Hi, Ashley. Thanks for your response.So here's my answer. It's probably rather garbled and inarticulate, so I hope you can follow my train of thought.
As you asked, I have been giving this some thought. Taking a broad view, I would say that nobody is perfect, everybody has parts of themselves that do them little credit, everybody has secrets and regrets, areas of weakness.....but, everybody is deserving of love and everybody has good points too. The right to love is not dependent on character anyway.
That's a broad view. Things get a tad more sticky when I try and narrow that down to myself. I can't see inside other people's thoughts and feelings, so I am just assuming that what I said above is true. But I know, and intimately too, my own imperfections, they loom large and I hate them, and try as I might I can't truly believe that I am not just that bit sordid, that bit despicable, compared with the bulk of humanity. If I knew another person, and I knew about them all that I know about myself, I would find them hard to love too.
I feel as if I have a choice between impossibilities - change my personality, my whole inner landscape, to what I'd like it to be, or forgive myself my flaws and love myself regardless.
Now, as you remarked, I've come a long way. The above notwithstanding, I'm not presently convulsed with self-hate, and I'm doing okay. I'm not self-destructive, but that's because I know that my spirit, mind and body are all I shall ever have, there's no choosing a new manifestation, I have to make the best of it. The way I see (better say 'feel') myself - my self - is that my soul, essence or whatever (that which is quintessentially me), is not my body, not my personality, not my acts or omissions, not my regrets and poor decisions, but it is inextricably linked to these things, these aspects are how I exist materially, but I am truly and deep down independent of all that. I'm just unlucky that I've been granted a body that makes me cringe when I see my reflection, and a mind/personality that I feel doesn't do me justice.
I've gone all around the houses and most likely lost you here - I think I've lost myself. I think my answer is that I do love myself, the myself right deep down inside here, but I despise the material and mental manifestations in which that self is trapped. But I'm good, you know, I'm doing fine, it's not as if I think about this stuff all the time, but that's my view.
I haven't actually answered your question. Would I say all this to a friend? I have to guess, because I don't have friends (no tragedy, my choice). Possibly I'd say my first paragraph, the 'nobody's perfect' bit, though it sounds like a string of platitudes.