You have to love yourself first, they say.

Have you ever been asked if you love yourself?

Since the beginning of my healing journey over a decade ago, I have interacted with more than ten counselors, therapists, and coaches. Every single one has asked me if I love myself. Or, they have explained to me that I have to love myself first.

You have to love yourself first

This could just be my trauma speaking, but the way these professionals said this to me hurt.

When they said, “You need to love yourself first, Chris”, I heard, “It’s obvious you don’t love yourself, Chris.”

And this made me feel more ashamed.

Being highly self-aware and eager to learn about my issues and healing, I internalized what they were telling me.

Ok, I don’t love myself.

What does that even mean?

How do I learn to do that?

Why don’t I love myself?

Wow, I really am messed up.

My introspective journey led me to understand something about myself. And that is that I DO love myself, and I always have. This has never been an issue for me.

Not only do I love myself, I may be a little obsessed with myself. Sometimes I even wonder if I’m a narcissist. I think I’m a good person. I have cool hobbies. When I lay awake in bed at night I enjoy my own company.

I don’t think I’m that self-absorbed, I’m just saying I don’t think I don’t love myself.

But if I love myself, what is the problem?

What are these trained professionals seeing in me that makes them think I don’t love myself? It took me a long time to figure that out.

What I have come to realize, after years of work, is that I was worried that other people wouldn’t love me.

My love for myself breaks down as I leave my protective inner world and interact with the outer world. I don’t understand other people. I can’t figure out what they think or feel. I don’t trust the words they use. The communication is strained, diffuse, and ambiguous. I don’t trust people.

This lack of trust makes me feel unsafe and afraid. In some primordial way, I know this is evolutionarily advantageous. To survive humans needed the protection of the group. We need to be accepted to feel safe. Lack of acceptance is death.

Self-worth is essentially the understanding that we will be accepted by the group and, as a result, be safe.

If we cannot meet this basic need for acceptance, we will try even harder to find it. This is what leads us to camouflage, people-please, conform, and mask. While there are negative connotations to these behaviors, the need to blend in and find acceptance is critical to survival.

All people need to be a part of a group. Some of us simply have a hypervigilant awareness of this need. My central nervous system, senses, and attention are especially attentive to belonging. No amount of psychotherapy could “cure” me of this. I’m not strong enough to override my evolutionary biology.

With the discovery that I am neurodivergent, I no longer worry so much about changing my nature. Instead, I accept that I am unusually sensitive to certain environmental stimuli. My sensory receptors are highly tuned to receive data to better understand my environment.

I think this is what neurodivergence is. Compared to neurotypical people, we neurodivergents simply have too much or too little sensory awareness of environmental stimuli. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s nothing wrong with us.

Therapy taught me that I had low self-worth and that it was probably a result of childhood trauma. While I believe I did experience childhood emotional neglect and continue to suffer, I don’t think my problem is as simple as healing my inner child or learning to think differently.

I am just exceptionally sensitive to environmental stimuli associated with acceptance, and therefore pay much more attention and place much higher value on environmental cues associated with group acceptance.

Now that I approach my sensitivity from a more biological, and less psychological viewpoint, I don’t feel ashamed. I don’t feel like anything is wrong with me. I have found a way to feel different but not feel bad about that.

As usual, I could be completely wrong. I could be trying to find a cure for my shame and grasping at whatever solution makes me feel better. But I don’t think so. That people have varying capacities to navigate our external environment makes perfect sense. Why would we all be the same?

If you are worried about whether or not people like you, don’t feel bad. You’re just protecting yourself.

You are protecting us all.

I podcast and write a lot about how neurodivergence can explain human behavior. While I don’t think it explains everyone, I believe much of our suffering around feeling ‘not good enough’, ‘broken’, or ‘less-than’ might be explained by our neurology. You can find my work here, on Medium, and at The Neurodivergent Professor podcast and YouTube channel.