How many times?

I don't know how many times I can keep telling myself to be strong...I am so needy and desperate that it disgusts even me. I know why I am needy, too. I just don't know how to STOP being needy. I hate that I feel unloved so often; I should be able to love myself, and yet I do not. I seem to be stuck in a cycle of self-deprecation, perpetuated by my mother's drunken rants that occur every night I spend in her house. I end up blaming myself for everything in my life because I was raised to believe that everything that went wrong in her or my life was a direct result of something I had done. And being deprived of that love, not to mention the love I never received from my absent father (I didn't know him until I was 18) has made me all the more desperate for love and care in these, my young adult years.
Actually, I think I was relatively okay until my grandfather died three years ago; I guess that is when I really felt like the only person in the world who cared if I lived or died was gone. I am so grateful for every moment of my life I got to spend with him. I miss him so much. I miss knowing that I had someone in my life who loved me, no matter what. I do not know if or when I will ever experience love like that again. I wish I didn't need to so badly.
Every time I try explaining this to someone, they tell me that it's natural for a person to want love. Even I agree that the desire for love is universal, but I think my undying, severe need to feel needed is sick, as in a sign of sickness. I don't know how to pull myself out of it and really become an emotionally independent, pragmatic, logical woman who knows how to balance head and heart.
Basically, this man went to India for two weeks, a time during which I concentrated on meeting new people and distracting myself from him. It was a partial success, or so I thought, until he returned yesterday and I gladly wasted my time to pick him up from the airport, of my own free will. I am just now beginning to stop doing everything for him.
Baby steps, right?
I have already told myself I am not going to see him for the remainder of this week. I have also come to terms with the fact that continuing anything on a physical basis with him is a waste of time and emotion, simply because whenever I so much as look at his face I begin to feel sad. It is pathetic that the only reason I still do it is because it provides a temporary semblance of something I want from him so badly...which I already know I will never receive.
I told him yesterday that he does not have to ask his mother for approval to be with me, because I do not think it is worth it. My heart hurts a great deal but at this point I do recognize that whatever little consideration he gives me will never be enough for me, because he does not care about me, he does not love me, he is not willing to fight to be with me as I have had to do many times before. Fuck that shit, I deserve better. I know I deserve better, and I know he will miss me when it's too late, after I stop loving and caring about him. He once told me he felt like he did not deserve my love, and at that time I fervently refuted it, saying of course you do, if you did not deserve my love, I would not love you. But if he said that shit today, I would not only agree wholeheartedly, but I would also tell him that it was poor judgement on my part to think that he deserved my love the first time he said that to me.
It is easy for me to say these words and pretend I am strong and that I care about myself, but I have to go through hell to actually do it. I know it is worth it, though. I do deserve better. Not only from anyone else; I mean especially from myself.