Self honesty to the core helped me to realize that nobody is perfect. Not even my carers when I was a child. We are all in the same boat.
After accepting this truth, I realized that I was truly okay.
Sure, bad things happen, but not to my inner self which is capable of being caring, gentle and loving unconditionally.
Only my ego's self-esteem (ego-energy) seeks validation 24/7. But my inner Being is okay and seeks nothing, not even validation, because it knows it is real. Where the ego is just a fabricated story, by the mind, so it can make sense of itself. My self is a delusion, but my Being is real and it is okay.
By the way. Loving self is a strange way of asking the ego to love itself like a narcissist would. The Being would not love the self because it knows it is not valid. So its not about receiving love to oneself, but simply being loving. It is the act of loving which fulfills a person, not the other way around.