Can You Learn How To Accept Emotional Support/love?

[Leah123]

Gee, now that I think about it, this making others love me in a certain way screams "mom"

Omg, I *just* had a moment like that. Glad I'm not the only one. It's hard, I find... the balance between accepting love as it's presented and wanting it on the silver tray of my expectations. I've found I can sometimes bridge the gap, if I'm brave enough, by just straightforwardly asking someone to love me the way I want. It's hard for me, but a lot of the time, it pays off. :)

 

[pathos]

Wow this is a really complex issue - for me and I expect for others here.

Personally, every time I have tried to request help with my emotional needs, since I was a child, they were met in the wrong way, which would lead to me a) being hesitant to ask again, b) thinking negative thoughts about myself (depending on what I needed help with), and c) assuming others did not want/like/care for me because their relationship with me is inherently too shallow to offer any help.

For example, I assume (from experience) most people do not want to reflect on serious emotional issues. When that's brought up in a conversation, it's a 'downer' and the subject has to be changed back to happy things. So it's better just to not trouble people with my issues.

Or if I request help with depression from my mother, she will play with my medication without telling me and see what effect it has on my mood. I personally do not believe the medication has any effect other than unwanted side-effects, such as when I was overmedicated and had medication poisoning and had to go the hospital, so not only am I being gaslit but this is doing nothing to ease my depression.

That's just two examples but they've helped build my belief that people just don't want to or can't help me emotionally, so I shut down my emotions. At this point it's not even a conscious decision not to talk about my emotional needs - I don't even know how to. It's like swimming against the tide if I try, it's physically exhausting. I've set up too many barriers.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Wow, thank you for all the replies here.

I accept that emotional support has never been there, but I've believed that I don't need it. I don't remember ever feeling a need to turn to my Mum to talk about personal stuff, and I don't remember ever trying to talk to her. So it's never seemed too big a deal.

But being let down by other women has been a huge deal in my life. I fall devotedly in love with women who mother everyone, and I get hurt by it. So I recognise that there is a mother issue there, but I still don't feel needy of my actual Mum.

Most of the time I don't ask for help. But when I did feel a need for it and i did try to get help, the reactions were were very critical of me. But I can't see what I did wrong and I'm not sure how I came across.

My new therapist asked me about what support I have etc, and we got on to talking about this and she asked me if I thought that was emotional neglect. I said no, because I just accept it, and she said in a nice way, that she would describe it as emotional neglect. I'm unsure how to deal with this at the moment.

The other thing that happened in this session, was that I spoke a little bit about abuse in childhood, and she asked if she was talking to the child or the adult, and explained later that she could see that I was experiencing the memory as the child. I've never tried to speak to friends as directly as I try to in therapy. But when I was experiencing extreme anxiety, I tried to reach out, and I wonder if maybe I came across differently to the way I thought I was.

 

[piratelady]

I find it very hard to accept emotional support. I find it even harder to love. Even receiving compliments makes me feel uneasy.

I am the same way. My therapist keeps asking me why. I think it is for a few reasons. I fear that if I accept emotional support it will show my weaknesses and will later be used against me. The other part is that I worry that I will become dependent on the support and then one day they won't be there to offer it and I won't be able to handle it on my own.

 

[Abstract]

Hi,

I think it's possible to not feel that way towards ones own mother out of self protection. If there is no hope of something different then wanting it is very painful. I have realised a lot of things I did not realise are actually about self protection for me. Including (for me) thinking I did not need anyone.

I do believe we have patterns of ways of relating to others. They normally make total sense as children and the circumstances we are in then but later they may be less appropriate and sabotage us instead.

I think therapy is an extremely good way of becoming aware of those patterns. Sooner or later I think they all come out in T in one way or the other. If the therapist is good they then help us have a different outcome. We can help that happen too.

I don't have the brain to share now but through therapy I slowly became aware of a lot of things I did and ways I was perceived that I had no idea of before.

I think for me having some improvement has meant first discovering what I don't want and to work on making that happen. And then to try to find a way to communicate with others that is more connected to what I feel or need rather than just being stuck in old patterns.

For some I think that means being more open (not randomly though) and for others maybe reigning themselves in a bit if they tend to become too intense. And many combinations etc in-between.

But when I was experiencing extreme anxiety, I tried to reach out, and I wonder if maybe I came across differently to the way I thought I was.

Definitely the case for me. Actually I think its totally normal that this would be the case for you when your emotional needs were not met as a child. I think its very normal that you will be speaking with the words of a child when talking about things you experienced at the age or feeling those feelings too.

 

[ms spock]

I didn't have my emotional needs met as a child. It has left a huge legacy in my life.

I feel disconnected from people.

 

[ms spock]

I am really struggling with this today. It is really hard.

 

[Leah123]

I am so sorry. That's all I wanted to say, and a hug if you want one. It's too sad that not all mothers are up to the job.

 

[fyredrift23]

Hello All!

Wow. Where to begin? So much said here that truly resonates with me! Like Leah123 said, I just want everyone to know that, yes, you can get your emotional needs met even if they haven't really been met in the past. There is hope :)

For me, the way I've done this is through therapy, also. I honestly didn't know I even had emotional needs before I started therapy. Like, I'm pretty sure I hadn't even heard that phrase before, lol.

My therapist is trained to handle both past & present traumas, so he's been very influential in helping me understand the impact this lack of much-needed emotional/character-building experiences has really had on me. I'm a "highly sensitive person," too, so this lack has had double or even triple the impact on me.

I, too, was (still am?) a people-pleaser out of necessity. I was a very obedient child because that's what was expected of me. If I wasn't, then I would have been punished (in more ways than one). In sum, to not do what "everyone" told me and to not be who "everyone" wanted me and, more importantly, expected me to be was to ensure isolation and hurt until I did.

Now, though, those same coping mechanisms would destroy my sense of self. I'd never find or be me if I kept doing those things. Therapy has helped me find other ways of going about living life an relating to others. I'm starting to believe/see that many people do not want me to stifle myself. They want me to figure out who I am and then proceed to be her! That's what they expect!

I can add more later, but, for me, working with a mental health professional has helped to move me towards becoming the woman I've always wanted to be :)

 

[ms spock]

That is heartening to read fyredrift.

Today I feel so desperate and needy that I am sure no one will ever want me.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Ms Spock, I'm sure you know that you can't be sure that nobody will want you. That is your fear talking, not a reality. I think sometimes it helps to have that argument with yourself, to tell that fear voice that what it says isn't true.

Just for today, find one good thing to be grateful for about yourself.

My grateful thing would be that I have not abused, that makes me a better person to be around than some of the people I have met.

 

[ms spock]

It is my fear talking Meadowsweet. I haven't abused either.