Unfulfilled need for safety and love

[stMarkus]

I recently recognized this sharp contrast in me of what I generally feel in the present and what is possible if not for some enormous burden that I carry.

 

My attention to this was brought through a dream where I was experiencing this sense of safety and love that was somehow connected to my family. This state I was in made me realize how torturous my past existence had been and I started crying out of sadness for the pain of wasted life and potential that could have been realized if only I hadn't been forced to carry that burden.

 

This was an incredibly sad experience and I thought if only I could have reached this sense of safety earlier, my life would not have been wasted this much. Although I actually attributed the responsibility of my reaching this state to my mother. Thus I was also blaming my mother for not doing this earlier.

 

Now back to waking life. I am certainly aware of there being a hole in me or something that actively keeps me from being the person I feel I could be. There is a lot of shame and pain around this area and exploring it further is not something my emotional brain would even consider at this point. A sense of fear and foreboding surfaces when I'm observing this issue in my mind. There is a feeling of no matter what I would do, there is no way that I could ever do anything about this problem and so I will always remain broken. A kind of forbidden area inside me that doesn't even belong to me so I have no business of trying to deal with it or engage with it.

 

Coming from this there is a lot of pain that I carry around but the pain is deep inside and it appears I would need to feel a sense of safety before I could really feel this pain. One way that I would describe this sense of safety in words would be the feeling that whatever I do, I will always be loved and so this most important thing will always remain there for me. Hence a situation of no danger for losing the most important thing in life. This, I think, would make me very open to emotional risk and thus willing to explore the world and gain new experiences.

 

In reality I feel like I am in a situation that is opposite to what I described. I am horribly afraid of failures, I feel like doing anything is pointless because I cannot really enjoy anything at all due to this hole inside me that will always cut me off from the outside world. Consequently I find myself presently in a situation of stasis, of lacking much experience of the world and of very low motivation.

 

This has plagued me from early puberty and the shit situation with little hope for significant improvement in the near future I now find myself in have everything to do with it. I will try though. And I will never give up.

 

I can't think of any questions, I just wanted to share this.

 

Does it look like I have a victim mentality?

[Tweak]

I recently recognized this sharp contrast in me of what I generally feel in the present and what is possible if not for some enormous burden that I carry.

 

My attention to this was brought through a dream where I was experiencing this sense of safety and love that was somehow connected to my family. This state I was in made me realize how torturous my past existence had been and I started crying out of sadness for the pain of wasted life and potential that could have been realized if only I hadn't been forced to carry that burden.

 

This was an incredibly sad experience and I thought if only I could have reached this sense of safety earlier, my life would not have been wasted this much. Although I actually attributed the responsibility of my reaching this state to my mother. Thus I was also blaming my mother for not doing this earlier.

 

Now back to waking life. I am certainly aware of there being a hole in me or something that actively keeps me from being the person I feel I could be. There is a lot of shame and pain around this area and exploring it further is not something my emotional brain would even consider at this point. A sense of fear and foreboding surfaces when I'm observing this issue in my mind. There is a feeling of no matter what I would do, there is no way that I could ever do anything about this problem and so I will always remain broken. A kind of forbidden area inside me that doesn't even belong to me so I have no business of trying to deal with it or engage with it.

 

Coming from this there is a lot of pain that I carry around but the pain is deep inside and it appears I would need to feel a sense of safety before I could really feel this pain. One way that I would describe this sense of safety in words would be the feeling that whatever I do, I will always be loved and so this most important thing will always remain there for me. Hence a situation of no danger for losing the most important thing in life. This, I think, would make me very open to emotional risk and thus willing to explore the world and gain new experiences.

 

In reality I feel like I am in a situation that is opposite to what I described. I am horribly afraid of failures, I feel like doing anything is pointless because I cannot really enjoy anything at all due to this hole inside me that will always cut me off from the outside world. Consequently I find myself presently in a situation of stasis, of lacking much experience of the world and of very low motivation.

