Why Do I Still Feel Unlovable, Even Now?

It's hard to stop blaming the world for making me what I am.

For a long time, I believed the goal was to be loved. Universally, unstoppably, and by everyone. I don’t think I admitted that to myself—certainly not out loud—but it’s how I moved through the world. If I walked into a room and didn’t make someone fall in love with me, then I must have failed.

It’s exhausting, living like that. You become less a person than a performance. It’s not about connection; it’s about conquest. It’s about approval. And approval, as I’ve learned, is a fleeting, fragile thing.

My eating disorder didn’t begin with body image. It began with fear. The fear that no one would ever truly see me and stay. That I could be smart or funny or kind, but none of that would matter if I couldn’t convince someone to want me. And when you grow up fat in a world that treats thinness as a moral virtue, you’re not just overlooked. You’re punished. You’re made to believe you are less human. Not because you are unloved—but because you are unlovable.

Even now, I hesitate to write that. It’s a brutal truth, and I don’t want to hurt anyone who still lives in that reality. I want to reach through the screen and say, You are already enough. But I also want to be honest. When I was heavier, I was treated like I was invisible. Or (often) worse: visible in the exact ways I didn’t want to be. The body I inhabited wasn’t neutral. It was a problem to solve. A punchline. A before photo. And so, when I eventually became thin, it felt like the world finally agreed with me. Yes, it said. Now you can begin.

But here’s the thing no one tells you: even if the world changes how it sees you, it doesn’t rewrite the story you’ve told yourself. The fear stays. The shame stays. I became beautiful, and I thought it would fix me. I thought it would make everything easier. In some ways, it did. But in others, it made me feel even further from myself.

Because now I have what I always wanted—access, attention, desire—and it still feels hollow. I look like the kind of woman men write poems about, and yet I feel disposable. As if beauty is something I owe them. Something I have to perform to keep their gaze.

People tell me to focus on quality over quantity. And I do. In friendships, in work, in nearly every area of my life. But not with men. When it comes to dating, I become a contradiction. If there is a man in existence who doesn’t want to sleep with me, I spiral. I take it as proof that I am hideous, repulsive, worthless. I become desperate to be chosen—not because I want him, but because I want to erase the feeling that I am forgettable.

It’s a kind of madness, honestly. To know better, and still find yourself chasing the same ghosts. I don't want to care if someone wants me. I want to care if someone knows me. But that requires me to show myself—and part of me still doesn’t believe that’s safe. So instead, I curate. I perform. I become the kind of woman who should be loved, but never quite believes it when she is.

And maybe that’s the real heartbreak. Not that I wanted everyone to love me—but that deep down, I believed I had to become someone else to deserve it.

I’m trying to unlearn that. Slowly, clumsily. I’m trying to believe that I don’t have to be a masterpiece to be seen. That I don’t need to earn love by being exceptional. That I can be ordinary—messy, honest, unsure—and still be wanted. Still be held.

It’s not easy. But I’m writing my way there.