[DepressedMyself]

I do not agree with this philosophy, there has been certain things that have happened in my life that makes me unable to love myself. I know that my self esteem will never get to a point where I would be comfortable with myself, but that does not mean that I would broadcast it to potential relationships. I try to be a very generous person, I always take myself last for others simply because it is in my best interests. But, despite that, nothing comes out of it, simply because my self esteem is not high enough for their standards. Why does it have to be this way? What is wrong with acknowledging that you value yourself less in comparison to others?

[CANDC]

This article helped me put things in perspective.
Building Self-Esteem | Psych Central

[hjames]

I agree with calling foul on this commonly dispensed snippet. Particularly when it is applied to someone struggling to find a relationship. As if all people that are part of couples have perfect self-esteem!

Originally Posted by hjames

I agree with calling foul on this commonly dispensed snippet. Particularly when it is applied to someone struggling to find a relationship. As if all people that are part of couples have perfect self-esteem!

They don't. I have little to no self-esteem and I'm in a relationship. And even though I struggle to love myself at all, I love him very much. It's a lie that you can't love someone without loving yourself first. In fact, there may be more truth to the opposite: if someone shows you love (not necessarily just within a romantic relationship, you would HOPE that that would come from your parents), then you learn that you are worthy of love and you can learn to love yourself.

These sorts of phrases keep people with low self-esteem DOWN. I don't know how they help at all. I guess people with high self-esteem don't understand that telling someone with low self-esteem that they can't have something they desperately need because of their low self-esteem will just make them beat themselves up further.

In my honest opinion, most people who strut around claiming that "love solves everybody's problems" or "love yourself to love others" like it's so easy are little more than self righteous pompous individuals who have never had to suffer or struggle in their lives.

Fact of the matter is that many of the most damaged people are some of the kindest and most loving people one could ever meet because they know what it's like to truly suffer, therefore, they learn to truly cherish and appreciate those closest to them in such a matter that a normal person would be incapable of and as a result, they usually go out of their way to make those they cherish the most happy so that their loved ones don't suffer as they suffer.

[DepressedMyself]

I cannot help to feel that there are a lot of people who where lucky in finding a relationship, and that they seem to have a better life than I do. When they say that I have to love myself first, they do not seem to rationalize that other people have different perspectives than they do, and think that their logic can be applied to someone that is not as well off as they are.

[WifeofBPD]

Perhaps what they actually mean is that you have to respect yourself first. In order to be in a relationship, you have to know the limits of behavior that you will tolerate. No one should put themselves intentionally in an abusive relationship and on the flip side of that, should care enough about themselves to leave the relationship if it does become abusive.

~S~

Respecting oneself makes more sense than loving oneself.

I don't understand the concept of loving oneself, but do believe self compassion is important. In my experience love is something we have and give to others, it's 'outward' rather than 'inward' if that makes sense.

My self-esteem isn't the best for various reasons but I am loved, I do believe I was lucky to find the right partner for me and that some people are simply unlucky.

[Walking Man]

I also think that you have to feel loved before you can feel loveable.

I don't like the "love yourself first" thing either. It's self centered. People are made to have relationships with other people. We reach our potential with the love and support of our friends and family. You can't reach your potential first, or become whole first, and then seek out relationships. If we were complete, or "loved ourselves" first, we wouldn't need to love anyone else.

I do think it's true though that low self esteem can make you feel worthless and unacceptable. Those feelings can make it difficult to be open to relationships with other people. If you feel bad about yourself you tend to push people away.

[DepressedMyself]

Originally Posted by WifeofBPD

Perhaps what they actually mean is that you have to respect yourself first. In order to be in a relationship, you have to know the limits of behavior that you will tolerate. No one should put themselves intentionally in an abusive relationship and on the flip side of that, should care enough about themselves to leave the relationship if it does become abusive.

~S~

Fair enough. That should be said instead of "loving yourself". I understand and empathize the boundaries of what I will and what I will not tolerate in a relationship, but that does not mean that I value myself in any credible way, I simply do so because my life is already bad enough.

