the dichotomy of discontented anguish and desire for love

[Caterina]

My situation is this: due to a number of things that I won't go into, I live in a very psychologically unhealthy situation. Its emotionally debilitating and I see my sensitivity waning and my natural survival instincts that abandon such things as ethics and morality beggining to take over. I am trying to escape this situation and trying to preserve, maintain my humanity, my desire to do what is right. I am trying to save my own life. The way I see myself being saved is falling in love. However, I am conflicted with another equally opposing view that exists within me. The fact that i believe that I shouldn't love or be loved. This is because I know I am now messed up in the head, that i need to be cured, to be healed, to continue being a good person in a healthy environment. I don't think that this will happen unless I try to achieve it over a lifetime's worth of time. I want to love, to be good to someone, but I would have to be unconditionally loved, and I know that that is an impossiblity. I want to be healed. So when men like me, I embark onto huge anxieties before even knowing them because of the way I have had to live. I am afraid that they doh't know the real me, and that they love their image of who I am, without understanding me. I see all the relatoinships around me...all of them are full of pain, and misery. People choose to be unhappy, they choose misery and discontentment. SOme peopole are forced to be miserable, like me. But others, have everything and are miserable and make eveyrone else miserable. People who begin being lin love find out they were only in lust and then resort to bickering and constant fighting. Or their love dies and they become merely functional and dissatisfied. Why would I want that? Yet, my heart still yearns so much for love.

[melrich]

The way I see myself being saved is falling in love.

 

You seem like a very literate and intelligent person. I am finding it hard to reconcile your turn of phrase and obvious deep thinking with this focus on falling in love being the answer to all your issues.

 

As you yourself point out, relationships are not all beer and skittles, if you try too hard to get into a relationship and to shoehorn another person into the mould you have created, likely it will fail for all the reasons you have enunciated.

 

The key to a great relationship is to find happiness within yourself....then share it with someone else.

 

Look for happiness, not love/a relationship.

[Caterina]

Well, I have heard and seen from empirical evidence, that people are generally extremely deppressed before they reach that wonderful epitome of happiness that we humans can finally have...by falling in love. I think falling in love will be happiness b/c I have seen it make people happy. Like my best friend. It will make me forget all of the terrible things I am forced to face. I have tried and tried to reach happiness...its been an impossiblity. My only hope is falling in love since that has never happened to me. I am not happy and can't be happy inthe situation I am in. Unless, I can. Which is something that is beyond difficult for me to see as even a graspable possibility. Thank you for the compliment though, I am the sort of person who is starving for those...also thanks for taking the time to respond...i am interested in what you think...

[melrich]

It will make me forget all of the terrible things I am forced to face. I have tried and tried to reach happiness...its been an impossiblity.

 

No it won't. Those terrible things will still be there. It's a bit like saying by getting drunk I'll forget all the bad things in my life.

 

If you take a whole bunch of issues that make you unhappy into a relationship, you will make the relationship unhappy.

 

You need to address these things yourself, don't wait for a partner to come along and save you.

 

Being in love is a great feeling and part of that is having someone there to support you. But it is not a panacea for everything that is troubling you in life. You have to make efforts towards that yourself. I think it is generally accepted that people in loving relationships are generally happier than those who aren't. But those relationships need to be balanced and equal.

 

I think it is great that you are open to falling in love. Just don't wait till you fall in love to start addressing the things that are causing issues in your life.

[Mrocza]

I totally agree with Melrich. In order to be happy in a relationship you have to be happy with yourself.

 

You cannot get involved with someone or something expecting to have all of your problems solved for you. The key to happiness is personal satisfaction. You may think your solution is love but to love others you need to love yourself.

 

Perhaps you need to invest your time into love for yourself. In finding your own personal answers, becoming aware of your personal needs and sorting out your mind to figure out what makes you happy, will make you love yourself.

 

People who fall in love ARE happy, but because they are happy with themselves, their relationship, and their partner. They accept one another as they are, with their faults and virtues. It seems as if you can't accept yourself. You know you're "messed up in the head" and you need to be "healed".You mention getting involved with men and being overcome with anxieties...it's a personal problem.

 

I think what your problem is, is your journey for self discovery. As I said, you need to love yourself, but you need to know yourself to love yourself. You say men don't love the "Real you"; show the real you. You say you are "forced to be miserable", that is not true. I know it's easier to be miserable than happy, I know what it's like to be depressed too, but you create your own mindset. You decide whether or not you're going to be happy or let your negativity get to you.

 

Love is a beautiful thing. Don't let it become an outlet for your problems.

[registered]

Yep, I agree with Melrich and Fairie16

 

I want to love, to be good to someone, but I would have to be unconditionally loved, and I know that that is an impossiblity.

Everybody wants this... funnily enough, most (nearly all?) people who get love end up with this... I mean, who wants love if it isn't unconditional?

 

People are going to like you for particular reasons but what is wrong with that?...They are going to like you for some reason.

 

People who begin being lin love find out they were only in lust and then resort to bickering and constant fighting. Or their love dies and they become merely functional and dissatisfied. Why would I want that? Yet, my heart still yearns so much for love.

