The fear of being loved, that sounds so crazy and odd at the same time, I mean who the hell fears being loved?
Well I do, yeap! I recently came to the painful realization that I am afraid of being loved and cared for, if I have someone that even starts showing the most remote sign of loving me, I want to run as fast as I can in the other direction, and when I can't run I just push them away because it is easier for them to walk away rather than me running.
I started to ask myself why I was this way, after all most people are usually afraid of falling in love and not of being loved, human beings want to be loved and cared for but I, I want to love people and for them to not love me in return? What a weirdo I am! So I kept thinking, my mother says I think too damn much, but I needed to figure this one out because recently I have pushed away some really good friends and I see a pattern developing that I might not like and I came to the conclusion that the reason I don't like or want people loving me is because I don't want them to be disappointed, I don't want to disappoint them.
Yes, I fear that once they love me I will end up doing something to them that will disappoint them, and disappointing someone that loves me and that I love back would hurt me more than me being disappointed by someone I love; I mean I have learned that the greatest thing you can do is love someone, even if they don't love you back you should be glad that such great feeling grew inside of you, and that you should always love without the expectation of being loved in return because love is free, it is truly given and it is pure love only when it is given without the expectation of it being returned; however I know that most people don't think like that.
It has always been my motto to spread love but then when it came to someone loving me ohh gosh that's when I would be absolutely and positively scared. And so now I ask myself why are you afraid that you will disappoint someone that loves you? In fact why would they get disappointed in the first place? I mean if they love you they are gonna love you with all your flaws and virtues, they should know that you are not exactly perfect and will be bound to make a few mistakes (hopefully not unforgivable mistakes) and that you are not gonna try to harm them on purpose.
But see, that's where I realized that my years living with my father have screwed me up more than I could ever imagine, see I know my father loves me (in his own twisted way) but he does love me, however throughout the years there have only been a very few times that I actually thought I was making him proud, everything else was a constant criticism, it was all wrong and I could always see the disappointment in his eyes, and that hurt me more than anything, that I could be so imperfect that I would end up hurting someone that way. So then I thought, why am I wanting to be so perfect, what is perfection anyway? And perfection really is a matter of perception; for me something or someone might be perfect but for another human being they will not be, and yeah we all say we are humans we are not perfect but I like to think that we all are, is just that we are all so different that there are certain of our traits that others will not like and in the end when you are in a relationship you pretty much decide which traits you are able to live with and which ones you are not, but then again why do I fear not being "perfect" and it goes back to the disappointment someone will have, what will they say and how will they criticize me. My father would always let me know all the bad I did, never pointed out the good and that hurt me too, again because I was not good enough and in turn I taught myself well if I am not going to be good enough for anyone then I might as well make sure that I spare them the feeling of disappointment (which I had felt with my father also when I realized how he really was) by keeping my distance when they showed any signs of emotional attachment.
And so I have gone through the past few years of my life doing exactly that, I have to add that my ex-husband did not help my cause either because when we separated he decided also that he would criticize everything I did, and suddenly I became for him the worst mom in the world, worst wife, worst friend, worst cook, worst everything (yeah he is a drug addict and insane but still it plays with your head and psychological well being).
The past few weeks I have already stopped talking to one of my best friends because he had said to me that he was sad that he only got to see me for 20 minutes when I went to visit my sister in the town that they all live in, I felt like he was so disappointed in me and it was because he loves me so much that he really expected to spend more time but since I couldn't and was so focus on other friends I made him feel left out, he tried talking to me and I found myself being rather cold and short, yes I went back to reading how I answered and I realized that was my way of saying ok I am not doing this again I love you but I don't want to disappoint you so I am walking the other way, don't come any closer.
I was also sort of seeing this guy and I guess you could say maybe we both mixed everything that was going on at the time, I really liked him but me being a single mom there is only so much time that I can give to anyone, at the beginning (like it always happens) this guy wanted to spend time with me, and while it was a nice feeling, I was absolutely scared of it, because what if he did not get that I did not want more than what we had and then decided he wanted more and I couldn't give him more, he would be disappointed and maybe he did not care about it too much and he was just going with what he felt but I just decided I would push away, so when it was offered for me to spend the night I said no I cannot, then when it was offered to go out I said no I cannot, and just kept on going until one night and maybe I am absolutely wrong on this one but I think things changed there because words like "typical girl" were texted and while he says he was in a good mood and maybe I totally misread his texts (which is why is always better to talk in person or over the phone and be clear with your words) so I took it as well there goes another disappointed human being, I tried to be me without building too much emotional attachment so that disappointment does not happen but it did, the problem is though that again I'm not afraid of being lovable, I'm afraid of then being like that with me, however I do understand that if you show affection for someone, sometimes that is reciprocated and you can not really expect for someone to just accept your love and not show you some affection in return, unless you are friends with a sociopath.
Same happened to me with other people, I mean I have moved as far away from my family and friends as I possibly can and every time I meet someone new that wants to either help me or just genuinely care about me I freak and I run. I met this guy when I went to visit my sister, and yes the universe has a way of putting the perfect people in front of you at the right time, he is divorced, has a kid and works 12 hours shifts three days in a row and then has his child for four days, he had such a keen interest in me, and of course everything was fine, of course he knows he lives in a different city and lives too far and knows I will not move and neither will he, but he started with this whole I would love to date you, and I kind of miss you (first of who the hell misses someone they have not spent any time with other than just texting on the darn phone) and suddenly the urge to run the other way started, and I thought, hello! He is not here, you are not going to ever be I danger of him loving you but I had to say to him: you do realize that this thing you want will never happens, because I will never move back down there and you are not going to be here ever so... And then I thought to myself that was probably not the best or nicest thing to say to this individual, who was genuinely just expressing what he felt at that moment in time and from then on I became as cold as I could possibly be.
With my family the same reasoning was applied: as long as I keep my distance I will not disappoint you, you will not see what I do, what I don't do, what I have and what I don't have, what I have accomplished and what I haven't and it will all be good, you will love me and never be disappointed because what you cannot see that I might be doing wrong will not hurt you and of course that will also keep you from letting me know that you are disappointed and making me angry when you tell me how I did every thing wrong, so I guess in a way this is all a mixture of not wanting to be criticized and not wanting to hurt the people that love me, which leads me to how extremely insane I can be, and makes me wonder if there are people out there that feel exactly the same way but just don't say it because they are also afraid that it coming out will disappoint someone that they love.
