PaxAeterna

As a kid growing up, I became very confused about the idea of love. I have some strong negative associations with the word that are hard to get over.

My parents told me they loved me, but they were either a) absent or b) drunk and verbally abusive. They were poor at teaching me things or taking care of me, and so I began to associate the word love with nothing but pain, expectation, and indebtedness.

'Love' from my parents and relatives meant this:
"I love you, so it gives me the privilege to violate your identity, your time, and your personal space whenever I want. You have to do everything I say, even though it's harmful to you, while I give you little or nothing in return. I can scream at you and be abusive with you. I can abandon you at will. I love you, so I own you."

Sometimes it's hard for me to hold back a sneer when I hear the word "love." All the "love" I saw growing up was sick, perverse, needy, and ensnaring. I hated it. I stared with cold, contemptful eyes at anyone who tried to control and exploit me by "loving" me. The more independent I was, the stronger I was. I thought "Keep your love, fine by me, excellent. I'll go my own way and do things myself."

Of course, I am severely wounded on the inside and want affection (affection from a parent -- which I will never have), but contempt was and is my way to protect myself.

In a certain way, I don't even want real, good, selfless love. It's so sweet and powerful it breaks my heart. I can't stand it. I don't know what to do with it, I can't return it, and it reminds me of the parents I wanted but never had and never will have. I feel like it will destroy me and my way of doing things: alone.

All my relationships move from fear of abandonment to contempt and back again, just like my relationship with my parents. As soon as someone loves me, I don't want them anymore -- I feel awkward and uncomfortable with closeness. I'd really rather have people keep their distance. In fact, I actually feel most "comfortable" in friendships/relationships where I'm always making amends -- I guess because it feels like my relationship with my parents.

I despise praise from my relatives. I still don't want my parents to be proud of me. What have they done to deserve any credit? My grandmother, who I haven't talked to for ten years (because she nearly completely ruined my life), recently wanted to have lunch with my brother and I -- her estranged grandkids. I immediately refused. I never want to see her again and, frankly, I don't want to let her see me as successful as I am. I don't want to let her have the comfort of knowing I'm doing well at work and school. Everything I accomplished I accomplished in spite of her, not because of her.

Whenever I'm praised by my relatives, I have a strong impulse to fail. I want to fail to relieve the pressure of expectation, I want to get back at them, and I want them to see that "I'm just a kid, I need help! Don't think I can do it on my own and abandon me again!" -- but it never worked and there's no way they can help me now. They were incapable and I'm an adult.

Wascally Wabbit

Wow. My mom criticized me nearly to death. All my life I have wanted her praise, and still to this day I do not get one ounce of it.
I am so thankful for any praise I do get from my friends, my boss and anyone else who wants to give it out.

PaxAeterna

It's interesting, isn't it? I think people definitely learn to cope in different ways. I was a "Lost Child" and am an Enneagram Type 5 ... I was always escaping in my books and computers and dissociating from people. I have had severe social phobia (which is thankfully improving) because I spent so little time around people and had such poor experiences with them.

From a Wikipedia article about Enneagram type 5s:
"Fives often have histories of grossly inadequate, cold, or neglectful early parenting. These traumatic experiences may have created an expectation that relationships would not be gratifying, precipitating a subsequent defensive withdrawal from others."

That fits me like a glove ...

utopia

wow, firstly pax i relate to u, 2ndly i wanted to send u love that is safe, just as you are, platonic, no expectations love...i often have too look deep within myself to locate that contempt has nothing to do with the latest boyfriend or date but hurt feelings and disillusionary expectations, frozen needs perhaps by not having a loving safe father in the picture...feels like a broken record now ive gone over the past so many times and it comes up in other ways when i "move on". such a self analyst!!! i dont take drugs to switch it off and without my meetings and strong faith in real love i dont know where id be, i only know i get by with a little help from my friends...i still havent had a relationship with an intimate romantic partner and ts been a longing of mine, mostly comes up when there are people anywhere and i just want that deep connection but again i guess for me it comes back to step 1, im powerless over how people relate of choose to love me, but not y reactions and actions moreso now that im an adult i have choice. i pray that i can come to believe the aching can be healed by a power and that step 3 i turn it all over to the care of a love i can trust, the love of my higher power.......so with u pax on this journey. hurting, healing and letting u know that u are not alone and i am with u...peace and love to u tenfold x

GingerM

Ah, the old "love as barter" system. Gotta love it (pun intended). I also grew up with love (and gifts and compliments) as barter. To this day, my siblings and I would rather drink our own urine than ask for *anything* from our parents.

