alice says hi

Alice,
Because I am extremely depressed tonight and this question cuts me to my very core, I will give your question a serious reply. This is something I struggle with, the thought that I even deserve love, the conditioned feelings of worthlessness driven into me by never feeling like I fit in or matter, and by the constant bullying I endured in my school years to make sure I would never forget how social awkwardness meant I would become a pariah even in my own heart.
So often the reply given to a question such as this that a person must first love his or herself. I can understand the reasoning behind that because having confidence in oneself tends to be an attractive and sought-for quality in a potential mate, but what is the person to do who cannot find love for his or herself to begin with?
I find myself in that situation.
I sit here Alice more hopeful than I probably should be because while wracked with anxiety, I managed to conjure up enough courage to try. I tried and things seem so positive that I cannot help but be even more doubtful about whether it can continue grow and flower into something singularly and strikingly beautiful in my world of grey. No one I’ve pursued has ever even feigned interest back and I’m not sure how to even feel about it all. I am not even able fathom the concept of why anyone would even consider me.
Now I am grasping at a hope that is possibly no more real and tangible than you are. It (and your) purpose is perceived and understood, giving a person perhaps one more reason to take that next step when they feel so emotionally damaged and mentally broken that they feel like Sisyphus himself. It’s hard enough to plant their feet into the jagged rocks and push forward (let alone ask someone to share the load) and that brief warm ray of hope shining down on them can be helpful, but that hope is also in a minefield of human suffering where one must remember to tread carefully.
As for the answer to your question, I submit the same comment I gave in a prior post Salt made regarding this exact subject:

Save me? No.
But when I had someone who loved me, I was stronger and could take the unending waves that threaten to pull me under.
When I had someone who loved me, I had more confidence in myself because there was always that constant reminder that someone had inexplicably chosen me.
When I have someone who loved me, I had reason to hope because someone saw a future even when I couldn’t.
When I had someone who loved me, I didn’t feel so alone because someone was always there to share their day with me.
When I had someone who loved me, I didn’t feel so cold because there was someone to hold onto.
When I had someone who loved me, even at the darkest moments I saw light…
I still was depressed.
I still slowly got worse.
I still wanted to cut.
I still sometimes thought of killing myself.
But when I had someone who loved me, I was able to make it through it all somehow.
Would it save me, no.
But it makes it easier to go on.
It makes it easier to hope.
It makes it easier to try.
Because when I had someone who loved me, it didn’t feel so easy to die…

Saying that, my point is that since some of us cannot muster the ability to love ourselves as we are, we want so much to be loved by someone else. Does that love then save someone from suicide by itself? Of course not. What it does though is reinforces a person’s heart and mind enough to allow him or her the chance to face the sorrows and ailments that plague their soul instead of being consumed by them.
Take care.