does it ever hit you that you're unloveable?

[Hepatica]

I'm feeling pretty unlovable this week. Maybe it's because mother's day is looming here, and my mother's been on my mind. but it's been a crappy week where i've felt really like an odd ball of a person that few really "get" and as i grow older i would have thought that i would have become at ease with that and embraced it even, but it feels like it's getting harder. all the hallmark family images keep whizzing through my brain. and i can count so many people i've lost since i began putting boundaries up with my disordered FOO. it's like a huge loss. and i feel mean for not just accepting them as they are, and keep thinking others perceive me as rigid and mean as well. lots of pain about that today. lots of tears.

I am sure it will pass, but it's hard to feel it.

[Jolie40]

I'm feeling pretty unlovable this week. i've felt really like an odd ball of a person that few really "get" 

hugs to you!

the way we all grew up certainly forged our personality, thoughts, & sense of self
how could we not be different than others who had a fairly normal childhood?

[Sidney37]

Yes!!!  So much.  It's always surprising what triggers it.  It's especially bad today.

Today I was filling out updated medical forms for my kids extra curricular activity, camp, school, etc.  I got to the emergency contact section and I've been a mess since.  I had no one to write on the form.  I sat there staring at it in tears.

It used to be my parents.  We're NC.  FIL passed away this year.  MIL has dementia.  Can't use them.  SIL is far away, likely a PD and has rejected me for 20 years.  I live in a community of social climbers and people who act like PD's.  Maybe they are.  I haven't heard from almost any one in my community since COVID started.  The closest friend I had here has serious fleas from her PDm or she's a PD. I haven't heard one word from her in 6+ months.  I know it's because she can't get supply from me because of quarantines and lockdowns.  No local friend to put as an emergency contact.

I finally put the mom of my youngest's best friend.  We aren't even that close, but I didn't know what to do.  It's not like my closest college and high school friends who I do communicate with weekly can hop on a plane, fly here and rescue my kids from school if they sprain an ankle and I'm not available.

I've spent the day convincing myself that I'm the problem.  I'm unlovable.  I'm unlikeable.  I talk too much.  I wear the wrong clothes.  I'm too critical.  I'm not critical enough.  I scare people away.  I'm easy to reject.  If I weren't, I'd have an emergency contact for the stupid medical form. 

[FromTheSwamp]

I do have someone local to put down as an emergency contact, but I don't know how many times I've got the side eye from someone in a doctor's office when they ask me how she is related to me and I say "friend".  Clearly that's the wrong answer.  Sometimes it's so awkward that I add, she's the person who could get here in an emergency, and she has my brother's phone number.  Then they let it go.

Don't even get me started on how awkward it is not to have someone to drive you to medical appointments where you need a driver.  Nope, Uber isn't good enough, we need them to come in with you. 
UGH!

[Sidney37]

I've put off several necessary but somewhat elective procedures because I didn't have someone to drive me home.   Husband who worked out of state before COVID couldn't understand why I couldn't Uber home.  Nope.  Not permitted.  I'm hoping to get vaccinated and schedule the procedures while he's still working from home.   

[FromTheSwamp]

I once paid someone I barely knew to pick me up from a procedure because there wasn't anyone else.  It felt so weird and awful and I would have been more comfortable with Uber.  At least with Uber if you disappear there will be a record of who picked you up.

[Danden]

I have adopted a hardline approach.  I just tell myself that there's only me, I'm all I've got, and I'm not sad about it.  I find it's actually empowering when you don't have to ask others for help.  I have been in the situation where doctors/their staff insisted there has to be someone to drive you home.  I just told them, nope, not gonna do it/can't do it; I can't have the procedure in that case.  This puts it back on them.  Then they find a way, if they really want you to have the procedure, for either medical or (their) financial reasons.   If my kids need an emergency contact, it would be me.  If I can't be available for this possible circumstance, I don't allow them to do the activity.  My guess is that the camp also has a procedure in place for this circumstance.  They would have to.  Don't be intimidated by a stupid form! Keep calm and carry on.   

[Free2Bme]

I was blessed to be loved by FOO.  However, I wound up marrying someone who was incapable of love.  Most of my 20 year marriage I felt unlovable to my H.  Years of not feeling 'enough' , and having that constantly reinforced did a number on my self-worth. 

Updxh found every opportunity to send a message to me that he thought other women were valuable, usually coworkers.  This was thematic and devastating to me, until....................the lightbulb moment, when I realized that updxh didn't value these women either, only used them like he used me, for supply. 

