Can you be brought up to be unlovable?

[GottaGettaway]

I'm 45 years old, I've never been loved and I'm wondering now if I'm just unloveable.

I don't think I was born unloveable. I think I was brought up to be so. I was emotionally and physically abused as a child and teen. Whilst the physical abuse from my parents ended when I was 18 and left home, the emotional abuse continued until I finally went NC a few years ago. I was aware of my relationship with my parents breaking down from about 8 and was regularly told from being around 10 that no one would love me, that I was unloveable. There was no emotional warmth or support ever and emotionally, I've been on my own since I was about 3. I developed all sorts of coping mechanisms to deal with that. Although I've only really understood that in the last 5 years or so. I had counselling but I have been told that to undo it all, I'd need long term intensive therapy to, essentially, take myself apart and put myself back together again. I have been warned it would be traumatic. I can't afford, financially, mentally or emotionally, to do that.

When I was younger, I was desperate to prove to myself and them that I wasn't unloveable and had a lot of boyfriends but, if they weren't physically or emotionally abusive, I rejected them because they didn't care enough. I read it as ambivalence.

When I was younger, I thought that, one day, I would meet someone who loved me. But I haven't. I didn't realise at the time but I was quite dysfunctional and wouldn't actually have recognised 'love' even if I had found it.

I had a lot of one night stands and brief flings that I always ended after a matter of weeks. I didnt think for a second that these ONSs were 'love' but it was all I could really cope with. My mum I was told I was too fat and unattractive to he loved. I wasn't fat. My dad just didnt give me any reason to believe I could he loved. So the ONSs fulfilled a need for human closeness and a superficial interaction that briefly met my needs.

In the intervening years, I married and had a family. He was also abusive. He didn't love me and punished me for my unloveablilty everyday. Just like my parents had, he tried to correct and improve me to make me a more acceptable version of who I was. I was punished for failing.

We split up around 8 years ago.

I've had a few relationships since but have eventually realised that they were cheating on me; controlling; abusive. I've ended them as soon as I realised - my boundaries are good in that respect but I didnt spot the signs soon enough. None have lasted more than a few months but the signs were probably there from the first date on reflection.

I haven't devoted my life to finding love. I'm very resilient. And I wouldn't date someone just for the sake of not being single. Being single/alone doesn't scare me but realising I've just become completely unloveable breaks my heart if I'm honest.

I'm just empty now. I don't think I was born unloveable but I think my experiences have made me so. I wouldn't 'recognise' love if I found it because I dont know what it looks like. I can only look at what people do/say and if I dont like those, I walk away from them. I've realised now though that it's too painful getting it wrong. Not because i get upset at the thought of losing them, but I'm just adding to the list of people who don't care whilst the list if people who do is so very small.

This isn't about being content with being single; I have found peace with that - this is about my living experiences having shaped me to the point where I can't be loved.

With regards to you being assessed for ASD, there's a document called the Coventry Grid that shows how attachment disorders and autism can closely resemble each other, and given how cold and detached your upbringing was I think you're more likely to have an attachment disorder.

www.healthline.com/health/attachment-disorder-in-adults#further-reading

I grew up with an attachment disorder, I was missing an essential blueprint that would have taught me how to interact with other people and for years I was a socially inept mess who was incapable of making and keeping friends and relationships. I'm considerably better now but it took a lot of therapy and more or less reworking myself into a new person.

Loving the words from the above two posters.

It's probably an attachment disorder.

BTW, I loathe the fact that mental disorders brought on my familial and intimate 0artnerships seem to skew it somewhat.

This mental illness is caused by someone's repeated actions. Doesn't matter who

The University of Liverpool have recently asserted this. I'll try and find the link.

swimwithaview thanks.

The way you send out a signal that you want to get to know someone like that is to offer pieces of personal information, ask personal questions, answer personal questions, honestly, without filtering out what you think might be unappealing or troubling to other people.

I already feel like a do that. I do ask questions. I suppose I don't always feel like I get questions back. Or maybe I do, but I don't answer them fully so as not to 'impose'. I'll try and be more aware of this. I thought I was managing it quite well a few years ago until someone told me that I keep everyone at arm's length and it makes them feel that I am keeping them out. I was really upset by that because I always feel that I'm giving/asking too much! Thanks

it's a really powerful way of learning abut how to connect with people and what people really feel about you, as opposed to the awful things you imagine.

Actually, this is really important this morning. Someone from band complimented a couple of the photos of me taken at the weekend. I have huge issues around being 'ugly' - I never share them though. I have no idea if I really am or not. But, anyway, he said that X and Y were really lovely photos of me. So I immediately deflected and then spent all night worrying that a) the rest of the photos of me were awful and he thought it needed to be mentioned b) that I'm so ugly generally that it was a suprise that nice photos could be acheived. I'm now trying to tell myself that he probably just thought they were nice photos and wanted to say so. (But then the little voice tells me that he didn't feel the need to say it to anyone else and their photos were also great).

Again, I know that sounds really self indulgent but all I can see when I see photos of myself are the things my parents criticised me for. I have no perspective.

MySquee Yes, I am aware of the Coventry Grid and I've looked at it before. I think the only thing that is difficult is that a lot of the behaviours/ways that I am that caused my mum to reject me in the first place are common autistic traits and stims. So, tbh, I don't know. I know that she spent my whole life telling me that there was "something wrong" with me and those things are 'autistic traits' so, even if I wouldn't have met the threshold for diagnosis, there were certainly traits etc there.

I do agree that I have attachment issues and that I probably developed an attachment disorder as a result of it.

I just find it hard because the solution to all of this seems to be years of therapy and I just don't have the resources to fund this. I need to find ways of doing it myself or just accepting that this is the way I am.

I had a book recommended to me about nurturing your inner child a while ago. I try to use the techniques from that when I can feel it becoming an issue but I can still only manage my responses to my beliefs rather than change my beliefs.

(and this is the point where I have to add the caveat that I believe what I was told about myself but try to make the best of it)

It's the little voice in your head that you need to work on and silence. It's not your voice, it's not self preservation, it's your mother's voice and conditioning. And your mum was an awful,abusive, bullying parent, she got it all wrong, why would she be right about this or anything?

That was my biggest breakthrough really, and while I still get the voice, I can dismiss it. If it's really hard, I just remind myself of all the things she got so so wrong, the batshit behaviours and opinions. If she was a stranger on the street I would dismiss them as nutters and move on. She has no power anymore and neither have her words. The little voice can get to fuck, it's just a reminder of what I've been through and came to the other side. That I can do this... and so can you.

Thanks. I have been trying to work on silencing it. It's certainly not as loud as it used to be and I try to ignore it more.

I suppose there is just that residual doubt that just because she said it, and it was unkind, it doesn't necessarily make it untrue. And then I tell myself - what does it matter? What does it matter if I am, say, ugly and unloveable? The only person who has to like me is me and the only people whose opinions of me I really care about are my children's...

She got so much wrong. Some of the advice I listened to for many years and made big life decisions on the back of it it that I can't reverse now and will have to live with those for the rest of my life.

But she wasn't wrong about everything.

No!- but you can be brought up to believe you are.