 

This has plagued me from early puberty and the shit situation with little hope for significant improvement in the near future I now find myself in have everything to do with it. I will try though. And I will never give up.

 

I can't think of any questions, I just wanted to share this.

 

Does it look like I have a victim mentality?

No I dont think you have a victim mentality.

 

Have you gone to therapy? This thing that had burden you, did you ever share this with anyone?

 

I have a very amateurish theory:

 

You have this problem, lets call it X. The X problem is your burden than nobody but yourself knows about. Since you are an insecure person (thats the feeling I get) you have no idea how other people would react if they new what your X problem was.

 

Would they understand?

 

Would they hate me?

 

What are the chances they think im just like everybody else?

 

The core of the problem, I believe is that you have this X problem and theres nobody there to tell you are a good person or not. You are so insecure with your feelings that you need a third party that tell you "ITS OKEY, YOU CAN MOVE ON AND BE HAPPY"- witch you dont have since you are afraid of what that person would think of you?

 

Im I right or wrong?

[stMarkus]

Im I right or wrong?

 

You are right. I need to share this with a person. Best option would most likely be a therapist. I did therapy for 6 months and then I ran out of money. I'll return to it sometime in the future.

 

I feel though that this problem would need to be addressed with a therapist before engaging with intimate relationships. The unfulfilled love thing is still there with a potential to destroy any future relationships. This is the dilemma that is alerting me in my dreams. I think.

 

I mean I wouldn't want to count on other people to solve these kinds of deep problems for me. Other than therapists that is.

 

Do you have experience engaging deep problems in a relationship. How did it go?

[Tweak]

You are right. I need to share this with a person. Best option would most likely be a therapist. I did therapy for 6 months and then I ran out of money. I'll return to it sometime in the future.

 

I feel though that this problem would need to be addressed with a therapist before engaging with intimate relationships. The unfulfilled love thing is still there with a potential to destroy any future relationships. This is the dilemma that is alerting me in my dreams. I think.

 

I mean I wouldn't want to count on other people to solve these kinds of deep problems for me. Other than therapists that is.

 

Do you have experience engaging deep problems in a relationship. How did it go?

Well my advice is to go to therapy. I think that you should try your very best to tell the therapist whats nagging you. I was lucky be cause I hade a therapist who was a man and very soft spoken but still manly, otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable.

 

"Do you have experience engaging deep problems in a relationship. How did it go?" It did not go well, to say the least... And I dont have any advice in this particular matter since I myself is a highly dysfunctional person.   

 

I mean I wouldn't want to count on other people to solve these kinds of deep problems for me.- Why not? The next time they need help you will be there for them!

[MMX2010]

Because you're a man living in a post-feminist society, no one wants you to have feelings of safety and love.  They, instead, want you to risk alienation, death, and ostracism to solve other peoples' problems - which increases the wealth of society. 

 

The more you feel that your specific feelings are unique, the more likely they'll be to damage your future relationships.  But the less you feel that these feelings are unique, (and the less you feel these feelings are even bad), the less likely they'll be to damage your future relationships. 

 

In short, your unmet needs of security and love are merely things to accept, not things to worry about or fight through therapy. 

[stMarkus]

Since you are an insecure person (thats the feeling I get)

 

What about my post gives you this feeling?

 

Because you're a man living in a post-feminist society, no one wants you to have feelings of safety and love.  They, instead, want you to risk alienation, death, and ostracism to solve other peoples' problems - which increases the wealth of society. 

 

The more you feel that your specific feelings are unique, the more likely they'll be to damage your future relationships.  But the less you feel that these feelings are unique, (and the less you feel these feelings are even bad), the less likely they'll be to damage your future relationships. 

 

In short, your unmet needs of security and love are merely things to accept, not things to worry about or fight through therapy. 

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say in your premise or how you came to the conclusion.

