“Why Do I Feel So Unloveable?” (And the Best Therapies That Help)
By: Leon F. Cabeiro
Do you leave every relationship sure that the other person never really loved you? Always struggle to feel accepted by colleagues? Or, despite having many friends, do you secretly feel that nobody actually likes you?
Feeling unloveable can be a crushing weight, often one we deal with alone and are too ashamed to tell anyone.
Feeling unloveable and core beliefs
You might think you feel unloveable because of other people. You choose partners badly, the people at work are all idiots, you just can’t trust anyone these days.
But you are the one repetitively choosing these types of people and experiences. Somehow you are creating a life where you feel unloveable. What makes this endless cycle continue?
Feeling unloveable is actually what is known in psychology as a ‘core belief’.
A core belief is an assumption (often hidden deep within ourselves) we make about the world then mistake as a fact. It can sound like:
- I am not good enough to be loved
- I am too ugly/stupid/flawed/damaged to be loved
- There is something really wrong with me that means nobody can love me
- love is for other people, not me
- I am a monster that nobody can love.
The core belief lives in your unconscious, where it encourages you to live from a perspective that it dictates.
And the perspective of your core belief becomes the place you make all decisions from. So in the end, you prove the core belief true without even realising it is you doing so. You live up to your own warped expectations.
By: Félix Batista
For example, if you have a core belief that you are unloveable, you will probably have a strong pattern in life of choosing partners who are emotionally unavailable. A person who did not have a core belief they were unloveable would walk away from such a situation.
But you will instead use the experience to ‘prove’ to yourself that you are yet again unloveable. In fact if someone loving did come along, you would probably find a reason to reject them.
What creates the belief you are unloveable?
Most core beliefs are created when we are children. We form them to understand our experiences and protect ourselves.
Childhood trauma is a leading cause of adults feeling unloveable. This might have been the loss of a parent or sibling, being abandoned or neglected by a parent, having a mentally unwell or addicted parent.
Childhood sexual abuse in particular leaves children with a damaged view of themselves. Even though they are the victim, their mind turns the tables and leaves them with a secret sense of guilt, or a sense they are damaged and now nobody can love them.
Had a seemingly perfect childhood but feel unloveable? Children need unconditional love, empathy, and acceptance to grow up into adults who feel loved. If, despite outward appearances, your main caregiver was, say, depressed and controlling, prone to ignoring you, or only showed you love if you were a ‘good girl’ or ‘quiet boy’, then you can end up believing you are unloveable as is.
Connected psychological conditions
Feeling unloveable might ‘sound’ like not a big deal. But it is a very serious matter. It can be a a contributing cause for many other psychological conditions and is sadly a leading cause of suicide. Other issues and disorders it is connected to include:
- depression and anxiety
- low self-esteem
- fear of intimacy and trust issues
- repressed anger
- codependency or counter-dependency
- fear of abandonment
- relationship issues
- lack of identity or identity crisis
- perfectionism
- addictive behaviours including alcoholism and drugs
- eating disorders and overeating
- social anxiety disorder
- borderline personality disorder.
What can I do if I feel unloveable?
The key thing to learn here is that feeling unloveable tends to be a belief, not a fact. And a belief can be challenged then changed.
Remember, too, that it’s actually your own decisions supporting this false belief. This means that if you find support to learn new ways of behaving, you’ll find that even small changes can move you towards love instead of away from it.
Feeling unloveable often connects to difficult childhood experiences that need processing, so finding support is recommended.
[To learn strategies for feeling more loveable you can try alone, sign up to our blog now to receive an alert when we post the next piece in this series, ‘Simple techniques to help you feel more loveable starting today’. ]
What types of therapy can help me if I feel unloveable?
All talk therapies tend to help you with feeling more likeable.
This is because therapy is actually a relationship, one that grows between you and your therapist. And it’s a relationship that helps you experience (perhaps for the first time) what it’s like to trust and be trusted.
Schema therapy and dialectical behavioural therapy are particularly recommended longer-term therapies if you struggle to have lasting relationships. They are both also noted for treating those with borderline personality disorder or who suffered sexual abuse.
Several newer, shorter-term therapies are also helpful with changing core beliefs about being loveable. Cognitive behavioural therapy is the most popular. The CBT process trains your brain to recognise and no longer instantly react but to negative thoughts. This frees you to make a positive action instead of spiralling into a spiral of negative moods and actions.
Cognitive analytical therapy (CAT) and dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) also look at your patterns of thinking and behaving, but they both have a focus on your relationships.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) focuses on helping you notice, accept, and embrace life and yourself. It also focuses on helping you recognise what your personal values are, then take the actions needed to align your life with them.
Curious to try one of the talk therapies mentioned above? Harley Therapy can you connect you with a warm, empathic and experienced psychotherapist in one of four London locations. Not in the UK? Skype therapy helps you wherever you are.
Would you like to share an experience with our readers, or ask us a question? Use the public comment box below.
