4/10/2020 0 Comments Why I Don't Like LoveSo, as some know, and others do not, one of the greatest struggles in my life, in fact, arguably, the hardest struggle I’ve dealt with, even more than my gender dysphoria at it’s absolute worst (which, in short, made me extremely suicidal, I was self-harming regularly, was literally praying for death, death is what I desired the most for, and had literally no interest in life, to the point that I completely neglected just about everything, including taking care of myself in any way, heck, I even drove extremely recklessly and almost was killed several times due to how little I cared about myself), was love, or the lack thereof. My parents don’t love me, ok, they do, but not in a healthy way, a way that builds one up, it’s a twisted, perverted love. One that makes them believe that they are loving, and one where I can see that it’s there, but it cannot be truly let out for me to be able to receive it. It’s a very hard thing to explain, but I will try my best. They legitimately believe that they truly love me, and I am incapable of seeing it because I am not a parent. Yes, that is their actual excuse. I cannot begin to count how many times I’ve been told that I will finally see that they were right and truly loved me once I become a parent myself. Sorry, but parental love does not work that way. It does not, (nor should it) require the child to become a parent themselves to feel loved. A child’s sense that they are loved by their parent is something that is distilled into them at their earliest stages. Those first few weeks after birth are truly the most important moments for a child, as they are what will define a child’s mental health for at the very least, a very long time, almost always well into adulthood. The parents must be there for a child for several reasons: 1) for the child to know who their care-givers are, 2) once they know their care-givers, for them to feel safe, 3) they feel safe because of the most important indicator of love, touch. Yes, I know., Gary Chapman’s Love Languages, yada yada ya. I hate to break it to you, but as a student of psychology (yes, I know I don’t have a college degree in it, but it is a passion of mine, and something I have no doubt put thousands of hours at this point into studying, you have no idea, heck, I have no idea the amount of time I’ve spent reading psychological papers, books, studies, etc,) I can tell you, the Five Love Languages have no basis in reality, and in fact, he doesn’t even truly believe it, or he has a very perverted understanding of love, as evidenced by his mobile app (a discussion for another day, as I’m beginning to get sidetracked here, and believe me, I’m a master of going down rabbit-holes, so I will stop doing that right here). Touch, or should I say, physical contact, is. Physical contact is what makes one truly feel love. Think of when one is going through a rough time, and is feeling horrible about themselves, does one not feel better when someone who cares about them, like a father comes up and puts a hand on your shoulder, an act of letting you know that they’re there for you and care about you? Or how about when you’re extremely sad, does you not feel better and cared about and understood when someone hugs you? Exactly. Sex, the most intimate form of connection between two humans is physical contact between two humans. It’s called “making love” for a reason. Physical contact is required for one to feel loved or to feel cared about. It’s needed for one to feel safe. Contact with the human body is literally required, babies literally will die without it.
That’s how one’s sense of feeling loved and cared for is founded, a parent’s holding them at birth. That’s why it’s so crucial to be holding your infant, and continuing to provide your child with physical contact, you know, hugs, kisses, cuddles, etc. as they get older. You can say you love one, but if you’re not acting on it, do you really mean it? Now, obviously, physical contact is NOT the only form of acting out love, doing chores for your spouse, providing a meal for a sick neighbor, listening to a friend going through a rough time, those are all forms of love or care, it’s putting your money where your mouth is. It’s proving to the other person that you truly do care about them. If you say you love a certain person, but all your actions say otherwise, that person will not feel loved. It’s really as basic as that. Now, bringing this all back together, my parents say that they love me, but their actions have continually proven otherwise. When I speak to them, they do not listen. They are always looking to hear something that proves them right, to strengthen their own views, even if taken out of context. When I was a child, I learned to lie, I learned to tell my parents what they wanted to hear, not the truth, because if I told the truth, I would be punished for “lying,” and so I told them what they wanted to hear, which always painted me in a horrible, negative light. To this day, my parents have an extremely negative view of me as I’m still forced to tell them what they want lest I be known as a “liar.” As a small child, as in, toddler, my parents told me that I would grow-up to be good-for-nothing, I’d grow up to be lazy, a bum who lived in their parents basement with had no life and no promise. I was going to grow up to be a burden to everyone. Those things are all things my parents told me on a regular basis, starting when I was a toddler. When I was a child, I hated being touched, ok, that’s partially a lie, I didn’t start out hating to be touched, I liked it at first, then something happened, and I started despising touch. The first conscious memory, or conscious reason I don’t like being touched today is due to trauma. I remember my parents touching me, putting a hand on my shoulder or hugging me after emotionally and verbally harming me and telling me, “we’re telling you these things because we love you.” Let me tell you, I did not feel loved even once during those times. I felt hurt and anger. Today, that’s what I associate my not-liking-being-touched with, but what originally caused it is a mystery. Last year, being touched often created literal pain, I would physically feel pain. Flash forward to today, I have been allowing myself to be touched more, and while I don’t feel physical pain anymore, at best what I feel is nothing. Normally though, revulsion, extreme discomfort, and/or extreme stress. That said, it’s not like I don’t want