[ScientiaOmnisEst]

Was going to post this in the depression forum but it might as well go here.

Self-love always seems impossible. How can you be so delusional as to,love yourself when there re clearly others out there who are smarter, more attractive, more successful, just generally better? For me this can transmute into obsession with intelligence or giftedness, or anxiety about things like transhumanism or genetic engineering (basically things that will leave me even further behind, make me Ben worse by comparison, unless I make alterations I'm deathly afraid of making and/or risk losing myself somehow...fears that just make me even less loveable).

Ack, I went off there. I was actually trying to get to something else: a growing belief that I can never love myself until someone demonstrates that I'm worth it. Until someone loves me, basically. I don't see how it can work any other way, since self-acceptance and love seems so impossible.

[starryprince]

I never agreed with this saying. I went on a rant about it on my blog, haha. I think it's a very selfish thing to say, and it's very discouraging. You cannot tell this to someone who is depressed and expect that to make them work towards bettering themselves. It has the opposite effect. People need to understand that not everyone will like themselves, and that is okay. Not everyone has the perfect life, you know? People go through hardships that may break them down and they may have a hard time building themselves back up. This saying just makes it sound like people won't even give us the time of day unless we exude our self-love. A lot of people have told me that and it just gets me down because it's hard for me to love myself. I know I am worth people's time and that I'm a good person, but it took me such a long time to get to this point. Years and years. And somedays I go back to feeling worthless.

If someone does not love you because you do not love yourself, then they are not the right person for you. A person who truly loved you would try their best to make you see that you are worthy of love and acceptance.

[shezbut]

I wanted to add my personal experience to this thread, as I hope that it may be helpful to others.

I have always struggled with my self-esteem. Even when I was a young child, I disliked myself intensely. I've seen all sorts of T's, and tried to work through all of my emotions and finally accept myself. I did have a rather difficult childhood, which complicates matters. I was convinced that me loving others could and should come before caring for myself.

What I am now *finally* able to see is that I have limits on who I can be with. My limits are rather low & I have recognized that I'm unwilling to go any lower. Finally ~ I've hit a "tender spot" towards myself! Not only am I unwilling to go any lower, I also feel that I've gone too low now & I need to pull myself up. I've been with this man for several years, he hasn't changed during our time together. What has changed is me. My perspective has finally changed, and now I can see that I couldn't have been "in love" with my ex-hub (or ex-bf's).

How can I be so sure? Well, when I didn't feel their love, devotion, or interest in me, I shot into paranoia and quickly left the relationships. While I was with my ex-hub for 18 years, he fed my neediness for many years. Until we had kids, in fact. And then, he pulled away (to devote a lot of his time & energy to either our girls or his work). I sank into a very deep depression and our marriage began crumbling away. After one year, I found my current bf.

I hope that I didn't delve too deeply into my experiences in this post.
Just hoping that you can see the difference in thought process ~ where I was, and where I am now. A little voice inside of my head actually whispered, "Good job"!

[Walking Man]

I think that love is always for someone or something outside yourself. It draws you out towards another. So, you can't really love yourself properly speaking. You can however accept yourself for who you are, in spite of your flaws, which is like love. I imagine you do have to accept yourself somehow to love someone else. It seems that if you are never accepting of yourself it would be difficult to give or accept love. I don't mean you have to think you are awesome, but at least feel well enough to give and accept love. When we are young (and older) we really need someone to show us love first. Then we can see we are worthy of love, and can accept ourselves. This is why I find the "love yourself first" thing insulting. It's like a lot of easy, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, philosophies. First of all you can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it's impossible. Then someone who hasn't had a particular problem tells you you either don't have that problem, or it's all your fault. As far as I can see people with low self esteem, including myself, don't want to love ourselves we want to be loved by others. I think we can learn to accept ourselves better, but not in isolation.

[AllHeart]

"To love others, you must love yourself first"

I also disagree. I finally have allowed myself to love someone. To give my heart to someone else and love them selflessly has actually been able to help me be more accepting of myself and raise my self worth. It's still a far cry for me to love myself, but for the first time ever, I don't completely hate myself.