One of the things that victims of emotional abuse and neglect suffer with is low self-esteem. This brings with it a feeling of never being good enough. Abandonment issues come to the surface many times in the life of these victims. They can quickly bring us from being in the light to that very dark place of depression and despair.
The feeling of being not good enough is familiar to me. Often in my life there were instances when someone was disappointed in me, something I said or did. Feeling their disappointment sent fear throughout my entire person. I just knew they could never love me again. To me, love felt like a light switch they could flip up and down.
Those of us who deal with abandonment issues, who have lived with emotional abuse and neglect, will often go out of our way to chase love and affection. We will bend over backwards for friends hoping we don’t make them angry or upset with us. That will certainly cause them to not love us anymore.
However, this frequently leaves us at the mercy of ruthless people who will use that fear against us. How great it must be to have someone willing to fufill your every desire just to keep you as a friend. Self-esteem can cause us to desperately hold onto anyone who gives us attention or affection, even selling out our own dignity to keep them in our lives.
I experienced that very thing. There are couple friends in my life who mean the world to me. They understand me in ways nobody else ever seemed to. I thought I “needed” them. Desperate to hold onto them, I was willing to do anything they wanted. If they had asked me to stand in the middle of Main Street during the fourth of July parade and sing the Oscar Mayer song, I would have done it. I didn’t want them to stop loving me.
We had disagreements and misunderstandings. There were days when we weren’t speaking with each other. Despair hit me. In my mind, they could never love me again. They were lost to me and I would forever go through life alone without their love. But, I was wrong. I learned that they would give me a chance to talk to them, openly and honestly. We discussed how we felt and remained friends. They still loved me, even if we had felt differently about something. There was no light switch.
Love is not a light switch. If someone really loves us, they can’t just turn that off. Disappointment will always be part of every relationship. We are humans and will not always be perfect. Unique and flawed, we are perfect each in our own ways, but we will not always agree with everyone else. If someone can stop loving us for something we have said or done, they never loved us to begin with. They do not belong in our lives.
There may be times when someone is very special to us and we feel nobody else would ever fill their shoes. There could never be anyone else like them. But, the world is filled with people, all kinds of people. If we are so wrapped up in one person, how will we ever find all the others who can be just as special to us?
It was a hard lesson but I finally learned it. True friendship opens doors of communication when hard times come upon it. Nobody ever agrees completely with someone else. There will always be disagreements. But, if we open our hearts and trust that we can talk it through, the friendship will always remain and grow stronger.
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