The point is, we should never base our value on what others think.  Also, if I don't like something about myself, I try not to beat myself up, I can work on it and I am capable of change.  I don't need to devalue someone to feel better about myself, unlike my updxh.

[doglady]

When I started T, several decades ago, the therapist asked me why I was there and how she could help me. I burst into tears and when I was finally able to consider what I wanted, I told her that I wanted them to fix me so that I would be someone that my family would love.
The shocked expression on her face will live in my memory forever as 'OMG what the hell kind of people has this poor girl been dealing with, to deliver her into a puddle of tears on my office floor?'
It still comes in waves in rotten moments.
But the expression on that counsellor's face is the best remedy I have to fight it.
I hope you'll imagine it & use my memory every time that rises up.
Abuse is abuse is abuse and the shame for that belongs with others, not with you. 

Sandpiper, I had a very similar experience in my early 20s. The psychologist basically said to me: 'I think you need to get right away from your parents.' He was right. Unfortunately it took me a few more years to do it.

I also used to spend a lot of time, even as a very little girl, thinking 'what can I do to make my parents like me?' I have to keep telling that little girl she deserved someone to love her.

But basically, my short answer to the question posed is: Yes.

The long answer:

Although I know on the face of it that I am someone who wants to get along with others, who would hate to harm anyone, and is generally very sensitive to others' pain, I can never really shake the feeling that I am fundamentally unlikeable and unlovable.

There is absolutely no surprise about why I feel this way - my uPDm basically told me from the time I could understand that I was selfish, nasty, that I'd ruined her life and she didn't know where she'd gone wrong with me. She often told my younger GCbro to just 'stay away from her' (usually when the little shit had hit me one too many times or intentionally wrecked something I was creating and I'd had enough and finally retaliated).

Anyhoo, that all set me up nicely for general rock-bottom self esteem and, of course, put a target on my back for school bullies, which my parents would then tell me to ignore or say that they seemed like 'nice kids' to them, or they 'knew their parents' (so, um, it couldn't be that bad!!!??)

So, yeah, I was supposed to put up and shut up. Of course, this led to a love life where I attracted (and was attracted to) narcissistic, unobtainable types (like my unloving distant enF). I also attracted 'friends' who used me as a dumping ground, as I'm caring and a good listener. Often, they were nowhere to be seen if I needed support. I found that if I ever stepped out of my assigned role of people pleaser and available therapist, or if I had the temerity to stand up for myself in a polite manner, even when I made sure I used direct examples, 'I' statements, no blaming or name-calling, etc, it still was the general pattern was that FOO, narc bf's and 'friends' would rage at me for having the audacity to be anything other than their doormat. I used to wonder why people seemed so angry with me if I sometimes assertively pushed back on their behaviours. And I would often default to thinking, oh, I guess I'm in the wrong and should just try and be 'nicer'? After all, I was unlikeable, and I should feel lucky they would deign to put up with me. Of course, nothing changed and I usually just became more depressed and resentful about these relationships. It didn't occur to me that perhaps I was in relationships and friendships with people who were very unsuitable for me.

My other strategy was  to simply make myself scarce, which would then lead to even more rage from these folk because I wasn't complying with their demands. This led, in the end, to a self-reckoning, where I decided no-one gets to push me around anymore, and I did some pruning. This led to further smears and accusations of selfishness, and abandonment, etc. Oh well, it was them or me (see, even writing that makes me feel selfish and unlikeable).

Anyway, I'm at the point now where I do know that I am basically a decent person, who acts in a reasonable manner, and who wouldn't harm a bloody fly. So, after decades of caring about whether others liked me, I think if I a live a life that's about being kind to others while asserting myself when necessary, then other people can decide to like me or not. Some people continue to be extremely angry with me that I have chosen for them not to be in my life, and this triggers my feelings of unlikeability, but I am half-past giving a shit with trying hard with any of it. I've given up on being 'likeable.' It's too exhausting.

[blues_cruise]

Unloveable, yes, that very much resonates. I'm only just starting to open up to the idea that it's okay to make mistakes and that to be 'unlikeable' or 'difficult' at times doesn't mean that I'm not worthy of love. Love was entirely transactional with my father. If you were good then he would play nice with you, if you angered him then he would punish you for months until you somehow made it up to him (i.e. loads of self-sacrifice and people pleasing).

