Struggling to Feel I’m Good Enough for Dating?

Trigger Warning: Familial Trauma and Abuse

I’m embarrassed to talk about this, but maybe some insights from others will help me be brave enough try dating again.

I’ve been diagnosed with C-PTSD, ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and I’m known to be a very emotionally-oriented, sensitive person. I’m also gay, and that comes with a lot of religious trauma of “you’re guaranteed to go to *** no matter how much you adhere to God or how good of a person you try to be.”

I’ve also lived with a mother that refused to ever go to therapy, and I’m no therapist, but the closest I could get to describing her is having Borderline Personality Disorder, and she engaged in a lot of Splitting while raising me. One moment, she will see you as this wonderful child that she loves and adores and would do anything to love and protect and support. The next moment, if you upset her with anything relatively small, such as not replacing the trash bag in the trash can or not loading/unloading the dishwasher properly, or not understanding your schoolwork as quickly as she feels you should, she will get extremely angry and take all her affection back. Now you’re a mistake, you’re too much, you’re the worst decision she ever made, she regrets having you, it’s all in your head. Her verbal abuse would sometimes turn physical, and these encounters would often last for hours. Then, she apologizes, you are expected to tell her you forgive her, and then the cycle repeats for years.

I grew up implicitly and explicitly being taught not to reveal things about myself because she would use them against me and shame me for them at any point she is angry. Any hobbies or friendships were considered distractions and in the way of my academics, and I was unworthy of them if I am not perfectly acing my classes. So I would learn not to tell her or anyone about myself personally because they could be weaponized against me not long after expressing them.

There were also some attempts made on my life by both parents and being abandoned in an abusive home by my brother, but I’m trying not to make this too long.

I struggle a lot with feeling like I am good enough for love and not being left. I tried telling myself that when I get into college, then I could try to date. Or when I get my bachelor’s degree, then I can try to date. I’m halfway through graduate school right now and I still feel like I am not enough. It often feels like there’s something I’m “missing” to be “qualified enough” to look for a partner that would want to be with me. No doubt, I’ve been going to therapy for most of my life. While it’s kept me alive and to find success in most aspects of my life, I’m still deathly afraid of looking for a relationship.

What scares me is if I look for his emotional support too much, if I let myself rely on him, if I start asking for support instead of only feeling comfortable giving it, he could decide that he is fed up with it and would leave, or use my needs against me, which would reinforce how I see myself as someone a partner wouldn’t see as worth staying for.

- Has anyone else felt like this?

- How did you bring yourself to date when your first instinct is to search for abandonment?

I would appreciate your advice.