Love addiction and codependency are NOT about love at all. They are about the fear of NOT feeling LOVE.
Love addiction is about compulsive thoughts and behaviors. It is about reactivity and a lack of self -control when it comes to emotions.
Many abused children grow up to become adult men and women who view love like a great tragic play, sort of like Romeo and Juliet, and yet, Romeo and Juliet were completely OUT of control, so much so they got everyone they knew wrapped up in their drama.
REAL LOVE is patient, calm, soothing, rational, fair, warm, nurturing, and kind. There is no up and down nonsense, gaslighting, compulsive behaviors, stonewalling, silent treatments, passive aggressiveness, or denial of facts.
The problem abused and ignored children have is this...the human imagination is a place that allows escape, and left to its own devices, many children believe that love must be the opposite of the supreme lack of disconnection which equals attachment and enmeshment.
Abused...
Love addiction is intoxicating. It is also catastrophic as it is built upon the broken bones of a wounded inner child.
When we have come from homes that have caused us to question our worth as human beings because those who loved us have missed the mark by failing to appreciate how crucial it was for children to FEEL seen, wanted, and understood, a great gaping hole forms in our soul. This hole aches to be filled and behaves like a vacuum for what the ego believes will fill it.
The ego is immature. Its concepts about love are childlike. Ego is under the illusion that fairy-tale-like love will fill this void and allow the being that we are to finally feel FULL, WHOLE, and ENOUGH. Ego operates with limited understandings. It does not know about addiction. It does not understand that groveling, obsessing, and begging are behaviors that are tied to our initial abandonment. Ego only knows pain vs pleasure and with its limited understanding about love, believes a fairy-tale is what it...
For the bulk of my life I was confused about where I stood in relation to others. My very strict Roman Catholic upbringing had me feeling cursed from day one. Born a sinner I (or so I was told) my tiny soul felt as if love was something I needed to prove myself worthy of. On days when I hoped God was napping, I would allow my mind to wander.
"Is it my fault I am human?" I would wonder, hoping God could not hear my inner thoughts.
Back when I was a child, God, Jesus, Christ--you name it--was used against me like one would use a stun gun to control a being into line. I was taught to fear God like He was the boogie man. "God can hear your every thought and see your every move. You better have pure thoughts or God will punish you and you might go to hell when you die," I was told, in overt as well as covert ways.
The message was clear. Fear God, fear your parents, fear what others think of you, fear not being perfect, fear not being good enough, feel guilty because God sent His only Son...
So many of us adult children of alcoholics are wounded in places that most people will never understand. If you are a being who grew up knowing they were loved--you more than likely could never understand the depths of self doubt we adult children who have been tainted by others alcoholism suffer silently, day in and yes--day out.
When your parent is an alcoholic, drug addict, narcissist, or emotional manipulator of some kind--their main agenda is get their own needs met. YOU as their child--on a heart level--do not feel validated. Instead, you feel wrong, ill, inept, tainted, unworthy, broken, and in the way.
Children are born seeking outside of themselves for love, acceptance and validation; which is why when a mother gives birth to a child--the tiny little being does not jump off of the delivery table and begin walking down the hospital hall and out into the world on its own. No--we human beings come into this time space reality needing--and wait for it--DESERVING of...
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