[Tweak]

What about my post gives you this feeling?

 

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say in your premise or how you came to the conclusion.

Well since you are a part of this "community" I find that the people in general here try to be moral. You also wrote a very long post where I concluded that you needed third- party validation. 

 

Your problem is something that I dont know, but think is actually not a big deal and if its not a big deal this means that you are insecure. (At least thats my train of thought). 

 

 

Your problem X is something I believe to be something thats "not normal- but actually is normal".

[MMX2010]

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say in your premise or how you came to the conclusion.

 

You're focused on "The unfulfilled love thing is still there with a potential to destroy any future relationships. This is the dilemma that is alerting me in my dreams. I think." while also admitting, "I am horribly afraid of failures, I feel like doing anything is pointless because I cannot really enjoy anything at all due to this hole inside me that will always cut me off from the outside world. Consequently I find myself presently in a situation of stasis, of lacking much experience of the world and of very low motivation." 

 

So you're letting your focus on "unfulfilled love, and its potential negative impact on future relationships" interfere with your ability to become successful as a person. 

 

This is not merely a child-like perspective - (because children, feeling powerless, focus on their feelings of powerlessness and conclude that their futures will be bleak).  But it is also an adult female perspective - (because adult females, being female, focus on their feelings of "I don't have a good man" and conclude that their futures will be bleak unless they acquire a "good man" first). 

 

No one admires a man who lets his relationship status sabotage his current level of success.  Men will, for the most part, smugly smile at your lack of success, because they view you as sexual competition - so your failure enhances their chances for success.  And women will, for the most part, give you lame advice to make it look like they're helping. 

 

So you have to succeed for its own sake, and for your own sake.  Define yourself by your success first and then seek relationships. 

[Matthew Ed Moran]

"I am certainly aware of there being a hole in me or something that actively keeps me from being the person I feel I could be. There is a lot of shame and pain around this area and exploring it further is not something my emotional brain would even consider at this point. A sense of fear and foreboding surfaces when I'm observing this issue in my mind. There is a feeling of no matter what I would do, there is no way that I could ever do anything about this problem and so I will always remain broken. A kind of forbidden area inside me that doesn't even belong to me so I have no business of trying to deal with it or engage with it."

 

I am a bit confused by this. I understand the idea that "something is just not right." I have "felt" that before (felt in quotes because I do not think it is an emotion, but is more like an abstract idea) and it definitely is not pleasant. And it also leaves me unsure of what to do about it. After all, if something is not right and there is nothing more to it, that can be perplexing and really leaves you nowhere to go be definition. It leaves you in a kind of stasis in that moment of feeling without a way to comprehend the feeling intellectually, to compare it to childhood experiences, and to process and be able to let it inform your future actions.

 

Am I making any sense so far? Hope so.

 

But also, I am confused because you say it is something you cannot explore, which would seem to indicate there is knowledge you're lacking about this state of being; some important information that you'd like to uncover. But how does this idea that you need to explore this state come to terms with your certainty about this state. If you don't understand exactly what is going on when you feel this way, it seems contradictory to say you are so certain that there is nothing you can do about this, that it is "forbidden" territory, that you will always have this part that will hold you back, but which you will be unable to understand or reach some sort of resolution about. Does that make sense?

 

Now in terms of your emotional brain not considering it.. I actually get the opposite impression from your post, for whatever that is worth. 

 

Because it seems you do have some concrete feelings to work with - fear, shame, pain, and perhaps hopelessness(?). But it seems that your intellect is say no - don't go there. Don't go there, there is no point. So maybe it is a strong unwillingness that has developed to explore this feeling, to process it and attempt to find some resolution about it. I empathize with the mental catch 22 though - I have been there before. Sometimes when I am journaling and I encounter that feeling, I call it resistance, and I try my best to think about what this resistance is trying to accomplish, where it might come from, and where and when I have felt similar in the past. But it can be so tough. Sometimes I will have to walk away from the feeling and try to see it in a larger field of view after the fact. Sometimes I think the resistance is exactly what you have described - it is sort of a self-attack/reality distortion for going into territory a part of me is uncomfortable with.

