Re: Why can't we feel love?

I have read through all of the comments and posts, but still no real solution. Why can't we feel loved. We want more then anything to love and to be loved, yet we push it away or numb ourselves from it altogether. My family can love me, they can tell me that they love me, but to me, they are just words. It's like an energy drink, it gives you that quick 5 minute buzz, but after that, you feel the same, or even worse then you did before. You feel like you dont deserve to be loved, you have nothing to offer, and you have no reason to be loved. Its like you completely break yourself away from the emotion all together.

Is it part of the disorder, is it because we have been hurt so many times in the past by family members or other loved ones, is it that we are afraid of taking that risk? I see myself contemplating that same thing every day. For me, its more that every time I get attached to someone, a few months later, they will tell me to stop calling/texting them, delete me from facebook and never give a reason, or betray me in some other way. It's like an elementary kid who is getting bullied and beat up. Any person can only take so many blows, before the final one does them in. Some times it is other people giving us that beating, often times its us who will beat ourselves up over and over again.

But the question goes back to, is this something that can be fixed, will we ever be able to truly love again, and even more importantly, will we ever be able to truly feel loved again. Will we ever be able to let that wall down at least enough to let even just a select few people in. You all bring up some interesting questions and experiences. Im glad this forum is here, that way I know that there are others going through the same thing I am.

I'm somewhat like you, and LightSaber -- but still a bit different, I think. It's very hard for me to explain.

I can love people, and pets very deeply, and I can feel their love but it's hard for me to believe they --principally, people-- really love me as I can't think as to why they would, so I always need "Why?" to be affirmed. The problem I do have is holding on to that feeling of love when in reaches a certain level--like I can't connect with it or understand it, as the feeling seems to overwhelm me, it causes me to emotionally 'short circuit' if you will. The feeling can actually cause me to almost pass out.

With the exception of animals, though, it's strange. I have some sort of connection to the 'wild.' I understand animals and their feelings, emotions and behavior in a way I don't understand people. I don't believe it is magical thinking when I say that they seem to recognize it as well. Animals are never 'lower' to me, to me they're my equal.


I know how that feels... When my boyfriend hangs out with his friends, I'm overwhelmed with jealousy... But then when he hangs out with me and compliments me constantly or texts me how much I mean to him and how much he loves me, I tend to turn away. It's like, I know he loves me and I know I should love the attention when I get it, but it's like... They're just words. I don't feel them. They might be lies, so why should I get attached... But at the same time, I long for his attention when I don't get it. I worry like hell he'll leave me... Even though I have no reason to worry at all.

I know he loves me. I just don't know how to feel it. It's like his words, actions, and feelings brush up against my skin, but they never make it to my soul.



I can't relate to not being able to feel the emotion of love. I can feel love for others. I can feel deep love for others. I love my parents, I love my grandfather, I love my husband, I love my cats. They mean everything to me, I would give up everything for them if I had to.

I just, no matter how many ways I am told or shown, cannot seem to feel *loved* in return. I think my husband has just come to accept that whenever he tells me he loves me, I say "are you sure?" He used to ask me not to do that, he would say it made him feel sad, like he hadn't been a good husband. I have tried to stop doing that, I imagine it must feel pretty bad to have someone always questioning your love, but...I need that reassurance. I feel like a bad person constantly. I NEVER feel like I am a good person, I never feel like I am good enough. I am always afraid that my friends and family will see me as I see myself, and they will no longer want to be around me.

When someone says "I love you," I need to know WHY they love me, what it is that they see in me that they, for some reason, think is worth loving.


My family can love me, they can tell me that they love me, but to me, they are just words. It's like an energy drink, it gives you that quick 5 minute buzz, but after that, you feel the same, or even worse then you did before. You feel like you dont deserve to be loved, you have nothing to offer, and you have no reason to be loved. Its like you completely break yourself away from the emotion all together.

When I was little people took turns breaking my heart and that is why I can't feel love. 

