I Thought I Had to Fix Myself to Be Loved: Healing the Wounds of Conditional Self-Worth

Have you ever felt like you were one mistake away from being unlovable? Like you had to perform, perfect, or “fix” yourself just to deserve care? I did for most of my life.

It took me years to realize the love I was chasing wasn’t from others, it was the love I was withholding from myself.

Where It All Began

I grew up in a household where love felt... conditional. Praise came with performance. Affection came after achievement. I don’t blame my parentsthey were doing the best they could with what they had, but their love often felt transactional: "Be good, be quiet, be impressive."

So I became the overachiever. The perfectionist. The “strong one.” The fixer. I smiled when I was hurting. I took care of others before I ever dared ask for anything. I was terrified of being a burden. Because somewhere deep inside, I believed: If I’m flawed, I’ll be abandoned.

I didn’t call it trauma back then. I called it being “driven.” But in reality, I was running from the shame of being human.

What No One Tells You About Perfectionism

Perfectionism doesn’t come from confidence. It’s born from fear. The fear of not being enough. The fear that if people saw the real you, messy, raw, insecure, they’d walk away.

Mine showed up in subtle ways:

Over-apologizing for existing

Obsessing over texts before hitting send

Rehearsing conversations in my head for days

Feeling unworthy of rest unless I had “earned it”

Even in relationships, I felt I had to earn love. I thought being chill, undemanding, and always available would make me desirable. But what it really did was erase me.

💔 The Breaking Point

I remember the night everything cracked. I was in a relationship where I felt invisible. I kept shrinking myself to fit what I thought he wanted. One night, I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person staring back. I looked like a well-constructed version of someone else’s idea of “good enough.”

And for the first time, I asked myself: What if the problem isn’t that I’m broken? What if it’s that I keep trying to be someone I’m not, just to feel loved?

The Healing Begins

Healing didn’t happen in a therapy breakthrough or a spiritual retreat. It happened in quiet moments when I chose to show up as myself, even if it meant being misunderstood.

Here’s what I began to learn:

1. Love Doesn’t Have to Be Earned

The right people don’t love you despite your flaws. They love you with them. But you can’t receive that love if you keep hiding who you really are.

2. Self-Acceptance Isn’t Complacency

I used to think accepting myself meant giving up on growth. It doesn’t. It means you stop trying to grow from shame and start growing from compassion.

3. You’re Not “Too Much”, You Were Just Around People Who Made You Feel That Way

If someone makes you feel like you have to shrink to be loved, it’s not love. Real love doesn’t ask you to edit yourself down to a digestible version.

Rewriting the Script

These days, I still struggle. There are moments when my inner critic whispers that I’m too emotional, too needy, too much. But I’m learning to talk back. To remind myself that my worth was never up for negotiation.

Here are some practices that have helped me:

Inner Child Work: Writing letters to the younger version of me, giving her the words she never heard.

Affirmation Rewiring: “I am worthy of love even when I’m not productive. Even when I’m not perfect.”

Boundary-Setting: Realizing that saying no doesn’t make me unlovable, it makes me self-respecting.

Therapy: A safe space where I could unravel the narratives I carried for decades.

💬 Final Thoughts: Loving Myself, Mess and All

The truth is, I’m still healing. But now, I don’t see that as a weakness. I see it as a strength. The kind of strength that says: I deserve love, exactly as I am.

So if you’ve ever felt like you had to earn your place in someone’s heart or your own, know this:

You were never too broken to be loved. You were just taught to believe that love was something you had to earn. And it’s not.

You are already enough. Especially in your mess.