I Repeat: Love Is Not Abuse

I Repeat: Love Is Not Abuse
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Love is not abuse. I repeat, love is not abuse. I attached to love the feelings of emotional neglect, disrespect, and criticism leading to my distorted view of the loaded word. As a child, my father was very hostile and angry towards me, which in turn made feel anxious and confused. Was it my fault? Was I to blame? Will he be nice today, a monster tomorrow? All these thoughts began to run in my head like a merry go round through hell. I knew he loved me underneath his tainted heart, but was the pain he inflicted upon me love too? I started to believe this lie because I needed to convince myself I was loved; if this pain were love, I would take it.

My dad was a survivor of the Khmer Rouge Genocide. He lost his mother, brothers, friends and peers, leaving him bitter and deeply wounded. His father did not appreciate him but only rejected him with his rigidity and stoic nature. He was not shown the love and care he deserved as a child either; he did to me what he knew. Although I recognize why my father was like that, it does not mean how he treated me was okay at all. I am still hurt by his abuse, but I am consciously working on it. Like many, I attract relationships with partners who are emotionally unavailable, controlling, and overbearing. It's like I wanted to open that painful wound again and cut a deeper hole in my heart. Well, this is what reminds me of love, so I seek it thinking things will be different. Time and time again, I would be magnetically attracted to someone similar to my father and work out the issues I couldn't with him since he is dead. But it tends to end in ruins as I play the victim yet again because of how I was treated poorly.

Not until last year, did I get fed up with my drama.

I was hypnotically attracted to a man I met in Cambodia and I couldn't explain it, so I went with it. He was charming, funny, and interesting, but after a while I realized he wanted me more because he was lonely rather than his interest in me. I tend to feel like the "just there girl" and that makes no girl feel good. For once, I wanted someone who accepted and loved me for who I am. After catching myself in the act, I consciously stopped talking to him because I knew I would be going down that rabbit hole again. After crying it out, I saw that we attract people in our lives to relive hurts we went through in our past in hopes that we can change it. Thanks to this man, who triggered my feelings of unworthiness and unimportance I felt as a child, I was able to sit with my pain and let the tears pour out. I did not cry out of pity for myself, but out of love and healing.

I decided to make a change.

I made a list of what I wanted love to be for me: connection, intimacy, sensuality, friendship, support, communication, and trust. I no longer wanted to hold onto the belief that love was an infliction of pain on one another. Love for me was sadistic in a way and I found pleasure as well as comfort in the pain. I can understand why people like BDSM and are so intrigued by 50 Shades of Grey because I was! But I want to be aware of why I would want to commit myself to these types of acts. Is what I really want actually true connection and love, where someone can hold me when I cry, touching me like I am a precious gift of creation? True intimacy frightens me the most. All I know is that I want to break down the walls that prevent me from loving. And I know it will be uncomfortable, but it will be worth it in the end. What I can do now is recognize when my patterns come up and make a new choice; that is how new habits form and those habits will create the person I want to be.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

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