mongoose said 9 years ago:

Megan,

Feeling love from others doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. The proof of this is if I were to say I met a man today that told me he loves you very very much would that make you feel better? Of course not. Love comes from within and it is a waste to look for it outside ourselves.

Loving yourself, especially in your teenage years, can be difficult if you have low self esteem. You seem very critical of yourself and a question you can ask yourself to help get over this is: If a friend of mine spoke to me the way I sometimes speak to myself, how good a friend would they be? or Would I stay friends with them?

When I was a bit younger than you I struggled with self esteem. I met a girl who’s parents I wanted to impress so I started to do as many nice things for them as I could think of like mowing the lawn or if I was over for dinner I would do the dishes. The reason of course was to gain their blessing to date their daughter but I learned a lesson. I enjoyed doing things for people… not just because they would let me date their daughter but because it made me feel better about myself. I started to do some volunteer work here and there. I tried to perform one random act of kindness to a stranger a day. All of this led to me becoming the kind of person that I could easily love. Now this may or may not help you become the kind of person you want to be that you could easily love but it helped me.

Once you find a way to really love yourself others will love you simply because you are lovable. And lets face it… you are going to be stuck with you the rest of your life so you might as well learn to love yourself as soon as possible!

Think about the kind of person you want to be… the kinds of qualities you look up to in others and then pursue them. Once you love yourself you won’t have a *NEED* for others but I’m certain they will be there and you will enjoy them.

Good luck, I hope this helps!