So back to the “Borderline” relationship pattern; you have someone that wants to be loved, to be “attached”, but somewhere deep in their unconscious emotional memory that very attachment that is desired so much has established itself in the autonomous defence system and is experienced as a threat to survival, a danger. And when real feelings threaten to invade the person’s being, the autonomous nervous system initiates a defence against something that, due to previous experience, it perceives as a mortal danger. The pattern is revealed in it’s true form; the “Borderline wants to love and be loved, but that love is automatically interpreted as a danger that needs to be attacked and escaped from, by the primitive structures of the brain.

My bf has been WONDERFUL the past couple days, and I have to admit - the problem is ME. I question it, I make a big deal of it, I am a problem in ITSELF.

What is our problem? Why can't we just accept the love given by others? Why can't we feel the love GIVEN by others? I feel like I'm UNABLE to get there... does it all have to do with the vulnerability aspect? The inability to love MYSELF?

Errrrggghhhh.... I suck.

Im the same Ali, as much love as I get it's never enough. My psych seems to think we have an image of "perfect love" that no-one can live up to. I kind of agree. I tell people I love them, and when they respond I tell them they're only telling me to shut me up and make me feel better, that they dont love me at all. And I question it all the time.

I think my thirst for love would be sated if someone were to hug me non-stop forever. But even then I dont think that would ever be enough...  

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I try my best to feel my bf's love and actually trust him, but there's this wall I can't get rid of. When it comes to intimacy, I have to force myself to even kiss him because I just don't feel it. I can go on without it forever! But, when I feel that I hurt him and I see hurt in his eyes..i feel hurt as well and I feel really close to him. That's something I don't understand. So does my bf have to go through pain in order for me to feel love?! AHH! I am terrible... 

Maybe because if we feel love, then it also means we can feel pain. We don't want to feel that love so we won't have to feel the pain when we lose it. We need an overcompensated form of love to give us an extra form of security against losing that love. We need more proof of the love, than others do to convince us its real. And we think we are going to lose it anyway, so we don't want to get too attached to having it, then it wont hurt so much when we lose it.  

I don't know, but do let me know when you work it out, yes?

I completely relate to your frustration, I'm going to cite a personal issue of mine that gives me great grief -- while it is not the same as your situation, it's all related. The inability to love or feel love manifests itself in a multitude of ways, I've learnt.

Anyway, getting on with it: I have a problem --whether it still exists or not, being married for 7 years I can't say-- where I'll fall in love with someone and then at some stage experience 'emotional amnesia' the feelings of love (or what I believe(d) to be love?) would feel very strong, and I was certain of them, and then slowly, I felt it slipping away like sand slipping through your hands or a sink full of water pouring down the drain. I desperate tried to seal up my fingers, or block the drain but it was pointless. I'd remember everything about the person, but I began to slowly lose the 'warm' feeling and after a while I couldn't even remember why I had loved them.

I don’t think I ever felt loved, or safe for that matter.

Me neither. I can't even say I love my family deeply, because I don't know what 'love' is. I am protective of them and more tolerant of them than acquaintances, but I feel like a visitor in the family. As for romantic relationships, men annoy me too much to bother. The men I meet have designs on themselves, look in the mirror and see a 10 when they're a 3, and yet pick at all the minor faults of women, as though they are God's gift. People generally repulse me

I have to admit that I can't really feel the love thats showered on me by my family or my (ex)boyfriend. I can feel the attention and I really enjoy and revel in it, but that's not the same, I know. It's also very difficult for me to express love to others. Again, I can express appreciation, but that is different. I've been told by my previous therapists that since I don't "love" <whatever that means> myself, then I can't fully love others.

"Whose do feelings just evaporate? What the hell is wrong with me? What kind of a person am I?!" I'd ask myself.

It was always a terrifying experience; they'd done nothing to diminish my feelings for them, so where were they going? Left it its place was an empty, cold, lonely void. I thought I was feeling love and was all psyched and then *poof*,.. it just wasn't normal. Also, I felt immense guilt thinking of the feelings of the girl I stopped loving, so as not to hurt her feelings and/or crush her I tried to pretend it was still alive but the facade didn't hold up very long.

