Roughly 3 1/2 years ago I went through a period in my life where I completely reinvented myself. I had previously been in a bad situation and had no self confidence. I was a shell of the person I used to be, so I changed my name, my hair and moved across the country (now this England so it was still only about 6 hours away). It may sound extreme, but it worked. 

I found two people in my new town who helped me rebuild myself. We went through ups and downs - as anyone does - but we were solid. I thought I had finally set myself on the road of true self-love. Wrong.

After roughly 2 1/2 years of being friends and about 1 year of being best friends, we grew apart. Suddenly everything climaxed and I was left shattered. I felt betrayed, upset, angry (at myself and at her), but mostly I felt like a shell again (I'd just like to say here that the end of the friendship was mutual and there are no hard feelings, she is a wonderful person, we just didn't see eye to eye anymore). I realised that when I began rebuilding myself, I rebuilt myself on her. All the self-love I felt was conditional on her friendship - her liking me validated me in my mind, and when that was gone, I didn't know what to do. 

Now, about 7 months on, it has shown me that I need to love myself based on the fact that I am me. It can't be because someone else has validated me, because people change and you can't base something as concrete and permanent as self-love on something as unpredictable as other people's opinion of you. 

Yes, if someone has a valid problem with you and you have done something 'wrong', try and put it right, but when someone has a problem with a trait or characteristic that is you, don't automatically think you are wrong, or a bad person. Unless a relationship is abusive, it absolutely takes two people to build a one way road and you can't take full responsibility for something going wrong if it really is just two people not seeing eye to eye. 

My point is, learn to love yourself because of you, not because other people think you are nice or funny or cool. Eventually you will find your place in life. That may be a week from now, a month, a year, or ten. But it will happen. And no ones opinion of you changes who you really are. You are wonderful in at least one way no one else is, don't let anyone make you think differently.