Even if I am not loved at this moment, I am still whole.

I deserve to be loved.

Photo by Hala Al-Asadi on Unsplash

I used to believe that love could fill everything.

As a child, I longed to be seen by my parents. As I grew older, I hoped to be cherished by a partner. I always placed my hopes on someone else — waiting for the right person, someone who would truly love me, someone who would give me so, so much love to fill the emptiness that had always existed inside my heart.

I thought that if I were truly loved, I would finally be happy. That once I was finally seen, I would begin to shine.

So I searched, gave, adapted, and tried endlessly — using all my strength just to earn the words, “I love you.”

Love came, but the anxiety never disappeared.

Later, someone really did say they liked me. And for the first time in a long while, I smiled.

I thought to myself: “Finally… I’m going to be happy.”

But not long after, if they replied a little slower, or sounded slightly impatient, the insecurity inside me only grew deeper.

When he said he loved me, I obsessed over whether it was genuine and voluntary, or if he was only saying it because I needed reassurance.

He could do ten things that made me happy, yet I would cling to the other five wishes that were still unmet.

He spent five wonderful holidays with me, but all I remembered afterward was that one uncomfortable tone in a phone call, that one sentence that hurt me.

I replayed it over and over in my mind. The more I thought about it, the sadder I became.

Sometimes I even wondered if I was simply too difficult to love.

I was like a phone that constantly needed charging. I needed my partner to keep proving their love through words and actions. I needed endless reassurance.

Like a phone battery that never felt full, I always needed to stay plugged into a charger.

Their affection became my source of energy. The moment it disappeared, I collapsed.

When they were there, I felt like I existed. When they left, my world began to fall apart.

When they noticed my beauty and strengths, I started glowing. When they stopped appreciating me, I dimmed.

The more passionate the love, the easier it was for me to become addicted to it.

The more deprived of love someone is, the more easily they are swept away by intense affection — the passionate pursuit, the constant attention, the instant replies, the feeling of being treasured in someone’s hands.

I thought I had finally found what I had been waiting for.

But once the relationship settled, the intensity faded. He returned to a “normal” level of warmth.

Yet to me, his “normal” felt like coldness.

If love did not become “more and more,” then to me, it felt like less.

So I kept searching for reassurance. I thought the problem was that “he changed” or “he stopped loving me.”

But the truth is, that hole inside me had existed for a very long time.

No one can maintain perfect love every single day. No one can make love overflow forever.

And the painful part was — the love I needed felt endless, because the emptiness inside me was too large.

That emptiness may have come from years of not being seen, being overlooked, feeling unimportant, and carrying long-term self-doubt and insecurity.

If I only relied on other people’s love to fill that emptiness, desperately asking for more and more, I would only exhaust my partner, destroy the relationship, and repeat the same painful cycle again and again.

I had been living through other people’s eyes.

My pattern had always been: I needed other people’s approval to believe I was good enough. When people affirmed me, I felt valuable. The moment that validation disappeared, I began doubting myself again.

I became like a mirror:

If others smiled at me, I lit up. If others praised me, I believed more deeply that I was worthy. But once they turned away, I became dark again.

Maybe what I truly needed was to become a light myself.

What I truly needed was not someone who would smile at me forever, but for me to become a light of my own.

So no matter how the outside world changes, I can still shine steadily.

Can I still live even if no one loves me?

Learning the difference between “needs” and “scarcity.”

People who lack love often carry within them a child who was never treated gently.

So I learned to please, endure, compromise, adapt, observe others carefully, and step back — always putting other people’s needs before my own.

In relationships, having needs is normal. Everyone wants to be responded to, cared for, and seen.

But scarcity is different.

Scarcity says: “Even if he does everything right, I’m still afraid he’ll change.” “Even after hearing reassurance, I still need to ask again.”

A healthy need says: “I want love.”

Scarcity says: “I cannot survive without it.”

Deep inside me, there has always been an equation:

“If I am not loved, then I have no value.”

Why am I so terrified of not being loved?

Because in my mind, not being loved meant I was worthless.

That equation has been carved into my blood for so long. Taking it apart is not easy.

Can other people’s love really save me?

I waited so long. Tried so hard. All I wanted was for someone to truly love me.

But someone once told me:

Other people’s love cannot save you.

A person who already carries light within themselves and a person wandering around with an empty bowl begging to be filled radiate completely different energies.

One makes people want to come closer. The other can make people feel pressured and suffocated.

The reason my recent relationship became so exhausting was because I handed the other person a burden that was far too heavy: “Save me.”

But no one can save me.

And I should not place all my hope in someone else.

Repairing the broken parts of myself

When I no longer need other people’s love to prove my worth, that is when I will truly no longer live in scarcity.

A cracked bowl will leak no matter how much love is poured into it.

First, I must repair the bowl.

Only then can love slowly remain and fill it.

I still break down completely because of one cruel sentence.

I have already shattered into too many pieces.

I don’t know how long it will take before I can truly believe this:

“Even if no one responds to me right now, I will not disappear.”

“I can want love, but I do not need love in order to exist.”

“A relationship is something that adds to my life, not a condition for survival.”

“I deserve to be loved. But even if I am not loved at this moment, I am still whole.”