[Guest]

This is a quote from Xeper (lifted in its entirety from another thread because I think it is just so well-written that I wanted to use it for a springboard to this thread)

Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...

You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
in Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

- XEPER

See, that says something profound. It really does, guys.

Let's talk about it.

Learning to love and then being "stupid"enough (really brave enough) to allow ourselves to CONTINUE to love after we've been deeply hurt is one of the hardest things in this life.

And it's really somethign that can make dp states (all kinds of symptoms).

Not the loving itself, but the trying to NOT love, or trying to NOT care....

Sometimes we turn off our hearts out of fear that we can't survive more pain. And in the process, we lose Self.

Thoughts?

Janine

 

[person3]

Interesting stuff. I have done it myself, I believe. but some of the times its really GOOD that I prevent myself from loving the person. Like I could get my heart broken by a certain TYPE of person, and then meet another similar type (by that i mean they have a similar detriment to them that i now know to be harmful)...and then i'm just like "forget it."

and if i try to pursue them ANYWAY that's when *I* get the dp stuff. because i've already established that this person is dangerous.

what are your thoughts on that?
---on a tangent---
oh i really hate it when you're dating someone that will sit there and talk shit about their ex in front of you. A LOT. It's like "duh, well i'm here now and if that's not good enough than screw you!" (but it's always fun to discover WHY their ex would ever leave them! then you're like "double screw you!"
---------------------

 

[person3]

also for me, the fear of hurt is NOTHING compared to the fear of embarassment. Such as believing a lie, being made a fool of in public, disclosing secrets to someone I thought I could trust then having them turn out to be untrustworthy, thus causing me embarassment over the parts of me they now know about...or even worse, someone's callousness making a mockery out of anything human about yourself that you let them know. It's like giving someone a gift and watching them rip it up in front of a crowd and saying "hey, she got this for me! idiot!" or doing some obscene act with it.

yeah. embarassment. WAY WAY worse than hurt for me. But I grew up in a world where I was always embarassed at anything besides who my family wanted me to be, which was either grandma: wanting me to be a clone of her or mom: not wanting me to be there at all. anything else, even asking for something i wanted, would cause yelling and cussing and snapping or worse, awful condescension. so i have a big thing about embarassment. i guess i'm a little too uptight in that sense but i would like to meet and be around more people that gave me the message that i could follow my heart and be myself and not get slaughtered or ridiculed for it. hm.

 

[jen]

i find that i only let myself "let go" when i know the relationship is doomed. i have a flair for impossible love.

 

[rainboteers]

deleted

 

[Dreamer]

This is interesting to me as love, being in love with someone has always made me feel better. This is why I am so sad I have no children to love.

All through high school I had so many "loves" and crushes. INTENSE. Then in college, my first real boyfriend/lover.

Without love ... I feel very empty ... lonely.

When I broke up with my first boyfriend in college I was devastated, I felt I would never find anyone ever again. But I did.

My biggest problem is DP is an obstacle to love in the sense of an obstacle to meeting people more and more, as I have isolated myself. But when I get out and be with people, and when I am with someone I really care about, I feel better.

I want to be in love, I want to be in LUST. I'm not kidding.

And I suppose there's that old saw, "To have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all." I believe that 100%

Most painful for me, is to be judged, to be deemed worthless. That's my schtik, and it was my mother's party line -- that I was worthless. But more scary was, she like me being needy -- then I wouldn't leave HER. She always said love was garbage, fake, that anyone who said anyone loved anyone was lying. I don't know if she ever loved anyone. I don't feel I loved her.

And deep down, she was tremendously needy.

Interesting what things cut us to the core. Yup, losing love is horribly painful, but finding it, experiencing it, for me, is ... it makes me more alive. I feel I have a reason for living. When I love.

Moi 8)

 

[Guest]

Despite the philosophical and psychological imperative placed on "Love," in my experience it has been one of the most potent poisons in existence.

For anyone who knows me, you would know how improbable it was when I first fell in love what feels like centuries ago...

It was in school, I had just recovered from a major psychotic episode that lasted for several months, and I felt like I had been reborn. I was starting to come out of my shell for the first time, and I felt as though my healing had begun. I was talking to people more openly and warmly than ever before, and I was actually starting to make friends, an alien concept to me at the time. However, one of my friends in particular delighted me whenever we conversed. So much so, that I would actually derive pleasure in coming to school. Slowly but surely, I became aware that I was much more sensitive to this friend's feelings than to anyone else's. I cared very deeply for this friend of mine. And on January 27th, 2004, that friendship blossomed into something that filled my life with the fragrance and colors of what can only be described as "life."

