Love: A surivival tactic.

“If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else.”

I used to wholeheartedly believe in this.

It makes sense. But it’s not the whole truth, as many pithy quotes like this make themselves out to be.

At a very young age, trauma taught me I cannot trust people who say they love me. Surely love shouldn’t be this horrible. At least from what I gathered from the various stories of love and care in my kindergarten classes.

I even recall very pragmatically deciding after a specific incident, that since those around me were not dependable, I would have to depend on myself and give myself this love thing. If I were ever to survive this, it’s on me.

Given, this worked for me pretty well. I mean, I am here. I survived where others hadn’t. And I seemingly thrived too! I’ve done lots of life things no one thought I’d ever be able to do. All that’s good. But here I am in my 30s, utterly overwhelmed by… everything. Trying to survive a freak storm of trauma triggers. Grief, hurt and fun mix of seasonal depression with regular ole’ depression. And some extra anxiety marshmallows thrown in for good measure. My PTSD playing its “Greatest Hits”, and this time the survival tactics I’ve built up are useless. I am falling through the floor with no landing spot in sight.

Among the things no longer working, is love.

Sure. I love! Of course, I love my parents, I love my friends. I’m polyamorous for fuck’s sake. Of course I know how to love… right? Or do I?

Sure, I know how to give love. But I’m not really comfortable with taking. I worry that taking will lead to getting too comfortable. Surviving isn’t about comfort. In the survival mindset, asking for love/affection/comfort is criminally reckless. It’s a danger zone. Instead, I’ve accepted what I thought was love, but just enough, not enough to penetrate through my safety wall. I still have to stay safe. To be ready in case something bad happens. That way, even if love is taken away, I can still survive on my own.

It was really after Denise, specifically, died that I truly realized how much this safety wall impacted me and those around me. I’d loved her, but I’d always held back. I now realized just how much I didn’t trust her to love me. She never ever gave me cause to feel that way. She loved so wholeheartedly, so deeply… and I just wasn’t able to accept it?

I hate this.

Looking at my existing relationships today, I recognize how much guarding I’ve done. Even in my most intimate relationships, even in marriage. How much I didn’t actually trust anyone to love me. To me, all love was still conditional and finite. It could be taken away at any time, for even the tiniest of reasons. It didn’t occur to me that after ten years with me, maybe, just maybe, my partners mean it when they say they love me. Fucking wild.

I don’t know how to love without that wall. So the wall has to come down. But what the hell am I going to do without my most successful survival tactic? Am I supposed to just stand nakedly vulerable to anything that might hit me?

The answer is well… I guess i’m working on that answer. Between myself, my therapist and copious amounts of peanut M&Ms.

I’m working on loving myself, where I’m at. I’m working on loving the little one in me, my inner child, who still exists and hurts. And in re-learning those skills, I am learning to love myself and others in a better, healthier way. I am lowering that wall for the people closest to me, letting them love me when I cannot love myself. Giving me a kind, compassionate space to exist with my broken pieces and self.

So, while there is a grain of truth to the saying, “If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else,” it’s just a grain. Don’t build your castle on it.