It's funny you say that, because I have a personality disorder which literally makes that impossible. So every time I hear it, I feel this dropping feeling in my stomach. I can't love myself, I literally can't, if I had a great support circle, thousands of dollars of therapy, expensive drugs I don't have insurance for, maybe I'd be able to crawl back but I don't.
Saying "love yourself" is so frustrating to hear, I can't even explain to you how miserable it makes me. I've never been loved by a human in my life, my brain is fucking broken, I FUCKING DESPISE who I am, WHAT I AM. You think I want to be this way? No, which is why killing myself is something I think about on constant loop. A voice in my head screaming PLEASE NO MORE AHHHHHHHHHHH PLEASE AHHH DIE PLEASE KILL Y OURSELF SLIT YOUR WRISTS 24/7 all day every day unless I block it out with something, try and escape for a few minutes. I can't my afford medication anymore, it's not something I can afford and also not be homeless. So stop. Stop telling people that useless platitude. It's makes me so fucking sad
Seek God.
I’m not saying this ironically. The solution is different for everybody, but wallowing in self pity and seeking the love and validation of others is not the way to go. It’s stories like yours that make me feel more and more disgust towards vTubers who prey on this parasocial loneliness phenomenon. Not towards the vTubers themselves, who often are normal people just trying to survive in creative ways in this bleak present, but the companies who commercialized, normalized, and are capitalizing on this dark trend with merch, etc. Looking at you Hololive.
Faith (not in God personally, I became a pretty hardcore Buddhist as its tenets fit much better with my understanding of the boundary between the temporal and the mystical) was my solution, though I’m not sure it will be yours. But it’s better to try something than to just let yourself sink further and further into the abyss. So try going to Church. Even LSD, though I don’t suggest joining them. Mormons are notorious for being extremely kind right up until you become a part of their community. Read and explore the scriptures of eastern faiths. Explore the spiritual philosophy that is being forgotten in this day to day in our pursuit for material and immediate gratification. Do something, anything, to come closer to whatever God is to you. And no, God is not your oshi, and God is certainly not the dark machine that rules our dark society and drives the cogs of the false capitalist dystopia we find ourselves lodged between.
I’m not trying to sound patronizing. Your story legitimately worries me. And just like you, I dislike advice that breeds the narcissistic society we find ourselves in today. It’s so tone deaf that it makes me feel ill as well. No, it’s not about loving yourself as a placebo for the lack of love one feels. It’s about giving your love, in whatever capacity you can feel and understand, to others and the world around you, and learning what love in its purest sense by spreading it. It may be for selfish purposes, but the world is a selfish place. The world is rotten, and you and I are also rotten. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to overcome the poison in our souls. By making the world around us a better place everyday even if little by little, the poison plaguing our own souls too will be dissipated little by little.
Just remember that you are doing it for something, and never expect anyone to reciprocate your good will: You are doing it for yourself and the sanctity of your own existence. Being kind to others does not give you a moral high ground. It gives you a reason and cause for existence that can give you your own salvation. And for many of us in this bleak present, that’s all we really need.