Finding a critical thinking best friend from the gender you are attracted to really helps here. Not being offended to harsh criticism will be the hardest part but it is definitely worth it. As you can imagine, this requires blind trust towards that friend, which is fine. Such friends will be responsible for your sanity check, especially if they are not afraid of telling you "Dude, WTF?" when you are at your worst. Making yourself lovable to others (not artificially) is a good motivator to accept the fact that you can love yourself less and still survive.