There could be many possible answers to that so this has just been my experience. Its not the answer for anyone else.

It hurts so much for me to hear that I am worth it and people love me for a variety of reasons. One is that when I was told I was loved growing up, it was by people who were only saying it in order to hear a child say it back to them, in a very clingy, low self-esteem kind of way- like a parrot saying back to you what you want to hear. It had absolutely nothing to do with real love or anything at all to do with human connection or anything meaningful whatsoever. It goes back to that premise: watch what they do, not what they say. Being raised with this, any form of affection was totally loaded, a land mine of conflict no matter how it was sliced or processed. Words were totally meaningless to me, the older I got. I was raised on actions and words not matching in any way. I was raised on mixed messages. I was raised by people who had me in order to not be alone, in order to have a helpless child love and depend on them. And then, they could not handle that, really. They wanted an adoring doll, a pet. Someone to dress up and be nice. I needed to be loved, for real, so badly as a child. I needed to be accepted. I needed to be taught that my needs and wants are Ok. I did not get a stitch of that. I also needed to be taught basic things about life and how to behave and how to treat people. I got all the wrong messages and all the bad signals.

I am not saying this to elicit pity, just to explain my response to your question about the pain of being loved. Its painful to be loved because a.) it instills fear in me almost instantaneously (what do they want from me? How will I need to pay for this love? What do I lose now by "being loved"? what punishment will now be inflicted upon me because they love me? you get the picture), b.) I need it so badly, its like water to a person wandering in the desert all her life, c.) this generates massive conflict, d.) a very core part of me has been taught from day one that I do not deserve to be loved and cannot be loved and in fact, am unloveable because I am not good enough,not pretty enough, don't behave properly (all that lack of acceptance and acknowledgement, all that low self esteem, all that stinking thinking).

I want to believe it when people say they love me. I know that when some people say it and really honestly mean it, I am learning that it is their truth and that I can accept it as it is, just like when someone says they are a republican or something. But for me, I still watch what they do, not what they say. I know what loving actions and choices are and what unloving actions and choices are. I know what love looks like and how it behaves. I do not trust what love sounds like, necessarily. My ex AH said he loved me constantly and did all sorts of horrible and abusive things; he said he was doing them BECAUSE he loved me so much.

Right now, I am focussing on self love and being as loving and accepting of myself through my actions towards myself. Eating well. Exercising. Resting. Laughing. Surrounding myself with good people only. Making choices that result in ME FEELING GOOD, not like crap. I ask myself: "Jean, what do YOU desire?"
Hugs, J.

Smiley  try to remember that the fourth step isn't about how bad you are - it's about who u are and when u find something u don't like u get the oportunity to change to become the kind of person u want to be .  You talk about how hard it is to have people tell you they love you , that comes from not believing that we are lovable ,the beauty of our program is they love us long before we learn to love ourselves I believe it is called acceptance . keep going u  are about to discover the miracle of finding yourself .  Louise