17 Ways My Mental Illness Tricks Me Into Thinking I’m Unworthy Of Love

I have a mind that loves to attempt to feed me lies about myself and my relationships. My brain is constantly whispering these messages at me. Sometimes it’s even screaming. As a result, having a mental illness makes dating very hard. Here are 17 lies that sometimes whirl through my mind when it comes to dating and relationships.

1. You’re too screwed up to be in a relationship. This may be the most prevalent garbage my mind spews. It tells me that I’m way too messed up to be in a relationship with another person. I have too many flaws and I’m far too broken. It tells me there’s no way I could ever be in a relationship because of these things.
2. You don’t deserve anything.Even if I did find someone I could be in a relationship with, my mentally ill mind tells me that I don’t deserve anything. I deserve to be miserable and alone; I never deserve to be happy or to have someone nice. It’s pretty harsh, huh?
3. No one will ever love you. Oh, the old “no one will ever love you.” My mind loves this one because it’s completely discarding the fact that many people love me. It’s overriding those facts to tell me the garbage that I’m unlovable and will never be loved. 
4. You’re too fat. Mental illness loves to hit me where it hurts and my weight is something I’m wildly insecure about. My mind tells me that I’m way too fat to be loved. It also says that no one would ever be interested in me because my weight determines my worth. Eye roll!
5. You’re ugly. If I’m not too fat, then I’m definitely ugly. My mental illness pulls up images of other women who it perceives to be better looking than me and it compares the crap out of us. It tells me I’ll never measure up.
6. You’re a worthless piece of crap. Everything I do is wrong and nothing will ever be right. My mind can be really dramatic and tends to think in extremes. It says I’m a worthless piece of crap and I’ll be that way forever and a day.
7. You can’t do anything right. I mess up everything because I’m a messed up person. There isn’t a single thing on this planet that I can do right—or at least this is what my mind screams to me, particularly when I mess up. The sickness loves to find ways to tell me I’m not good enough.
8. You’d ruin everything. If I’m talking to someone in dating, my mind will go off about how I’d definitely ruin everything if we were to get into a relationship. It screams warnings at me that I’d destroy it all.
9. You’re a crazy person. This one comes up a lot, too. My mind likes to use the word “crazy” as if it means anything more than an arbitrary judgment. It tells me that I’m too crazy to have a relationship. I’m too crazy to even be dating… or living, for that matter.
10. You’re destined to be alone forever. No matter what I do, I’m going to fail and I’m going to be alone. I’m destined to a single life of cats forever and a day because I’m totally unlovable and unworthy of anything different. This is the mean stuff my mind that’s plagued with a mental illness tells me.
11. They think you’re messed up. If it’s not focused entirely on me, my brain is mind-reading other people, assuming I know what they’re thinking. My mind then tells me things like: they think I’m a messed up a-hole and they want nothing to do with me.
12. They can see that you’re a big phony. Whatever a phony means, my mind absolutely loves to say it to me. It tells me that people think I’m a faker and a phony. Everyone can see it and all they do is laugh and talk about it.
13. They definitely see every single one of your putrid flaws. When my mind is at its worst, it tells me that my flaws are being showcased. It screams to me that all people can see are every single one of my flaws; they can’t see anything good. This makes dating quite challenging if I’m feeling like people can only see the bad stuff!
14. They’re judging the hell out of you.  Again, everyone is looking at me and thinking about me. These thoughts are a bit narcissistic, eh? But, my mind loves to spew them. It tells me that everyone is harshly judging everything that I do and who I am.
15. They know how stupid you are. My intelligence is something that’s really important to me, so of course on bad days my mental illness goes right for it. I’m told that I’m a complete idiot and everyone can see it. It drones on about how my stupidity is showing on dates and the other person’s judging it.
16. There’s no point in trying, you’re going to fail anyway. As a continuation of being told I’m going to ruin everything, my mind can tell me that I shouldn’t even try, anyways. It tells me I’m definitely going to fail, so it’s not even worth it to pursue that cute person.
17. You’re going to be screwed up forever. Like I said, my mind loves to use absolutes. It tells me that I’m going to be messed up for the rest of my days, so I might as well throw in the towel now. All of these dang lies definitely drone on in my head on hard days, but there are days where they are quieter or aren’t around. That’s when I know I’m not at all screwed up and that I’m worthy of love.