to be touched, I desperately do. I want a big hug and to be told that everything’s going to be allright. It’s something I desperately crave. Now that we’ve gone through all that, let’s talk a bit more about the importance of physical contact. What effects does lack of physical touch have on adults? Obviously, adults do not literally die from lack of touch as babies do, but it does have an effect, a rather serious effect. That effect is called “touch-starvation” (or “skin hunger” or “touch deprivation”). This happens as a result of lack of physical contact with others, even things as small as handshakes or pats on the back can help stave this off. There are nerves called “C-tactile afferents” which identify ANY form of gentle touch, which then send messages to release oxytocin, a.k.a., “the love hormone.” Studies have shown that being touched reduces stress, supports the immune system, calms heart rate and blood pressure, and has been shown to reduce feelings of loneliness, and reduce feelings of social exclusion. Touch starvation shows itself in different ways, depression, anxiety, and lack of sleep (I’m pretty certain that much of my sleeping problems comes from this), for example. Personally, I’ve found those to be true, but the worst symptom of all is when it really comes crashing down, when your body cannot ignore the lack of touch anymore. Complete emptiness. While babies may physically die from lack of touch, when I truly feel touch-starved, I feel emotionally and spiritually dead. It is the worst feeling I have ever felt. It is true emptiness. Nothing matters, you don’t care about anything. You don’t care if you live or die, you don’t care if you cry, laugh, or whatever. Literally nothing matters because life is meaningless. The physical sensation is unbearable as well, how to describe it is something I cannot do, but it is probably the worst physical feeling one can have. Touch starvation that is not held back is complete misery, complete emptiness. Something I have felt many, many times. Now, touch isn’t the only part of loving one as mentioned before, other acts of love are important as well. Backing up your words with actions is very important, and that is something I have noticed does not happen. My parents were never there for me. I could be a complete emotional wreck, and my parents would not be there, they would tell me to “wait,” or “we’ll talk to you later about this.” Of course, they almost never did come back to talk to me about it. The very few times they did, I became more upset about them not being there for me than the thing I was originally upset about and thus ended up pretending that things were ok now, I had gotten over everything. Eventually, about age seven, I came to the realization that I was not cared about, my thoughts and feelings meant nothing, I meant nothing and was just a burden to the family, and decided to shut myself away from everyone emotionally. I promised to myself to never show any emotion. Something I did until last spring. For over a decade. Fact is, love is alien to me. I do not understand love, I do not know it’s feeling, or whatever it is. Whatever it is, I do not know. All I know is that it’s something I so intensely desire and yet am terrified of receiving all at once. I desire it, because that’s what natural for a human to want, to be loved, it is the most basic of our needs. I am terrified because of how foreign love is to me. It is something I do not understand. I am terrified of that which I do not understand. Because I do not know love, it is something I have never had the chance to receive, it’s scary, it’s a whole new world almost. It means I’d have to change, I’d have to change to be able to truly receive love that was offered. Change is hard. It’s not pleasant. It’s a horrible life being unloved, but it brings comfort. Comfort as in that I understand it. I know what it’s like to be unloved, uncared for. I don’t know the opposite. Things aren’t going to be the same. Yes, it’s ultimately a much healthier and better life, but one that’s scary and requires change. Another impact it’s had on me is spiritually. Because of how horrible my earthly relationships have been, it’s made it hard for me to connect to God. How do I view God? My earthly father is terrible, and therefore it just brings too much pain to view Him as my Heavenly father. How about taking “The Shack” route and viewing Him as my Heavenly mother? Well, I have a rather bad relationship with my mother as well, so that just brings pain. What about as my closest friend? Well, that’s nice, but I’ve had so few friendships in my life, and all but one where when I was a small child, that “friend” does nothing for me. Especially seeing that none of them were ones where I could be myself, where I could be completely honest, I had to hide what I truly thought and felt and wanted. None where really all that deep. So, that makes it hard for me to view God that way. Then the next thought would be to view God as simply “God,” an all-powerful, perfect being. That’s nice as well, but once you view Him that way, it’s rather scary and overwhelming, as you are talking to the one who has all the power. Who are you to make a request of? Who are you to think you can just “talk” to Him. Worship is what He created us for, and if we view Him strictly in the lens of being our all-powerful, perfect creator, it seems as if the only thing you can do is worship Him. Praying and asking for things seems demanding, as if you’re telling Him what to do. In fact, it seems sacrilegious to even consider asking Him of anything. I realize that much of this I’m probably overthinking, but it’s how I think, I have no idea how to view God. It’s a mystery to me. I don’t know how to truly grow in Him. Of course, my being trans also plays a huge role in that, but that’s for another essay in another day. Back to the point of this, because I don’t know how to view God, because I don’t know how to further my relationship with Him in a meaningful way, I don’t feel loved by God in all honesty. It feels as if He’s distant, uncaring, away, just like my earthly relationships. Now, let’s discuss marriage. Marriage, or romantic relationships in general are a topic I’ve struggled greatly with throughout my life for several reasons. The first reason is because marriage is the symbol of love. (Hopefully) You aren’t getting married without loving your partner (though admittedly, the concept of love has been muddled so much, that many are now marrying