TW - Social isolation and understanding "love"

[ellachimera]

I have been taught that love is something that has to hurt, that being loved meant being abused and that forgiveness was a major quality.

I have not been given that  love and forgiveness back, I mean I was told I was loved but the acts of the parent who said that were abusive, extremely traumatic and downright evil - from manipulation to emotional and physical abuse, to forceful isolation, neglect and ignoring the sexual abuse that was going on under her own eyes. I am just beginning to become aware of the fact that was on the back of my head for all of these years - that this wasn't love.

I bore the burden of my own trauma and the resulting personality malformations and sadness plus the ongoing interaction with the abuser throughout my early adulthood. I never made real friends as a result.

I am in my mid-thirties and starting to figure out, with my small family, what love, trust and stability mean. I'm writing this in order to remind myself that no, no matter how often I heard that declaration after being beaten or while I was being manipulated by my mother - no, I have never had these things growing up.

Were you told you were loved by the abuser? How did that affect your perception of love? Do you think that this might explain why we struggle understanding and nurturing offers of friendship and love in our later life? Or, even, do you think you are not getting those offers, if you are socially isolated, or is it that you simply don't recognize them or you can't cope with them? I am doing the second bit, I can't nurture positive emotions from others, I freak out and bury everything in dark thoughts, sometimes even blurt some of those thoughts out and estrange people who might otherwise like my personality.

[woodsgnome]

The 'love' word has been problematic in my life as well. I never even heard the word -- not even once -- within my FOO. I did, however, hear it in media but of course that was the unrealistic romantic type. I did hear the word at the extreme religious schools I attended, and yes, there was a major disconnect between what they said (pretended) was meant and how I heard it in reference to me. Usually while being abused emotionally, physically, and sexually -- these actions also happened at home but minus the 'love' word being thrown into the mix.

This left me confused and with basic distrust of the L word and/or its meanings. Only recently has this reaction lessened a bit (decades too late and then!). Looking back I can see how much I avoided or just dissociated when the word came up. I'd automatically wince and often just freeze upon hearing it, in any context.

I did, however, find myself able to display loving actions, without emphasizing the word. These happened especially via relationships formed during my time in hospice work and as part of a team involved in preschool program for disadvantaged early agers. In most everyday circumstances, I remained elusive and withdrawn if the L word' came into play.

I think humans perhaps have a pre-verbal 'universal', wordless love-like component that we're born with -- so we might recognize it when it's sincere. Strange, though, how such a useful word came to have an almost negative strain on my early development. Alas, some of this seems to stem from social isolation. While I feel I'm loosening my frigidity around just hearing the word these days, I realize how my fearful reaction affected me to the point of having chased people off by what must seem as a distant, withdrawn block on my personality.

One person who did recognize my behaviour in that regard used to phone me regularly just to say: "You are loved, you know, and are very lovable." At which point my dissociation kicked in. Now I fully regret not having heard her better, as she has since died.

[ellachimera]

Woodsgnome, I think you are as lucky as you are brave. If I understand correctly, you worked with children very early in your career. In my experience, children *will* awaken in you what you were never taught about love and friendship, they have these notions, that they are just learning as words, naturally engraved of them as a means of survival - if a child isn't surrounded by people feeling like that towards them now that they are defenceless, they cannot survive. Children awaken in us the most hard-coded, pure versions of care, cherishing and love. Again, a survival instinct, how would the species survive if the adults don't protect and nurture the young ones? Going towards that initial, instinctive way of feeling is, I am sure, the best way of healing.

As for not hearing that you were loved, I am sorry about that, must've been horrible and I want to give the child in you a big hug and lull him to sleep when he is scared and crying: tommorrow it's gonna be a new day and you are deserving of love more than you can realize.

Third, part of me is also glad though that you didn't hear it in an abusive environment at home, even though I am sorry you heard it while you were being abused elsewhere, that's horrifying. Please listen up, and don't misunderstand this: I read once in my teenage a horrid French book called La-bas, about a guy who was a self-proclaimed worshipper of the devil in the middle ages. The worst crime this (part) fictional character acknowledged to have committed was not killing hundreds or torturing children. No, it was making defenseless children love him and lying to them that he loved them, then betraying the love and protection he promised to offer, thus not only killing their bodies, but also their souls, the book said. (Don't ask, I had a very weird, always pregnant French teacher who for some reason had and lended me that book.). I didn't realize up until this very moment that one of those children was myself, lulled into loving the parent only to get complete abandonment from one and vile, violent and emotionally abusive treatment from another.

I guess I can forgive the abuse, since I was allowed to hurl my emotions back at my mother and she apologized ( even though not even now she doesn't stop, or realize that she actually did those things, she at least has a passing and fragile notion of having been in the wrong and I guess that counts). But the fact that she claims and has claimed she loves me, while to this day her actions are contrary to that emotion, is the worst, most confusing thing that happened to me in all of this nightmare that was my early life and adulthood.

I guess she wants to love me, like she wanted to love my father and all the men in her life, that she singlehandedly chased away. I guess the poor soul never could understand care and compassion, for having been horribly abused herself as a child and teen.

Guess at least I got my apology, even a half assed , manipulative one. I guess it still counts.

I wish it were enough for all of this trauma to go away.

[subtleomen]

Were you told you were loved by the abuser? How did that affect your perception of love? Do you think that this might explain why we struggle understanding and nurturing offers of friendship and love in our later life? Or, even, do you think you are not getting those offers, if you are socially isolated, or is it that you simply don't recognize them or you can't cope with them? I am doing the second bit, I can't nurture positive emotions from others, I freak out and bury everything in dark thoughts, sometimes even blurt some of those thoughts out and estrange people who might otherwise like my personality.

I relate to this. In my case, there were extremes. One minute I was a "dumb selfish *" and the next I was mommy's little golden boy. Problem was twofold because 1. I never fully believed or accepted the love and affection piece when it came (only at her convenience). and 2. Every time I participated in the affection piece, I allowed my boundaries to be violated.

As a result, I do not trust anyone, am not sure where correct boundaries are so I keep mine way out in order to feel safe, I carry around shame (mixed with repressed rage and resentment) over relinquishing my boundaries in order to pursue mother's acceptance, and I have a general feeling of filth and violation which permeates my intimate relationships.