I have learned that, to my parents, love *is* barter. They learned it from their parents, who probably learned it from their parents and who knows how many generations prior to that. Funny thing is - I don't have to play that game anymore. And I don't - most of the time.

I do find myself injured, however, in my other relationships. It's still a trigger for me that I have to consciously think through each time I feel that old desire to sneer or snark at someone. I still have difficulty believing that someone truly loves me (just had this conversation with my husband last night). The old triggers tell me that no one loves me, they just want to use me or haven't found a convenient way of getting rid of me yet.

The more recovered me has come to accept that others can and do love me in the same way that I can and do love them. I have learned how to love others with no strings attached, no expectations of returned favors, no element of control in my emotion. It is a very powerful and fulfilling feeling. And, most of the time, I can discuss with myself that if it's possible for me to feel this way towards others, then others can feel this way towards me. But it took being able to love others unconditionally before I could accept love from others. (Dogs work really well for reinforcing this)

And I still occasionally find myself falling into the same old trap of "they don't love you, they're just using you" thinking. I don't like it. I'm working on it.

I used to assume that any compliment given to me was done with the intent to 'get something' from me. That there was no such thing as an honest compliment. I have finally learned to accept compliments graciously, without either negating the compliment ("oh, it's really no big deal") or without being cynical as to the persons motivations. I have learned how to seize the compliment and defend it once given. There are still those who compliment without sincerity (sales people, often) - but I've found most people don't compliment lightly. I no longer sneer.

That being said, I'm still a little uncomfortable on the inside. Compliments still make me squirm a bit. I don't show it on the outside, but often, I need to consciously process what's going on before I can believe the compliment had no other meaning than to express impressions of me. It takes a bit longer than my old kneejerk response, but it's definitely worth it.

utopia

with u

crystalprincess

i can definitely relate. i still have my report card from kindergarten which states, "your child needs more praise." How sad is that?

tromboneliness

Bingo. I would add, "You are financially dependent upon me, and are incapable of supporting yourself, so I will continue to own you as long as I live."

This, of course, is no longer true, since I'm an adult (heh... 45 at this point), but my Dad still wants it to be true. I'm serious -- he'd like his kids to still live with him, in our 40s, and be financially dependent on him and his "resources," so the cr*p we put up with as kids could continue.

His way of "violating our time and personal space" was to stipulate that anytime we were home, we were at his service. "As long as you're just goofing around," was his favorite way of putting it, "why don't you come here and help me do thus-and-so."

Now, at this late date, he's still trying to manipulate me (and, presumably, my sister, who lives 3000 miles away) into coming back to the nest. I've been out of work for a few months, so he keeps saying, "Why don't you come back here? We've got 'resources' as a family -- you could save a lot of money on rent."

Well, true -- saving the rent money would be nice -- but not at the expense of my marriage and my sanity (not necessarily in that order)!

But ya, your description of how manipulative parents like to attach strings to everything... that's right on the money. :atv

Rancorous

Oi, this reminds me of my mother. -_-

Tiro

I had/have very confused ideas about love too.

I was beaten, punched, kicked, cussed and molested. I was told I was bad.

I grew up thinking all this was normal. I was in my mid thirties before I learned that it was not.

I believed a lot of the negative things I was told about myself. "I was stupid, I was bad, I was not as beautiful as my brothers and sisters."

I developed self esteem issues. I settled for less in love. I allowed myself to be used by others.

It's taken me years to understand that the things I learned as a child was affecting my life today. Group therapy and counselling has helped me.