without a knowledge of what it is, despite thinking they love each other. The modern definition of love is either care for the other or lust. It’s a thrill ride. It’s purely an emotional feeling and/or a sexual relationship, when love is neither). You marry because you love your partner and stick with them for the rest of your (or their) life because you love them. So, marriage has been a sticky point for me due to it being based on love, which is something I have never received. In all honesty, often times the very thought of two people loving each other makes me angry. It makes me confront my own feelings of being unloved and lonely. Love angers me, because it reminds me of my hurt feelings, my anger and emptiness from not being loved properly. I also struggle with the concept of marriage or romance because it is unknowable. I recognize that probably didn’t make any sense. Let me explain better: why certain people fall in love with each, what attracts one to another, we frankly have no clue. Why that person over another? It doesn’t make much sense. Now, we do know a few “rules” romance seems to have, such as, we are attracted to people who are similar to our parent of the opposite sex. In other words (I am using heterosexual examples here, as that is the vast majority of romances in the world and throughout history): a woman will look for a husband who is similar to her father, and a man will look for a woman who is similar to his mother. All of this is subconscious. No man is consciously thinking, “I want a woman who is like my mother!” and vice-versa. It just happens, which is another reason loving and caring and providing that stable household for your child is so important, what kind of parent you are not only determines their attachment style (not going to go into that here, if you want to know more, DuckDuckGo it) and what kind of spouse they will have. If you are a caring, loving father who is wise and treats those around you, especially your family with trust, justice, and respect, your daughter will be attracted to men who act the same way. That said, if you abuse your daughter, your daughter will naturally be attracted to abusive men as well. It’s as if our bodies or whatever it is that attracts two together knows what’s familiar to us, and provides us with spouses or romantic partners who are in many ways familiar, even if they’re initially complete strangers to us. We love the familiar, we fear the unfamiliar, and therefore it makes sense that we’re attracted to those who are similar to those in environment we grew up in. For me, I have parents who are incapable of truly loving me, they are emotionally immature and self-absorbed. They’re abusive to put it bluntly. They’re emotionally and verbally abusive. Therefore, my spouse would be abusive as well. It’s who I am naturally attracted to. Now, that’s not the only thing that factors into what we’re attracted to (e.g., sexual traits), or the only thing that we subconsciously latch onto that’s familiar (e.g., a spouse who talks too much or in a similar fashion to their parent), but it’s the most important. It’s the base of a relationship, and is what determines if it will be healthy or not. So, to bring this all back around, not knowing how this love is sparked, why I fall for this person over another, etc. scares me. I like complete control. I don’t like having my fate put into a seemingly random thing that I don’t even know. Then, another reason I struggle with the concept of marriage was alluded to in my previous paragraph, because I know what I’m naturally attracted to. I am attracted to abusive men (for full disclosure, I am attracted to trans men, not cis men) who will disregard my thoughts and feelings and will only care about themselves, among other things. Now, all that said, I do know that I will get married, when I’m MUCH older (I don’t know the exact age, but I do know the age range), that is something God has revealed to me (to show me when I was still extremely suicidal due to my gender dysphoria and struggles with abuse that He still had plans for me yet). Here’s the thing, it’s something I’m not looking forward to. I have never had much of a desire for a spouse in all honesty. Marriage really is something that has never really appealed to me. The promise of marriage is not something that I look forward to in all honesty, for me, the knowledge of it is merely a promise that God has much more in store for me yet, that I will and can get past my current trials. I’m not looking forward to finding love, falling for another person, and spending the rest of my life with them. I am an extreme introvert, I prefer being alone, I prefer not having accountability (though I recognize the need for it), I prefer to do what I want, and having another person I’m living with puts a wrench in that. I don’t want to have to put other people into account when making life decisions, I want to do what I want, now. I recognize those are rather petty reasons, but for me, they’re strong enough to keep me from marriage, and because of that, let’s be honest, it’s probably for the better that I’m not looking to be married. It’s better to remain single with that kind of attitude. Not only that, if you couldn’t have guessed already, or if you regularly talk to me, you know I have serious emotional, spiritual, and mental issues. Crippling ones in some cases, ones that would make it impossible to have a healthy relationship. I am nowhere close to being ready to even loosely consider getting into a romantic relationship. Then, of course, add to that the fact that I would be attracted to abusive men. Now, earthly, pathetic guess is that after years of therapy, I will have the tools needed to stay away from abusers, and that in the next many years that God will prepare me for my eventual spouse. Someday I will be ready, but that day is not today, or tomorrow, or even the next decade. Anyway, thank you for reading all that, it was quite a bit, and I realize that, but thanks for sticking with it!
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AuthorHi! I'm Anna, a currently transitioning transgender woman! I started my blog "Ramblings of a Trans Woman" as therapy for gender and identity issues and abuse from my parents and church. Hopefully, someone else out there can get something from this. If you want to talk, just get in contact with me, there's plenty of ways how and we'll discuss the best way to talk! Archives
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