 

I am going to stop my reply at this point because I don't want law of diminishing returns to catch up with my amateur opinion, but one thing I would say is that it does seem you do have some emotions to work with, and that a therapist could probably be a great help and provide you a sense of security in further exploring this.

 

Hope this helps and thank you for being open, it gives me and I'm sure others an opportunity to relate your experiences in my own attempts to understand myself.

[Lens]

You said "I would need to feel a sense of safety before I could really feel this pain". That sentence is really important and it shows you know what you need which is to feel safe and empathic with yourself in order to feel the old pain of not being loved by your parents. The pain of not being loved is very painful and needs time to be processed not all at once but slowly. There is an exercise that could help you to feel safe though it takes a little time: Look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself love and acceptance, at first it will seem impossible you will feel embarrassed and ridiculous but that is how you have been viewed by your parents as a child we are not born with self hatred the hatred was inflicted upon us. The goal is to change that self perception into an unconditional self-acceptance so every morning and every night before sleep promise yourself that you will never let yourself down, do this in front of a mirror with the eye contact. Your defences will kick in to try to stop you from appreciating your true value you need to resist and anger and hate those who hated you as a child it may seem impossible sometimes but resist. We all have the right to be happy and content with who we are it is a universal right. Have patience because recovering from child abuse takes sometimes many years so be patient with yourself.

[Freedom4TheVirtuous]

I recently recognized this sharp contrast in me of what I generally feel in the present and what is possible if not for some enormous burden that I carry.

 

My attention to this was brought through a dream where I was experiencing this sense of safety and love that was somehow connected to my family. This state I was in made me realize how torturous my past existence had been and I started crying out of sadness for the pain of wasted life and potential that could have been realized if only I hadn't been forced to carry that burden.

 

This was an incredibly sad experience and I thought if only I could have reached this sense of safety earlier, my life would not have been wasted this much. Although I actually attributed the responsibility of my reaching this state to my mother. Thus I was also blaming my mother for not doing this earlier.

 

Now back to waking life. I am certainly aware of there being a hole in me or something that actively keeps me from being the person I feel I could be. There is a lot of shame and pain around this area and exploring it further is not something my emotional brain would even consider at this point. A sense of fear and foreboding surfaces when I'm observing this issue in my mind. There is a feeling of no matter what I would do, there is no way that I could ever do anything about this problem and so I will always remain broken. A kind of forbidden area inside me that doesn't even belong to me so I have no business of trying to deal with it or engage with it.

 

Coming from this there is a lot of pain that I carry around but the pain is deep inside and it appears I would need to feel a sense of safety before I could really feel this pain. One way that I would describe this sense of safety in words would be the feeling that whatever I do, I will always be loved and so this most important thing will always remain there for me. Hence a situation of no danger for losing the most important thing in life. This, I think, would make me very open to emotional risk and thus willing to explore the world and gain new experiences.

 

In reality I feel like I am in a situation that is opposite to what I described. I am horribly afraid of failures, I feel like doing anything is pointless because I cannot really enjoy anything at all due to this hole inside me that will always cut me off from the outside world. Consequently I find myself presently in a situation of stasis, of lacking much experience of the world and of very low motivation.

 

This has plagued me from early puberty and the shit situation with little hope for significant improvement in the near future I now find myself in have everything to do with it. I will try though. And I will never give up.

 

I can't think of any questions, I just wanted to share this.

 

Does it look like I have a victim mentality?

Yo, I totally relate with you in my teens.

 

Why don't you shake your Mom and tell her she's insane?

 

Not saying you should - just trying to break the numbness.

 

Certainly if she was empathetic to your situation she would understand and you wouldn't even be posting here probably (sorry fdr).

