Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life by Jason Goodwin (great books for teens .txt) 📕

Chapter 15 –Deserving Love

“We can’t give up on love, and we can’tpretend that we can live without it.

We need love like we need air tobreathe.”

-Jason Goodwin

As survivors of sexual abuse, many of usnever received the love we wanted. Love was withheld from usaltogether, or it was given only on a conditional basis. Many of ushad to keep the family secret to gain approval.

Some survivors of sexual abuse try to gainlove and acceptance by becoming perfect. The truth is that we cannever be perfect.

Survivors of sexual abuse often develop aparadoxical view of love. We don’t understand why our abuser neverloved us, so we conclude that either they couldn’t love us, or wewere unworthy of their love.

Some of us were sexually abused by a parentor parents. The idea that a parent or caregiver could be incapableof loving us is unthinkable. As children, we need love in order tosurvive. We need love and approval from the people we dependupon.

Instead of facing the terrible truth, thatmaybe our parents or abusers were incapable of loving us, we decidethat we were unlovable and we blame ourselves for the abuse.

Some of us recreate this destructive paradoxin our adult lives. We feel attracted to cold, distant, oremotionally unavailable partners. We end up in unhealthy, abusiverelationships. We fail to notice those partners who would be goodto us. Partners who would treat us with the love and respect wedeserve.

When we believe we don’t deserve to be loved,we tend to form relationships with people who will confirm ourworst fears. The belief that we are unlovable is often held inplace by a great deal of sorrow. It is time to grieve the loss ofour childhood. We may need to allow ourselves to cry. We may needto take it upon ourselves to give our inner child the love thathe/she never received. When we send our inner child love, we beginto release our feelings of pain and resentment.

Without receiving the kind of love andattention that makes us feel valuable and important as children, wemay fail to develop a positive sense of ourselves and our identity.Growing up is a difficult process. Without lots of love andsupport, many of us fail to make a healthy transition into adultlife.

If our parents abused us, they were derelictin their duties. It was their job to provide us with love andsupport. It was their job to teach us how to face life’schallenges. They blew it. Many of us feel a deep hole where theirlove should have been. Instead of feeling love, we feel pain.Instead of feeling joy, we feel sorrow. Instead of feelingappreciation, we feel resentment. Instead of feeling connected, wefeel abandoned.

Of course, no one is perfect. No one can showhis/her love for us every moment of every day. It is important toexamine our own behavior. Do we treat others poorly? We cannotexpect to receive love if we are not willing to give it in return.We need to be willing to demonstrate our love for others throughour actions, and surround ourselves with people who can show theirlove for us in the same way.

In the past, I believed that I would never beable to heal the sexual abuse. I believed that I would never feellike I deserved to be loved. But that was before I really took thetime to work with my inner child. I sent him love and allowed himto grieve. I comforted him, and worked on healing the trauma of mypast. It is a painful process, but one that restores our heart inthe end.

Through our actions, we teach our inner childthat he/she really does deserve to be loved. When our inner childfeels loved, is allowed to cry, and is supported unconditionally,he/she begins to heal.

Giving and receiving love is one of thegreatest joys in life. We all deserve that experience. But in orderto get it, we must remain open to the many different forms thatlove takes. Sometimes we don’t have a romantic relationship that isfulfilling. Sometimes we don’t have a close relationship with God.Sometimes we feel estranged from parents that abused us aschildren.

Sometimes our friends are few and farbetween. We live in apartments where we can’t own a pet. Sometimeswe don’t love ourselves as much as we need to.

If we want to get the love we need, we mustnever give up. We must never isolate ourselves or withdraw from theworld. We must keep looking and keep trying. Sometimes we have totake all the love we can from whatever healthy sources areavailable to us at the time. We must keep improving ourrelationship with ourselves, with God, and with others so that allof our relationships can become more loving.

We can’t give up on love, and we can’tpretend that we can live without it. We need love like we need airto breathe.

Unfortunately, some of us have wanted love sobadly that we became willing to accept abuse in order to get it.These survivors are on the roller-coaster from hell. Theyexperience violent ups and downs. When their partner treats themwell, they feel good about themselves for a little while. Whentheir partner treats them poorly, they feel rejected. In the end,their self-esteem depends on their partner’s mood. Whether or notthat partner was drinking last night. Whether or not that partnercheated on them this time. Is this the way we deserve to live? Dowe deserve to be loved and respected only some of the time?

As important as love is to our health andhappiness, we must never sacrifice our self-respect to get it.Abusive relationships that promise love but compromise ourself-esteem are still abuse, and feeling loved by someone else willnever be as important as loving and respecting ourselves.

Which type of love has the strongest effecton our health and well-being? Who is always in our head? Who isalways in our hearts? Who do we have to live with, every moment ofevery day?

We must never accept abuse. If we try toconfront a partner about their abusive behavior and they refuse tochange, it is our responsibility to end the relationship. We owe itto ourselves. The love we demonstrate for ourselves