I was happy in this knowledge, for a time. This feeling was not reciprocated, as it was unknown, but I minded it not. So long as the object of my affection was happy. However, it was not long before my secret was exposed, as it was impossible to conceal.
It was then that the first splinter entered my heart (What poetic justice that this occured on the Ides of March...). The person I loved, the first and (thus far) only person for whom I cared so much...HATED me in return.

This went on for months, an agonizing game of avoidance.

The next year, however, I learned a terrible truth...the person I loved was in pain...

I tried everything to try to contact, to speak with, to comfort my love but, to no avail.

Can you possibly imagine the torment of seeing this person everyday, to spend hours in the same room, and yet to be unable to converse as we once did, only to see the person suffering before my very eyes, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it...

This went on for an entire year.

Finally, just weeks ago, I found incontrovertible truths...truths that rent the veils of deception that cloaked me in the shadows of malice...

The malice and cruelty of the person I loved.

It turns out that this person (Don't worry, you will see the relevance):
1. Is a hedonist
2. Drinks alcohol not because of depression but because of hedonism
3. Does cocaine for the same reason
4. Sells prescription drugs to minors
5. Is EXTREMELY sexually promiscuous
6. Is incestuous
7. Enjoys giving oral sex
8. Was once pregnant but got an abortion
9. Sold her body once for $146.96, and just for kicks, too.
10.AND (drum roll)...

Worst of all...

The person I cared about very deeply DELIBERATELY lied to me about having depression and other problems for the sole purpose of torturing me.

As it turns out, this person and her friends (who also do and sell drugs and engage in unhealthy hedonistic practices) choose someone one year to torture.

Apparently, I was so fun to torture that they chose me two years running (which explains the deception about the depression).

Now, every random thing reminds me of her and how much I cared about her...(how much I STILL care about her, despite all that she's put me through...I still just want her to be happy, by that I mean in an Aristotelian sense...)

And each howling dirge of remembrance hurls me back towards the dreaded abyss of my "conditions..."

That is my one and only experience with love. See how it has scarred me?

Yours truly,
XEPER

P.S. That is not my deepest scar, just my freshest wound.

 

[Guest]

One more thing...

why do people always associate love with sex?

Love is a feeling of deep caring and utmost respect for another person's feelings, thoughts, experiences, and general self.

On the other hand,

Sex is a bestial coupling of complementary bodily organs that exchanges fluids and produces transient, euphoric sensations in the brain. How can you think of attaching yourself to another human being in such a crass, animalistic manner? Surely there must be SOME better way to show your caring and admiration for someone...

Like baking her a nice cake...
Or just leaving her alone for a little while...(ok, that one wasn't serious)

But how about...
Enjoying a nice dinner,
Taking a moonlit walk on the beach,
Enjoying the cherry blossoms,
Discussing books that you've read,
Seeing a movie (a little cliche, but still effective),
Just holding each other close and whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears,
or, (most importantly), talk about important things in each others' lives and share your innermost feelings with each other?

Instead of doing all of these wonderful things, why must you people insist on implementing the people you claim to "love" as mere masturbatory ancilllary?

 

[peaceboy23]

This is a very interesting topic to me, because i have relatively unhealthy responses/attachments in relationships and love. I tend to fixate on someone that i can't get, or that i find out later isn't interested in me, and pine for that person for ages. I continue to talk to them, hoping that they'll one day fall in love with me, decide they can't live without me, etc. Either that or i'll meet someone online and talk tot hem online for hours, days, all that, and, never meeting them, be lusting after them. If I do meet that person, my attraction usually fades, they can't match my expectations. I know that part of this stems from my going for things I know I can't get, and pushing them away when I can get them. This explains why I torture myself with crushes on striaght guys that there is no possiblity of having. This goes into a more general fear of letting people get close to me, as I have a LOT of friends, but very, very few CLOSE ones. I wonder sometimes if this contributes to my dp/dr, because I hide myself so much from other people, most people, actually, because i'm terrified of exposing myself or letting people in, beacuse I just expect to get hurt. It doesn't make much sense, either, because it seemes like in most cases these issues come from bad parents or grandparetns, but my upbrining was great and I always had a lot of love and support. Other than my best friend turning on me in sixth grade and brutally harassing me in front of others, nothing like that has really happened. However, can i still really have deep repercussions from what happened over ten years ago, evven after he has recently talked to me again and told me how much our friendship has meant to him? Sorry to go off topic here a bit, but I can relate to the battles of love and bad love and all that stuff. However, I do firmly believe in love, and when I am with someone i'm interested in, i tend to feel better overall.

