I can relate to this quite a bit Vonny. I used to have body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. I write about it quite extensively on my blog.

The biggest lightbulb moment in my recovery however was not learning to love how I looked in the mirror (even though I do now).

It was realising that my mental image of myself (my reflection, how I looked in photos, how I imagined myself) was not me. My real self is the subjective experience of being conscious, as perceived right now in this specific time and space and context.

The thing that was the number one contributor to my body dysmorphia and eating disorder was thinking about myself in the third person. I was trying to love a construct I had made in my mind of what represented "me". Based on images I'd seen in the mirror, and photos etc. But that is NOT ME. The real me is looking through my eyes and thinking my thoughts. The real me is the one that is holding up this paper-thin image like a puppet and trying to control it, and the issue was I was expecting that to somehow change how I was experiencing life and whether I was enjoying experiences. Instead it was dissociating me from the immediate experience of the present.

The thing that broke me out of that mindset was an LSD trip that happened while I was listening to a lecture by Alan Watts. I had an "ego death" experience which actually felt more like "gaining the whole universe" rather than losing anything. I realised the ego was this mental image I had constructed of who I thought I was. But the real me was the one behind that who was doing the constructing.

The way to feel self love, I have found, is to love LIFE not to focus on whether you love the reflection in the mirror. Maybe you will, maybe you won't - but regardless, don't let it pull you away from being present for the life that your consciousness wants to experience.