You are right. I need to share this with a person. Best option would most likely be a therapist. I did therapy for 6 months and then I ran out of money. I'll return to it sometime in the future.

 

I feel though that this problem would need to be addressed with a therapist before engaging with intimate relationships. The unfulfilled love thing is still there with a potential to destroy any future relationships. This is the dilemma that is alerting me in my dreams. I think.

 

I mean I wouldn't want to count on other people to solve these kinds of deep problems for me. Other than therapists that is.

 

Do you have experience engaging deep problems in a relationship. How did it go?

Sorry to hijack but this is what I would have loved to hear when I was going through this:

 

"Don't fu*king trust a single human being other than yourself and a highly competent and skilled Therapist!

 

I trusted a dangerous woman with my life and now my entire life is screwed in many ways because she preyed on my weaknesses and gullibility at the time.

 

You need someone that is trained for this!

 

Don't trust me or anyone but someone who is trained!

 

The people on this site could be Evil!

 

More accurately - almost everyone thinks they're an expert at things they aren't!

 

Your emotional well-being is just as important as your life!

 

Don't let some homeless dude operate on your heart!

 

Don't let some internet halfwit like myself or anyone else tell you what to do!

 

Therapy Therapy Therapy.

 

Horny!?

 

Go get a soft blanket!

 

Don't you dare put your heart out there just yet!

 

As a disclaimer - these thoughts are largely based on my personal experiences and I would probably be saying the opposite if I made a few decisions differently in my life.

 

This is why you need Therapy.

 

Not Philosophy.

 

But that's my opinion.

 

Philosophy is helpful but not essential.

 

Self-knowledge is most important and a lot of it comes from conversations with your most significant relationships.

[stMarkus]

This is not merely a child-like perspective - (because children, feeling powerless, focus on their feelings of powerlessness and conclude that their futures will be bleak).  But it is also an adult female perspective - (because adult females, being female, focus on their feelings of "I don't have a good man" and conclude that their futures will be bleak unless they acquire a "good man" first). 

 

The adult female perspective part rings some bells for me, this is something I needed to hear, thank you.

 

My mother has serious attachment issues as she never met her father. And her husband, my father, didn't satisfy her emotional needs so she used me as a substitute.

 

I haven't spoken to my parents for some years, by the way, and have no intention of doing it in the future.

 

To everyone else who replied to this topic, I appreciate your posts. I read everything you wrote and tried to process it but it was a lot to take in at once and I just ended up feeling confused and disconnected.

[MMX2010]

The adult female perspective part rings some bells for me, this is something I needed to hear, thank you.

 

My mother has serious attachment issues as she never met her father. And her husband, my father, didn't satisfy her emotional needs so she used me as a substitute.

 

 

 

So you have this plan that you're not conscious of.  It's the same plan that the majority of men have.  (1) Get in touch with your childhood wounds.  (2) Find a woman who understands those childhood wounds.  (3) Get in a relationship with that woman, who provides us with the maternal love that we lacked as children.  (4) Become strong enough as a man, through her healing influence, to love her powerfully and deeply. 

 

But women only appreciate a man who has this plan: (1) Get in touch with your childhood wounds.  (2) Become strong enough as a man, without any woman's healing influence, to love any woman powerfully and deeply. 

 

When you speak of an unfulfilled need for safety and love, you're looking for some authority figure - (preferably maternal) - to help you learn how to heal.  But a man only ever heals himself. 

[Kurtis]

You said "I would need to feel a sense of safety before I could really feel this pain". That sentence is really important and it shows you know what you need which is to feel safe and empathic with yourself in order to feel the old pain of not being loved by your parents. The pain of not being loved is very painful and needs time to be processed not all at once but slowly. There is an exercise that could help you to feel safe though it takes a little time: Look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself love and acceptance, at first it will seem impossible you will feel embarrassed and ridiculous but that is how you have been viewed by your parents as a child we are not born with self hatred the hatred was inflicted upon us. The goal is to change that self perception into an unconditional self-acceptance so every morning and every night before sleep promise yourself that you will never let yourself down, do this in front of a mirror with the eye contact. Your defences will kick in to try to stop you from appreciating your true value you need to resist and anger and hate those who hated you as a child it may seem impossible sometimes but resist. We all have the right to be happy and content with who we are it is a universal right. Have patience because recovering from child abuse takes sometimes many years so be patient with yourself.