In the long run, I just made it worse for her by prolonging the agony. The relationship ended up being like a slow, painful death rather than her just being let go to be free to get over it and move on. My intentions were good,.. I was just inexperienced. 

with me it's the high that i get when i'm with a woman

i've had it twice. but eventually i got very bored. with one i got had tremendous high for a year and then got bored, with the other one, i got bored in one week

i dont crave intimacy as such as much i get the high and get bored eventually  

I'm BPD and a sex and love addict as well. I used to start new relationships in order to achieve that high and often found myself seducing married or otherwise unavailable men. I would then get bored of them or become angry at their situation (although I was well aware of it at the onset) and move on.

I've been in my current relationship for over a year. I love him so much although I have pushed him away...sometimes due to his issues but mainly due to my fears of intimacy and abandonment. This is the first time I've stayed in love with a man for this length of time and it is terrifying. I still am not sure if I am truly capable of love or if this is just another addictive episode. If the sex weren't so good, I don't know that I would have stayed so long. He is much older than me and has had honesty issues that have greatly impacted my ability to trust.

The relationships I've had have either been built around sex or around my partner loving and worshipping me, showering me with attention. I have never been able to give back to those I want to love.

Like some of the other posters, I too felt plenty of pain but never love. But then again, I'm not just borderline but a Narc as well, which probably limits my prognosis.

Because it just can't be true. No-one in their halfway right mind could love me. I'm just not deserving enough. 

I am staying with my bf for 9 days, and I just feel like even though we're sleeping in the same bed, he just can't be CLOSE enough. And if he's on his phone or computer, then he just doesn't care that I came 7 hours to be here. Or if we're at the beach (like yesterday), I proceed to get drunk, and then this morning he asks me if I have to drink in order to find hanging out with him tolerable.

I FELT LIKE CRAP.

I did tell him yesterday that it's hard for me to accept that someone wants to be with me, and that they won't eventually leave. I mean, I'm planning on moving here in April to live with him, and I feel extremely unattached to this idea - like that if I get excited about it, it's never going to happen anyways, etc. etc. etc.

I am such a large pain in the a$$. Sometimes even I cannot stand me.


Of COURSE I don't accept my own feelings. I'm not even sure what they ARE. My therapist said that I have a problem with identity and not knowing what I feel/want. That is pure hell on earth. I appreciate you though, and would love any advice that you have. GREATLY appreciated.

I'm finding it more and more difficult to carry on relationships with people. I find that I'm starting to like being alone a lot more than I care to be with others.

And it's not like I feel depressed, or can't get out of bed, or I'm not motivated. I'm just not motivated to share myself with others. Maybe this is part of this reflective time I'm supposedly in? I feel horrible for my boyfriend, who is probably more confused than I even am.



I think that I'm self0conscious, but I do NOT think that I am completely self-aware. There is a BIG difference, and I think you just hit the nail on the head. I truly appreciate that.

I know that something is missing for me. Sometimes i feel like I'm overwhelmed with feelings, and then other days I feel like a blank canvas waiting to be painted by someone (should be ME, but some days I can't pick a darn color to start with). That's a problem in itself as well.

I think I am going to focus on what you just said. I needed a place to start

I think you guys/gals feel loved but your just maybe confused because of the abandonment feeling. I had read a post under the locked abandonment thread about some girl hating being the last to go to sleep and wanting/needing that feeling of being cuddled during sleep to comfort her feeling of abandonment. If I had known that my ex had BPD earlier in our relationship i would def have made sure my ex was cuddled and the first to fall asleep because she was the same way as the story i just described. I think the little things like keeping constant communication and backing it up by texting or calling him/her your feelings helps in feeling loved.

You can't feel love for a very simple reason ... You can't give away what you don't have.

End of story.

Until you have created a vivid, real visualization of the child you were (reconnecting) holding hands with the woman you desire to become, there's a high probability that you will continue to meet your needs on a low level, trapped in destructive behavioral patterns that have controlled you for years, keeping you doing the same thing over and over (having been labeled as "mentally ill") or stuck in an addiction called denial.