Looking back, I can see how deeply I was rejected by my FOO in my really vulnerable years when my young brain was developing its core beliefs. My father took very little interest in me as a small child unless he was mocking me or yelling at me and although I received love from my mother and I do think she tried her best, I believe she was probably depressed and when she wasn't mentally able to be present for me and was emotionally distant my child self interpreted that as me being unloveable. When you're little you can't understand adult problems, so that's the way my ego interpreted it. I remember feeling very alone as a child. I was also bullied daily by my older brother. I can see now that this was him acting out in a narcissistic 'fight type' way in response to our dysfunctional family system and in the present day I forgive him. It is something he grew out of when he left home thankfully. The really harmful thing to it was that neither parent ever disciplined him for it and this battered my self-esteem continuously and my brain wired itself around expecting to be attacked constantly. No-one modelled healthy assertiveness or boundaries and although I was aware that these were things other people were entitled to, I still believed well into my mid to late twenties that I was an anomaly and didn't deserve the same level of respect.

Sandpiper, I had a very similar experience in my early 20s. The psychologist basically said to me: 'I think you need to get right away from your parents.' He was right. Unfortunately it took me a few more years to do it.

I also used to spend a lot of time, even as a very little girl, thinking 'what can I do to make my parents like me?' I have to keep telling that little girl she deserved someone to love her.

Yep, me too, though it wasn't a therapist who got the message across to me but actually through relating to other people on this wonderful forum and slowly coming to the realisation that I was being treated very badly. Not having my father in my life has been very difficult and painful, however with him constantly enforcing such a faulty belief system I think I would have struggled to have made any progress with my mental health.

Big hugs to everyone. 

[bostonbound]

I felt loved by my parents when I was young but as I got older I have felt much more manipulated.  And, Yes, I do feel unloveable all the time.  There are time I question if anyone really loves me at all.  I have to try to stop the self talk when this happens because I can definitely be my own worse enemy. 

[Liketheducks]

OMG, yes.    Undeserving, unworthy, HAVE to be over functioning, perfectionism, busyness.....all the things.      It took me years of therapy, EMDR, medications, adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families, self-help.    I finally got a lid on it all.....and then my husband had an affair (we're so good now, better than ever before thankfully).    That second trauma, with my husband, took me back to all the childhood trauma.   I fell into a really unworthy/not enough dark place.    I only write this to say, trauma clings to trauma.    It doesn't matter if it comes from the PD parents or someone else.    Going through this type of upbringing makes it hard to recognize your worth and hold it because we're taught that we're unloveable so early on.    Hang in there.    Make lists of all the amazing things about you!    Re-read your social media posts (because we all only put the best parts of our lives out there).   Find 3 goods things about you each day.   Help others.   We ALL deserve to feel safe and loved.....even if we don't get that to start.

[theonetoblame]

I can understand how I might have emerged feeling unlovable, and appreciate the experiences here. I think there's a sub group of us who experienced toxic love, one that taught us that sure, we're lovable, but the people who choose to love us are likely to cause harm.

One of the best lines a therapist leveled at me went something like this: "there are many people in the world who will express love for you, this doesn't mean their love is healthy or good for you."

My parents demanded my love, aggressively, and manipulated people around me to break my spirit so I would cave and say it, over and over, in spite of the way they treated me. "love" for me was toxic and manipulative from my earliest memory.

I am loved though, and capable of love. I'm also competent, and I pretty much ring the bell on the GAF scale. When stressed, and often as a child, my response is one of seeking distance and solitude. As a child I fantasized about being a hermit and learning to talk to the animals in the mountains behind our house -- crows are cool, and safe 

[Wilderhearts]

On bad days I really get hit by an involuntarily dialogue of  "don't you hate yourself?"  I'll hear that in my head, without thinking it consciously.  This sneering, jeering voice telling me I really should hate myself.

Someone said this lack of self-love contributes to binge eating.  For me, I can't value myself enough to eat.  I'm not worth feeding.

I do believe that uNPDf was incapable of love.  Recently, enM has been so self-absorbed in her own pain that she literally can't hear what I'm saying.

I'm trying to think of things to say and do to counteract that unwanted train of thought.  "uNPDf didn't love me because of him, not me" and "I deserve to be cared for and loved - what can I do to show myself I love myself?"

[Jolie40]

As a child I fantasized about being a hermit and learning to talk to the animals

Yes! I have said to husband sometimes "I'm going to go live in a cave."


Liketheducks-these are good ideas:
"Make lists of all the amazing things about you!   Find 3 goods things about you each day.   Help others.   We ALL deserve to feel safe and loved"


so today, we got 3 big sheets of poster board & stick glue so we can each make either a vision board OR a poster of "things we love"