one (I've destroyed his life and now got attached) and instead live for a while without attachments, developing an attachment to self as a step that one just cannot skip on the road to healthy relationships.

So I take it, he is talking about self-love.

I am at my wit's end.

I was not brought up to love myself. My parents always were the first. Let me mention just a couple examples - I do not want to bore you.

At one point, I left a bf for another guy (who would eventually become my first short-lived husband) in a very cruel, in your face way. The bf attempted suicide by OD which landed him in a hospital (I still do not know whether he had bp or schizophrenia but who cares; ultimately several years later he did die of suicide but it was not in connection with me). Maybe a couple of weeks later I did visit him when he was already home. And we were sort of getting there - I clearly remember sitting in his bed in my bra, already without a top (I even remember the bra, it was a nude bra without lace). But... my grandmother called and said that my mother hit depression. I quickly put on my clothes and left. It never occurred to me that my private life should take precedence. It never occurred to me to say "Well, that is too bad, I think you should call her psychiatrist now. I am not a psychiatrist". No, no such thought ever crossed my mind - depressed mother was a command I could not not obey. Period.

From an early age, my mother put me through a torture of forcing me to listen to her regrets, when she was depressed. She even regretted having married my dad - and shared it with me, the product of their union! And it wasn't as if she shared once impulsively - no, it went on and on and on, in sick cycles.

My dad is narcissistic. That says it all. I won't go into examples.

After such upbringing, how am I supposed to love myself???