That doesn't sound like a problem with love to me... It sounds like a problem with those particular relationships.

Also if you are in love and then the love dies well, what is wrong with that? No one can predict the future, no one can predict these things.

People used only in lust? To a large extent we are capable of deciding if this is happening for ourselvesand then take the appropriate actions before we get hurt...

 

If you get your heartbroken that is what happens. It is unfortunate but it is unavoidable because some things are out of our hands (unless you avoid love all together).

 

The love of someone else won't save you. Only you and your love for yourself can.

 

The fact that i believe that I shouldn't love or be loved. This is because I know I am now messed up in the head, that i need to be cured, to be healed, to continue being a good person in a healthy environment.

You are not messed up in the head.

What makes you feel like you shouldn't be loved?

Everyone should be loved...if someone believes they shouldn't be loved they just don't appreciate themselves...it's that simple. In this case the cure is self-belief and self-love.

 

So when men like me, I embark onto huge anxieties before even knowing them because of the way I have had to live. I am afraid that they doh't know the real me, and that they love their image of who I am, without understanding me.

Stop thinking about what they are thinking - you cannot know this.

If men like you they like you...if you want to work out what they are thinking this will be evident in their attitudes and actions - not in your thoughts.

 

Just make sure you be yourself, that's all there is too that. You cannot stress about other people being and doing whatever. If someone likes you believe that they like you - only when it is clear that the converse is true should you yourself believe it.

 

So as the others have said, first love yourself. Don't worry about finding love, worry about being happy with and in yourself.

[Dako]

Would you want to meet a really unhappy person and hook up with them? Someone who's miserable and expecting a relationship with you to solve all their problems? Quite a burden to bear, isn't it?

 

You really need to bring happiness with you, especially to someone you care about. It's trite and simplistic, but you need to love yourself first.

[talo]

My situation is this: due to a number of things that I won't go into, I live in a very psychologically unhealthy situation. Its emotionally debilitating and I see my sensitivity waning and my natural survival instincts that abandon such things as ethics and morality beggining to take over. I am trying to escape this situation and trying to preserve, maintain my humanity, my desire to do what is right.

 

Ultimately it is not possible to live to some formula or standard of ethics and morality (this is not dismissing ethics/morality). Living to a formula is a "psychologically unhealthy situation": it is stifling inherent freedom. Freedom is not safe and one cannot make it safe by trying to second guess life 'in the head'. Living in the head is trying to make or do things right; and doing what is right is living to a formula.

 

I am trying to save my own life. The way I see myself being saved is falling in love. However, I am conflicted with another equally opposing view that exists within me. The fact that i believe that I shouldn't love or be loved. This is because I know I am now messed up in the head, that i need to be cured, to be healed, to continue being a good person in a healthy environment. I don't think that this will happen unless I try to achieve it over a lifetime's worth of time. I want to love, to be good to someone, but I would have to be unconditionally loved, and I know that that is an impossiblity. I want to be healed.

 

As seen here, you are only messed up in the head when (overly) trying to work out what to do. This is like being a controlling thermostat set to switch on and off at the same temperature; and the thermostat is incredibly anxious; it does not know 'where it is'.

 

As seen here, the only thing you need to be saved from is your own conclusion making. You are naturally saved when you do not conclude. You appear to have concluded what love is and what it can do for you. Love is not concluding nor concluded. What stops (and starts) is not true love.

 

It does take some people a lifetime to find true love, and some never find it. But true love is not really something to be found; it is 'here' all the time; it is 'hidden' by assumption/conclusion.

 

So when men like me, I embark onto huge anxieties before even knowing them because of the way I have had to live. I am afraid that they doh't know the real me, and that they love their image of who I am, without understanding me. I see all the relatoinships around me...all of them are full of pain, and misery. People choose to be unhappy, they choose misery and discontentment. SOme peopole are forced to be miserable, like me. But others, have everything and are miserable and make eveyrone else miserable. People who begin being lin love find out they were only in lust and then resort to bickering and constant fighting. Or their love dies and they become merely functional and dissatisfied. Why would I want that? Yet, my heart still yearns so much for love.

 

Misery and pain are part of love, part of a greater love. A love so great that nothing is excluded. If anything is excluded, it is not really love.... is it...

 

Most of us are looking for love by looking for (an) exclusive love; and perhaps sooner or later it is realized that love is not exclusive.

[Confessoress]

Agreed that, you cannot get involved with someone and expect to have all of your problems solved for you. But when you find the right person they will stand by you while you go through this hard time and support you. Love isn't all butterflies and rainbows either. For me love is when you stand by someone through the good and bad.

 

The solution isn't love, but it sure helps.

[Juha]

Most relationships from what I have seen are not unconditional love...

 

It is more they are with each other than for love...They are stable, have a good job, are good looking...Whatever it may be it is not for unconditional love...

 

I am starting to feel that all the good feelings associated with love do not overcome all the heartache and pain when that love goes away...

 

The high is not really worth the low to me anymore...

 

I guess I have become a bit jaded...