Facing my reality of being unloved

Emotional vulnerability: A state of being in which your brain is able to freely perceive and communicate emotions back to your conscious mind, and you are able to freely communicate those emotions to another person.

The more emotionally vulnerable you are, the more perceptive you are of other peoples emotions. Unspoken or not.

I think this is because if you are highly attuned to consciously recognizing your own emotions and expressing them, your brain subconsciously stores information about your own body language, tone of voice, words and other subtleties, and uses this knowledge to aid itself in recognizing other people's moods/feelings. But that is just theorizing on my part.

Emotional vulnerability directly effects ones own conscientious reaction.

Conscientious reaction: Reacting with empathy towards another human being which generates an internal desire/drive to improve the current situation.*

*Definition taken from Dawn's "No faith in Conscientious Reaction" thread

  

Right now, I would say that my emotional vulnerability it is at quite a low level. I feel I have much difficulty accessing my full potential.

I believe that for majority of my life, my emotional vulnerability has been taken advantage of and abused by people whom I considered to be close friends and family.

Here is how I think it has been abused/taken advantage of:

If my survival is threatened or my emotions are demeaned and ignored when I am expressing honest feelings, especially as a child, it will likely condition me towards suppressing my own emotions and prioritizing the emotions/desires of my abusers instead. This becomes a coping mechanism that is adopted in order to protect my own perceived survival within such an environment.

In suppressing my emotions and prioritizing the emotions of another, I have lost confidence in my ability to recognize and respect my own feelings. My abusers have made me fearful in expressing my honest thoughts and emotions, because I have always been made to suffer, or threatened in some way, for doing so. If I am made to feel that I am wrong for expressing my emotions towards these people, my conscientious reaction is then constantly aimed toward improving things between myself and them, because I believe that they truly love me.

Since humans need love in order to survive, as a child, I must cling to the idea that my parents love me. If my parents need me to be a different way to what I naturally am in order to 'love' me, I will change myself in order to attain this love. As an adult, it then becomes natural for me to seek to be loved by people who are like my parents.

This leads to a breakdown in ones ability to communicate with people who are unlike my abusers. People who do not threaten another's survival, demean or ignore someone's feelings, in order to prioritize their emotions/desires.

This breakdown occurs because my brain consistently projects onto the non-abusive people that they are like my abusers. This happens because this is what it has learnt to expect from people, and it is the only way in which it has navigated previous relationships. My emotional understanding of love has become warped out of necessity, so when real love or care presents itself, I am unable to comprehend or accept it emotionally. My mind perceives gestures, actions and words, that are said or done with genuine intent, as coming from the same place as my abusers.

Even though logically I can understand that my abusers are bad people and do not love me, my brain has difficulty connecting to this emotionally.

My mind most likely doesn't want to accept it emotionally, because it means it must face the reality to the fullest extent, that none of my friends or family in Australia ever loved me. Since I think that my brain is avoiding this pain, I will endeavor to document and analyze as many of my memories here as possible, so as to help myself recognize/accept facts or feelings that it may not be fully aware of or willing to accept.

I note that when it comes to posting this, I become very doubtful that my attempting to do this will help me in any way. It feels like this is a very daunting task and impossible to achieve, so in the end, useless. It almost becomes apathetic when I think about my past and present situations. I think my brain wants me to feel these things so that it can avoid pain.

As Magen and I read this together word for word, idea for idea we find parallels to her parents and how, apparently the oprresion you two face is nearly identical.

I want you to know though that you CAN sort through it and it will help you.

Thanks for sharring.

btw, that last sentence or two, I've heard Magen say the same thing lol

generalizing, on the subject of being lonely - i know how you must feel. it isn't easy being in your early 20's and having so much in front of you to choose from that you can't make the obvious decision to just go with the flow and wait to see how it works out - AND i can assure you it will!

myself i am male..., so you can figure out the mentality of ALL 20 something males (and i was *once too and sometimes still am) throughout all societies and you should take some comfort from being in control of your own destiny, do something for yourself like buy a new wardrobe of clothes or take a road trip with you and your girl mates. they will love you always whether you fuck them or not. have a house party for you and your mates forget about that arsehole, whomever he may be.

boys and men aren't worth a shit at the end of the day because even the nice guy is just after getting fucked, as is life.

as for marriage or any other subject involving relationships with the opposite sex, i don't have any answers other than you are sure to be either a virgin or a slut until your dying day, give or take a child or two and when your old you will always be alone... hence, don't be a fool for what you were taught at school, it ain't true.

and on the subject of 20 something males, (*teen)porn is the only answer to their prayers!

I think it is a good sign that you are aware of what is going on with you. You are aware that there is something wrong. . . I hope you'll be able resolve your problem soon... I hope you'll find someone who is patient enough and loves you for who you are.

Everyone's foundation really starts during our early life. I hope we will all be surrounded with emotionally healthy people with during our early life.... sadly, it's not.

As to Deadcitystreets... man I was really grinning with your answer! IT'S SO DAMN REALISTIC!!!!

I am very much interested in your progress with this.

When facing my reality of being unloved I found that most of my anger issues, some of which you have experienced first hand, were coming out as a defense for the sadness of accepting the truth. That truth, that I have been and sometimes still am unloved, helped me understand that I was trying to fill my own self hate, a product of feeling undeserved of love because of a near constant sense of rejection, with the admiration of others, rather than respect for my self and my own love.

I am curious to learn what self-destruction you have uncovered, what love you have gained, and how you achieved it.

After reading the advise others have given, I am editing to add how important it is to have a support group. There are many different kinds of support groups. Churches are the most obvious places to find support, but there are others. Community colleges often have excellent support groups for women. There are support groups for women who have been sexually abused, and feminist support groups, and several different 12 step groups, or just join with your peers into a support group.

I am really impressed by how different this thread is from the ones the males have written, such as the thread about wanting to kill one's own mother, or another one blaming the mother personal problems.

I can totally relate to the opening post, as I grew up with a sister and working mother, and our father abandoned us. My sister and I were in day care before 8 AM and until after 5 PM 5 days a week. At the end of the day, my mother was tired, and we often had financial emergencies because women doing low paid women's work just didn't earn enough for financial security. This level of poverty can result in children growing up with feelings of insecurity and with very low self esteem. It was like being an orphan, and to me these conditions are the meaning behind the word term "bastard child", but I knew I was loved.

I am wondering when people say they were unloved, what is their expectation of love? My father dearly loved me, but he abandoned me, when he married another woman and started a family with her. My mother was the sole provider of my food, shelter and clothing and she had to sacrifice her dream of being a movie star to support my sister and me, and meet our need for a mother in the evenings. She was not the ideal mother, because she could only do as well as she could do, but I know she loved me. I think our lives would have been much better if my father had wanted to be a good husband and father the first time he married.

I think humanity on the whole has made some big mistakes. I believe we could do better than we have done. I think one of the worst things we have done is devalue the women who stay home to be full time homemakers, and we have destroyed the idea that men should support them and the children while also honoring and cherishing them. When my daughter in law comes home from work stressed and tired, she is far of being as a good mother she needs to be. How realistic are our expectations?

I am now old and enjoy living in an apartment building with many old people. I don't think there is one older woman who does not regret some of the things she did as a mother. They loved their children dearly, and they did the best they knew how to do. In the past, what they did would have been considered the right thing. A lot has changed and what we thought was right thing, is no longer considered the right thing. But not knowing the best way to do things, is not equal to not loving our children.