 

 

+1

 

I have only recently come through this battle with sense of lack of self worth, inability to love myself, feeling "broken" etc.  My childhood of abandonment and abuse left me struggling with these issues for years.  Once I was able to see that it was my parents fault, that their actions caused these feelings in me, was I really able to start healing.

 

I remember all to well that "hole" within myself.  My relationships were always doomed to fail because I would use them to fill that need I had for parental acceptance and love from when I was a child. (an emotional manipulation I 'learned' from my mother)

 

I really believe that you must deal with these difficult issues and be able to love yourself before there is any hope of true happiness in life and relationships.  Aside from FDR, therapy was the biggest help to me. A therapist can provide that safe place of acceptance that can allow you to continue working through your fears.

 

Keep at it, it's worth every difficult moment!

[Lens]

+1

 

I have only recently come through this battle with sense of lack of self worth, inability to love myself, feeling "broken" etc.  My childhood of abandonment and abuse left me struggling with these issues for years.  Once I was able to see that it was my parents fault, that their actions caused these feelings in me, was I really able to start healing.

 

I remember all to well that "hole" within myself.  My relationships were always doomed to fail because I would use them to fill that need I had for parental acceptance and love from when I was a child. (an emotional manipulation I 'learned' from my mother)

 

I really believe that you must deal with these difficult issues and be able to love yourself before there is any hope of true happiness in life and relationships.  Aside from FDR, therapy was the biggest help to me. A therapist can provide that safe place of acceptance that can allow you to continue working through your fears.

 

Keep at it, it's worth every difficult moment!

 

 

Hi Kurtis I feel you have found a place where you feel safe and good with yourself I can feel it in your writings. I hope with time everyone of us can reach a sense of peace and acceptance of who we really are. I learned through struggle that the most difficult thing to go through is to see how evil our parents were and that to not see it and feeling guilty instead is just a defence mechanism it is to avoid fear and pain they just cannot love us back. I remember hearing Stefan talking how hard is to face and confront evil in our past and how liberating such an experience can be. Thank you very much for your words above.

[Sean V]

Hey stMarkus,

 

I can really relate to what you are going through.

I recommend you check out some self-therapy resources if you haven't already such as IFS, journaling techniques, and inner child work. They've been really helpful for me. John Bradshaw's stuff is really good especially Homecoming and Healing the Shame that Binds You. I also highly recommend Nathaniel Brandens work. Self-Therapy by Earley is good overview of how to do parts work.

 

Whats been very helpful for me is being more aware of my body, my emotions, and my needs throughout the day and getting in touch with and listening to the neglected parts of myself. Also reading books on how to heal from trauma and attachment issues.

 

Try developing a relationship with yourself. Ask your inner kid what he needs. Listen to him. Tell him that you're older now, that you're safe, and that you can help him get his needs met. Give him a hug. Ask the fear parts of you what they are protecting you from etc. Try moving from conclusions to curiosity when dealing with yourself, that's been helpful for me. Hope this somewhat helps.

[stMarkus]

Good stuff. Good luck everyone with these difficult issues.

[Susana]

" Take the time to grieve for the loss of family" and stability and the family that never was.

This was advice I needed to even start to move on.

Also a mantra to repeat daily in the mirror "I deserve to be loved!"

 

Virginia satir also has good books like "your many faces"

[stMarkus]

Virginia satir also has good books like "your many faces"

Thanks for the recommendation, seems worth reading.