At some point, you have to come to terms with this fact: If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've gotten.

You are loveable, you are worthy, you are enough. And you're not nearly as "unfixable" as you've been seduced into believing. 

 

 

Must we have a different kind of love? Do we have a different kind of pain? Do nons never feel alone or scared or worthless? We share those same feelings without question. Why do you have to question our love?

Lacking object constancy is kind of a proof. If they like you enough to keep trying to prove their value to you, then they like you a lot.

 

 

I didn't elaborate before so I'll do so now. The reason pwBPD may not be able to feel love is because loving equaled pain in too many formative experiences, so it's a defense mechanism. It's awful but it doesn't have to define us.

Feeling love will be painful at first. Like I said before, and Pete elaborated beautifully, healing requires awareness and embracing the emotions/inner child.

One thing that helped me "know" people loved me was looking for visual cues in their expressions. There is a look on my fiance's face, my parent's face, etc. that tells me they are feeling love for me at that time. It helps reassure me and gives me "ammo" against my negative thoughts. Have to always be countering those thoughts, your mind is your personal fortress you choose what to arm it with and also what to think in it, for the most part. The choice is ultimately yours. Can you be happy in this moment? What's stopping you? I know I still struggle with feeling happy then feeling bad that I was happy for a little while.....

Somewhere I read how hard it is to change a belief. An opinion is light and can be changed easily but a belief is deep-rooted and in order to change it, much, much evidence to it's contrary must be supplied. Hence the need for reassurance...

 

 

THE main question is when having a relationship/friendship with a pwBPD, Does/did s/he loves me, are was/is it all fake?

I can assure you everyone I have ever loved, I have truly loved. Even the ones who left me as I was too much for them, I still love those people despite it -- it would be a lot easier if I didn't.

 

I don't know that I've ever felt LOVE itself. And I think its because I go from 0 to Obsession in 5 seconds. And then Obession to Can't Stand You in 3 seconds.

I do however have to say one thing - those of you that know about the bf drunk drama from Wednesday night of course painted him black most of yesterday when he returned. But I am at least somewhat trolling my motor in the gray zone again with him.

(Claps for self)

Just thought I'd let you know. because I say I love him, because I feel obsessed with him, but my therapist says that I do not recognize the normal spread of emotions. I have to be either at 0% or 100% with everything.

Back to square one. Sigh.

 

 

I don't know that I've ever felt LOVE itself. And I think its because I go from 0 to Obsession in 5 seconds. And then Obession to Can't Stand You in 3 seconds.

Hey Miss Ali,

I think that's the problem in and of itself. With Borderlines it's black or white, all or nothing and love isn't like that. Love includes a whole spectrum of feelings/emotions. Sometimes you will feel extremely passionate about your partner, other times they will drive you up a wall. Other times you may feel ambivalent towards them. Normies understand that these varying emotions are a part of a healthy relationship. I don't think Borderlines do. When Borderlines are in the obsessive/idealization stage, you associate that passionate feeling with "loving" your partner. But then when they annoy you, you associate that with "hating" your partner i.e. you must not love them if you feel so much hatred/annoyance for them. I think you have to learn how to control the splitting in order to love fully.

Feel free to correct me. This is just guesswork on my part based upon observation and experiences with Borderline friends and partners.


I am never properly cared for, so i guess i don't believe people and ask for reassurance and test it until its too late. I reject them before they reject me or i become so clngy and desperate and can't live without them.

I think our insecurrities are so deep they control a lot of our impulsive actions and feelings..... we can't always see them we believe what we believe and go after what we need to reassure us they won't leave us. It sucks. 


We're not insecure. We are just as secure in our beliefs as anyone else.

We are the mirror opposite of a person with healthy self-esteem.

We have to believe the lessons that we learned as a child. It's what protects us from being hurt again. We can't trust people. Everyone can just get up, mid-sentence, and stop loving you. You have no value. Worse, you are a liability. You were too much trouble as a child for your parents to deal with and you are no different now.