I have always thought I was unloveable even though I have been very succesful in my life. People see something in me that I don’t and show me lots of praise tell me how well I can do something but I aways think they are lying. When I’m in a realationship I have a hard time excepting that they really just might like me. It is a horrible way to live always not trusting anyone for the fear of them letting you down.
Hi Terry, it is indeed a horrible way to live, and sadly far too many of us live this way nowadays. Any advice of ‘love yourself’ really is pointless, as if the core belief exists we aren’t loveable, it doesn’t stick. And yes, no amount of success will help. There are a few things we’d say here. Yes, we would recommend therapy. Not just because we are a therapy company, but because deep beliefs of being unloveable always go back to traumatic childhood experiences, even if it was just that a parent, despite best efforts, could not love us unconditionally in the way we desperately needed. Processing these old hurts and experiences is really the fastest way forward. Otherwise, we’d suggest you read our piece on Self Compassion (use the search bar). It’s easier than self love. Then look at self care. What little ways can you take care of yourself better? Finally, have you tried mindfulness? It is easy to learn and free, and can have real results for helping us get more in touch with ourselves. We have a free guide here https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/mindfulness-help-guide.htm. Hope it helps!
I understand that some beliefs I have are probably true and others are probably not true. I have to ask, then, is it not possible (even if it’s not likely) that if my unlovability is a belief, that it could be true? I mean true in an objective, disinterested kind of way, not in a “I shape my own reality” kind of way. If the reply is that no, that scenario is impossible, please provide some irrefutable proof. Thanks!
Hi Scott, if you decide to be unloveable, you are then going to decide to act in ways that push others away, thus creating ‘proof’ you are unloveable. Note that loveability is not something we are born with, it’s not a personality trait, or something you see under the microscope, or some scientific rating stamped in invisible ink on your forehead. It’s a result of how we relate with others. How we relate with others is a choice and also a skillset. If we were not taught the skills, we can learn them. If we were born with personality traits that make relating a bit more challenging, like Aspergers, we can still learn them. Robots can learn relating. We can entirely change the way we relate to others if we decide to study how we relate, other ways of relating, and then slowly start integrating other ways of relating (which yes, is something these therapies mentioned help with). In conclusion, lovability is not a science, it’s a choice. So actually you are shaping your own reality. We create our lives with our choices and actions. You make the irrefutable truth, nobody else. And its’ not related to looks, wealth, etcetera. Mother Theresa had nothing at all, she was not a looker, and yet she was one of the most loved people in the world, for example. Finally, where do you think this belief comes from? It was created. No baby is born with the belief in their head that ‘I am unloveable’. They are taught that. Best, HT.
How am I not unlovable. My twin sister wants to kill me along with the rest of my family. Now my husband says he doesn’t know if he loves me anymore. Just because I was sexually abused as a child doesn’t mean that is why. I just am unlovable.
Hi Hannah. It’s not up to your twin, or your husband, or your family to decide if you are or aren’t loveable. Note how you are expecting others to decide that. But it never was up to them. It is only up to you. You decide your self worth. And right now it sounds like you need some serious support to develop some. Have you considered counselling? If you are on a low budget, we have an article you can read for ideas on how to find free to low cost counselling here http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy Best, HT.
Can childhood trauma also be from being ostracized from friend groups? It really through me for a loop at 10 years old and set me on this road of loneliness and not trusting others.
I’ve had therapy and it’s helped but it still seems to crop up in my life. As well other examples of feeling unimportant and perhaps unlikeable to others after that.
Hi Shelley, we don’t know you and we can’t answer based on a comment. Trauma is a complex topic, and each person’s brain registers things as ‘traumatic’ in a way that is entirely individual. For example, two siblings can have the exact same experience, say, of a parent leaving. One registers it as traumatic, the other bounces back quickly from the experience. What we would say is that 10 is quite old for it to have been your root reason for trust issues. That it’s more likely you already had a set of core beliefs that were developed earlier that this experience then triggered. For example, a child with a very stable loving home would have a high chance of bouncing back from peer rejection and quickly finding other friends as they’d have had confidence and someone to talk to. You say you’ve ‘had therapy’. That actually tells us very little. What sort of therapy did you do and how long did you stick at it? Did you like the therapist? Therapy requires commitment to work, you have to stick it out. And it also requires a ‘click’ with the therapist. When it comes to trauma, it’s important to get the right kind of therapy. General counselling, just talking about the past, can, for example, backfire and leave you simply triggered. Read our article on therapies that work for trauma. http://bit.ly/therapyfortrauma. It’s also important that a therapist also works with your actual, current issues with being unliked, and looks at your process of relating. Often when we have trust issues from early childhood they are attachment issues, and we can, without realising it, approach relationships in ways that encourage rejection. We go too fast, we ask for too much, we expect relationships to provide us with things that are our own responsibility, such as feeling accepted and good about ourselves. Or we present a self that isn’t actually who we are in an effort to please, then leave others uncertain or confused. All things to trouble shoot with the right therapist. Best, HT.