 

[mulder]

I'm pretty sure that my inability to cope with the break up of my longest running relationship has played quite a big part in my becomming DR/DP. It caused me to drink more, smoke more, and become depressed and loose a lot of my love of life.

I saw her recently for the first time in about 3 years, and I immediately started shaking and my IBS sprang into action.

My reaction to the breakup was to slag her off to anyone and everyone I could. You might say that I couldn't have loved her, otherwise I wouldn't do these things. It just feels like she's been laughing at me constantly for the last 6 years, and in some cases she HAS openly made fun of me, and it's been my only way of defending myself to reveal all her dirty little secrets. I don't like doing it, I wish I never had, but I couldn't control it at the time. I'm better at that now, and I hardly talk about her, but I still get the nerves if she's around.

I still think of her every day, still wish we hadn't split up, but the reality of it all makes me so angry and upset. It's definately possible to both love and hate somebody at the same time, but you can't do both to the full extent at the same time. I've often thought of trying to sort things out with her, but what the hell do you say after 6 months, let alone 6 years?

 

[bright23]

"And it's something that can create dp states (all kinds of symptoms). Not the loving itself, but the trying to NOT love, or trying to NOT care.... Sometimes we turn off our hearts out of fear that we can't survive more pain. And in the process, we lose Self."

Janine ? Right through to the core. I feel like crying.

This is my story in three sentences.

 

[rainboteers]

nvm

 

[Martinelv]

i find that i only let myself "let go" when i know the relationship is doomed. i have a flair for impossible love.

Now THAT is poetry. I feel like I'm doomed in exactly the same way, but I expect that Aunty Janine won't allow us to wallow in such miserable expectation. I grip the edge of the table in anticipation of a self-descruction-type telling off.

 

[Guest]

Why do you say "self-destructive"? In many cases, it is a brilliant solution to a rather awkward problem.

Petrified of real intimacy, afraid of the very concept of having to be emotionally dependent on another human being who we cannot control, we shun relationships. But then we hunger for the illusion of closeness, and for sex and romance. What's a girl (or guy) to do? Very simple: choose horrible partners, attractive and seductive, yet total washouts in the real relationship arena.

That way, we can:
1) enjoy the fantasy of a relationship and the early passion and romance;

2) secretly know it will end before the going-gets-treacherous;

3) believe it's not our fault (the other person was just "impossible!" and/or "there are no good people out there");

4) convince ourselves we WANT closeness, but we can't seem to find it;

5) avoid ever having to face that we have a terror of real closeness (fear of losing self in someone else, and secret WISH to do so);

6) reaffirm our original position that we need nobody, can depend on nobody, and are much better off the way we always end up - "me and me against the world." (the narcissistic theme song, grin)

L,
A.J.

 

[Guest]

edited

 

[Dreamer]

I will say that with myself, I've gone through many a relationship with troubled men who are like my father. I am fully aware of this now. I don't necessarily hate any of these men.

I realize that there is much compromise in my life, and I am needy, particularly because I come with so much baggage. That's just how it is. Not just the DP, but other problems, physical and psychological.

"You can't always get what you want ... but you get what you need."

Sounds corny, but my POV these days. And I'd rather have that than be lonely.

Ah, and forgot to say, I see the futility in trying to change someone. I have to accept what is there, that the person loves me, if I want to put up with the bad stuff, and go from there.

My POV towards relationships has changed quite a bit over say 30 years, YIPES.

There are good people out there. I have to be aware of what I'm getting into. I have to be aware of what I deserve, what I can't have, what I'm willing to accept.

And yes, love can be painful, but I think it can be wonderful as well.

I wish I were healthier, emotionally, and have had a normal, healthy marriage with children. Wasn't in the cards for me.

 

[person3]

janine said:

" me against the world." (the narcissistic theme song, grin)

Which made me wonder: Does that make Britney Spears' "Me Against the Music" the theme song for narcissism?