I’ve always been suspicious of people who say you have to love yourself first.
They say it like a sermon. Like a moral hygiene rule. As such, self-love is a prerequisite course you either pass or fail before being admitted to intimacy. As if desire were a gated community. As if loneliness could be disciplined from the nervous system.
But my body disagrees.
I have the receipt on my body.
Attachment theory gave me language for something I already knew in my bones: that the self is not born sovereign. It is held to be born. Or not held. And that difference resonates.
We don’t come into the world with self-love pre-installed. We come up with the image. Open that with the mouth. With skin that learns, very quickly, whether reaching is rewarded or punished. Before I knew my name I knew if comfort had come. Before I thought, I had expectations. This is not romance. This infrastructure.
John Bowlby called them Internal working model. I call them operating systems of love. They run quietly in the background, making decisions based on what they think is possible. Whether intimacy feels nurturing or threatening. Whether being seen feels like security or exposure. Whether the request is allowed to expire.
People like to talk about attachment styles as if they were personality quirks. anxious avoider safe Clever label. Clear box. But attachment is not aesthetic. It’s visceral. It’s the difference between resting in someone’s presence and bracing for disappearance. It’s your nervous system treating love like food or a test.
I didn’t grow up learning that love exists.
So of course I studied it.
Of course I turned the desire into a research project.
Of course I learned to read text, tone changes, reaction times, silences.
Of course I learned to eroticize the act of understanding.
Want to become an intellectual. Hunger became evident. If I can’t be chosen effortlessly, I will be chosen impressively.
It’s a worrisome attachment, but it makes it clear. Make it funny. Make it destructive.
The research agrees with what my body already suspected: people with insecure attachment styles carry negative self-representations. low self-esteem A lingering sense that love is conditional, revocable, earned through performance. We don’t feel loved – we feel monitored. Every relationship becomes an evaluation. Each touch asks a question: Am I still allowed?
And yet.
The same research betrays the lie at the heart of the self-love culture. Because where does secure attachment come from? Not confirmation. Do not prompt journaling. Whispering by candlelight is not a single ritual. Secure attachment comes from being securely attached to someone. From the experience of being seen again and again. from continuity. from repair.
You learn that you are lovable because someone loves you well.
While most would say I’m avoidant, theory would say I’m disorganized — anxious and avoidant woven together. But I resist the implication of chaos. What looks like inconsistency is actually memory. I learned to adapt because adjustment keeps me closer to love. If that requires a label, fine. Otherwise I will live without one.
Disorganized attachment Often misunderstood as chaos. It doesn’t. It’s intelligence under pressure. This happens when intimacy and danger come from the same source. When the body learns that love needs calibration. You don’t just want to – monitor you. You don’t just connect – you evaluate.
Avoidant attachment is often praised as freedom. But abstinence is not freedom; It is armor research showing that avoidant individuals suppress attachment needs, reduce intimacy, and overidentify with self-reliance. It looks composed. feels lonely
Anxious attachmentConversely, loneliness that speaks volumes.
Both stem from the same soil: inconsistency. Love that came unexpectedly. Take care of the necessary explanations. That affection feels earned.
So when I say we can’t love ourselves until someone loves us first, I’m not arguing for dependency. I am arguing for honesty.
Self-love is not invented. It is internalized.
This is the part people don’t like to admit. It sounds very dependent. Very unromantic. Very close to the need. But facts are stubborn. Psychological well-being is associated with secure attachment. Attachment was not conceived. Live attachment. Someone answered. Someone stayed. No one punished at will.
I don’t believe we love ourselves in isolation. I believe we internalize love. We metabolize it. We first borrow it, then gradually, if we’re lucky, we make it ours.
This is why breakups feel like identity theft.
When someone who co-regulates your nervous system leaves, they don’t just take their body with them. They take the mirror you were learning to see yourself through. All of a sudden, the old scripts wake up. fear Self-doubt. Again the urge to prove worth.
The internet is full of people admitting in raw, unvarnished language:
I don’t know who I am without being chosen.
I thought I was healed until they stopped texting.
I hate how much I need reassurance.
They are not weak people. These are people whose attachment systems were built in scarcity. Those who learn early that people jerk.
The internet loves to pathologize them. Heal your anxious attachment. Stop seeking validation. Choose yourself.
As if the problem itself is desire.
But attachment theory never said that the need for attachment was a defect. It’s a truth told. A biological one. mammal ancient Your nervous system was built for communication. Your body expects control through relationships. It won’t break you. It makes you human.
The problem is not that we want love. The problem is that we’ve been taught to ask for it from people who can’t safely give it.
Avoidant attachment is not the opposite. It turns the same wound inwards. Sadness with a good posture.
So when I say we can’t love ourselves until someone loves us first, I’m not arguing for dependency. I am arguing for accuracy.
Self-love is not invented. I remember
It echoes being held without performance. Image after reacting without explanation. Feeling that your feelings have meaning because someone else considers them real.
This is why safe partners can feel like therapy. Not because they fix you, but because they contradict your worst assumptions. They answer when you expect silence. They don’t punish you for asking for clarity. Over time, your body updates its beliefs. The blueprint changes.
This security is earned. Attachments may change. Research is clear on this. Through consistent, structured relationships, people with insecure attachment styles can develop secure functioning. The nervous system is plastic. love again
But here’s the cruel twist: You often need love to learn how to be loved.
This is where the discourse of self-love collapses into its own fog. You can’t self-soothe your way out of relationship trauma forever. You can build skills. You can cultivate awareness. But at some point, your body needs proof. Not a theory. Not confirmation. experience.
I have learned to speak kindly to myself only after someone has spoken kindly to me and not taken it back. I learned to rest only when someone stayed long enough to disturb my vigilance. I learned that my hunger wasn’t shameful only when no one matched it.
Does that mean I outsource my pricing? no It means my value is reflected back to me until I can hold it myself.
The body is a language. Attachment is its grammar.
And yes, desire complicates everything. Because craving intensifies addiction. It sharpens the stake. When you want someone physically, you’re not just asking to be seen—you’re asking to be accepted. This is why anxious attachment often manifests most violently in romantic and sexual contexts. Will lowers defenses. This exposes the old wiring.
I describe each touch as if it were a philosophical phenomenon because it is. Touch teaches. Touch confirms or destabilizes our theories about love. A hand that lingers says something different than a hand that withdraws. A kiss that carries data in a hurry. A body that relaxes against you is making an argument.
I learned more about my attachment style in bed than in books.
And I’m not ashamed of that.
What I reject is the idea that wanting makes me completely ineffective. Asking how do I know I’m alive? The problem was never the desire. The problem was as inconsistency as intimacy.
So no — I don’t believe we’re supposed to perfect self-love in solitude and then emerge whole. I believe we are meant to practice love with others until it is internalized. The voice that once spoke must learn to speak until proven.
Self-love is not a starting point.
It is a consequence.
And if that offends the self-sufficiency gospel, so be it. To know that I have lived long in a body: we form by who dwells. We heal communication. We learn our value by being valued.
Just theory to pretend not to touch anything else.
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This post was Previously published at medium.com.
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