here’s a prettier page if u wanna easier read my notion
“Struggling to understand love doesn’t mean you’re incapable of loving someone.”
When you grow up in an environment where love is ties to obedience, approval and fear, you learn a version of love that feels very different from the love you’re trying to experience now.
Since i’ve spent my whole life learning one version of love it can be incredibly confusing to discover that love might be something else entirely.
How love may have never felt real to me.
Being raised in a controlling religious environment, love can become something i had to earn rather than something i felt safe receiving.
I learned that being a good daughter meant being obedient, that making the right choices means pleasing my family, and that being loved means living in a way that other people approve of. I started to infuse love with acceptance.
From a young age i would stress and think
If I disappoint someone, will they still love me?
If i become someone they don’t approve of, will i still be worthy of their love?
If i stop doing what people expect of me, will they abandon me?
Do they love me for who i am, or for who ive been taught to be?
How can i feel secure in someones love when a part of me is always wondering what would happen if i showed them parts of myself they might not accept?
Love only felt real when i was doing everything right but conditional when i started becoming my own person (16ish).
It made it difficult to trust love, even when someone genuinely cared about me. I learned to associate love with the possibility of losing it. Because of this, the idea of losing someone feels so much bigger than ordinary fear of rejection.
Why it may be hard for me now to receive love.
Receiving love requires a lot of vulnerability. You’ll have to allow another person to see you, i hated this. I hated the thought of letting someone see parts of myself im uncertain about.
But what happens when you’ve learned that certain thoughts, feelings, questions, or decisions could make people see me differently? YOU LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF.
I hid what i really thought. I struggled to explain my feelings because ive spent years questioning whether those feelings are appropriate in the first place. I found myself overthinking how someone will react before i even considered what i was going to say.
I realized this recently with Nic. I feel uncomfortable that he loves me in a way that doesn’t require me to prove myself. Being loved without having to earn it felt so unfamiliar.
When you’re used to measuring your worth through how well you meet other people’s expectations, unconditional acceptance can feel almost impossible to trust.
I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder when someone will become disappointed in me, discover something they don’t like, or decide that I’m no longer the person they thought i was. Therefore, i may pull away emotionally before anyone has the opportunity to hurt me.
It’s a way of protecting myself from a possibility that feels frightening, even when the person in front of me hasn’t given me a reason to expect it.
Why showing love might be difficult
Receiving love and expressing love are two different things. You can care deeply for someone and still struggle to show them what they mean to you.
Since i wasn't given much freedom to explore my own identity, I didn’t have very many opportunities to learn how to express my needs, boundaries, preferences, and emotions without worrying about the consequences.
I learned how to be a good person according to other peoples standards without learning how to be emotionally open as myself.
How this showed up in relationships:
I keep things inside. I feel things deeply, but when its time to explain, my mind goes blank.
I wanted myself down. I hide parts of my personality or opinions because im afraid of how someone may respond.
I struggle to be vulnerable. I want someone to understand me, but allowing them to see the real me sounds threatening.
I overthink my actions. I worry if im a good enough girlfriend, daughter, or partner instead of asking myself when I genuinely feel.
I struggle to recognize my own needs. I’m so accustomed to considering what other people expect that identifying what i want can be difficult.
I want to be able to show someone i care, but i have not learned how to express affection without feelings exposed or awkward. I want to feel understood but im not sure how to explain myself. And ill have to take risk.
How growing up this way might affect romantic love
Romantic relationships bring these struggles to the surface because they ask you to do something i may not have has much practice doing: built a relationship based on my own choices, rather than on the expectorations of people around me.
I for the first time have to figure out what i want, communicate what i want, disagree with someone without assuming the relationship is in danger, and allow Nic to know me without constantly editing myself.
Since I’ve spent ears trying to avoid disappointing people, those things can be awfully terrifyifing.
I fear that if Nic sees those pats of me that are confusing, uncertain, angry, or imperfect, he might think differently of me.
I also feel guilty for not being as emotionally open as i think i should be.
I recently realized, **i cannot build the kind of intimacy im longing for while feeling that i have to hide parts of myself to preserve the relationship.
Little by little, healthy love gives you room to become more myself rather than requiring me to disappear to keep it.**
I can disappear and still be loved. I can make mistakes without having to speak to 2 old wrinkly men. I can make mistakes and still be worthy of tenderness. I CAN CHANGE MY MIND WITHOUT BECOMING A BAD PERSON. I can have feelings that someone doesn’t understand without those feelings becoming wrong. I can grow.
The strangest part of learning this is realizing that love isn’t something i have to constantly prove i deserve. I can simply be a person who is learning, growing, making mistakes, and trying to understand herself.
It’s October 21, 2026 and I almost broke up with Nic bebacuse I thought i needed to heal through everything before im capable of finally loving someone. I know now i can love someone now and still be learning how to communicate, trust, and be vulnerable.
I also don’t have to blame myself for he ways i learned to protect myself.
I’m a work in progress. But im so close.
