Love is not Love

The day and the night yesterday were so exhausting. I can tell you this much: it didn't stop after finishing my last post. I was again, just about to sleep as I suddenly started to have this feeling again. The feeling of being held somewhere. The same feeling I had before I remembered something about the sexual abuse. And then memories emerged. I want to write about something else first, but I can tell you that much, I now know what happened to me.

First I want to write about the insight I got yesterday during the day.
I told you that it was the first day that I could finally relax and let myself feel whatever was inside there. I saw that my parents never loved me. Until then I was always defending them saying that they did love me and they had no idea of what they were doing to me. I thought that they had no other choice and that's why they treated me like that. I thought that they didn't experience anything different and so they can only pass on what they learned. But yes, they had a choice, everybody has a choice. And that's not the only thing. I truly believe that you don't treat somebody you love like they treated me. I don't think it is possible to treat someone that bad when you really love them.

I thought about what my parents would answer if I asked them if they loved me. They would say: 'Of course, you are our daughter.' That is the only reason they will be able to think of. I finally saw that there was absolutely no love in my whole family. I believe that all of them think that they love some members of the family. For example, my mother and aunt think they love their parents and vice versa. But I know that my mother and my aunt don't even like each other and they know that too. They don't even pretend to do so. But admitting that they don't love their parents, no way. I know that my grandfather doesn't love his children. They are all playing a family that they only are because of kinship. Asking any of these protagonists why they love the other, you would always get the same answer: 'Because he/she is my .....' (Please fill in the corresponding relative).

I see how crampy all of this is. This balancing between the responsability they think they have to have for each other. The I go to that birthday and attend that family celebration because that's what one should do. They don't go there becuase they are happy to see each other or want to share their important moments and memories.

I also thought about the person my parents supposedly love. They only know the daugther that was doing everything to survive in the environment they created for her. They would only be able to characterize the person I was living with them. The one full of fear that tried to be as invisible as possible and the one that didn't really do anything. The supposedly shy and quiet girl, that was none of that. Quiet yes, but out of fear and terror.

I know that this is also a coping method, I am dissociating myself from them by saying that. But that does not mean that it is not true. I know teenagers normally do that. 'You don't know me at all!' is a very common sentence they use to tell their parents that they are different, that they are having their own personality and they do revolt with this against them. But I also know that my parents don't know any of my characteristics I developped during the last years, because whenever I was at homw I behaved in a different way, falling back into the role of the invisible, quiet girl, trying to survive. So how can they say they love me when firstly they don't really know the real  me, I am when I am 'free' of them. And secondly they treat me like shit?

As a child I had to think that they loved me as much as I had to think that I loved them. It was what I was holding on to. A child can't comprehend anything else. How would it be able to suvive without that hope?