When you grow up in an environment where love is ties to obedience, approval and fear, you learn a version of love that feels very different from the love you’re trying to experience now.
Since i’ve spent my whole life learning one version of love it can be incredibly confusing to discover that love might be something else entirely.
Being raised in a controlling religious environment, love can become something i had to earn rather than something i felt safe receiving.
I learned that being a good daughter meant being obedient, that making the right choices means pleasing my family, and that being loved means living in a way that other people approve of. I started to infuse love with acceptance.
From a young age i would stress and think
If I disappoint someone, will they still love me?
If i become someone they don’t approve of, will i still be worthy of their love?
If i stop doing what people expect of me, will they abandon me?
Do they love me for who i am, or for who ive been taught to be?
How can i feel secure in someones love when a part of me is always wondering what would happen if i showed them parts of myself they might not accept?
Love only felt real when i was doing everything right but conditional when i started becoming my own person (16ish).
It made it difficult to trust love, even when someone genuinely cared about me. I learned to associate love with the possibility of losing it. Because of this, the idea of losing someone feels so much bigger than ordinary fear of rejection.
Receiving love requires a lot of vulnerability. You’ll have to allow another person to see you, i hated this. I hated the thought of letting someone see parts of myself im uncertain about.
But what happens when you’ve learned that certain thoughts, feelings, questions, or decisions could make people see me differently? YOU LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF.
I hid what i really thought. I struggled to explain my feelings because ive spent years questioning whether those feelings are appropriate in the first place. I found myself overthinking how someone will react before i even considered what i was going to say.
I realized this recently with Nic. I feel uncomfortable that he loves me in a way that doesn’t require me to prove myself. Being loved without having to earn it felt so unfamiliar.
When you’re used to measuring your worth through how well you meet other people’s expectations, unconditional acceptance can feel almost impossible to trust.
I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder when someone will become disappointed in me, discover something they don’t like, or decide that I’m no longer the person they thought i was. Therefore, i may pull away emotionally before anyone has the opportunity to hurt me.