Desperate For Love

I am desperate to feel loved. I want one person to truly love me.

What is love to me? To me loving someone means you desire to take care of them. You will do anything to protect them, to support them, to push them to be their best. You build them up. You feel that it is your responsibility to make that person feel safe and cared for. You earn that person's trust so they are free to be completely open and vulnerable to you. You work everyday to deserve and maintain that trust. You pay attention to that person and notice mood changes. You listen when they need you to. Your happiness is connected to their happiness.

This isn't too much to ask for. I am not a nurturing person at all but I would do this for someone. It would come naturally because it is love.

I've never felt this. At least not during any part of my life that I can remember. There is no one in my life that feels like I deserve to be protected. There is no one I can truly trust. And it hurts my heart. It is the root of every problem that I have. My sense of self-worth is so low. It takes so much strength to maintain the minimal amount of self-worth that I have that I don't have the strength to build it up on my own.

I fear that I will never feel loved. I fear that because of this, I will never have the strength to achieve my goals and follow my dreams. If I have no self-worth, how can I open up my photography and my writing to criticism without being crushed?

So what do I do now? How do I overcome this? I have no idea.