Think aloud
Love isn’t supposed to hurt. But after being emotionally abused, you start believing love means something else. You think that begging for attention and settling for crumbs of affection is enough because you don’t deem yourself enough.
Maybe you even think that love means having to spend sleepless nights crying because your heart is breaking. You think that love is when you’re mistreated, when love is denied to you, or when you have to earn it.
Most importantly, you settle for a lot less affection than you should. A person who abuses you gives you just enough to keep you holding on, but not enough to let you feel truly loved.
So, you work hard to earn those small signs of affection they’re willing to give you, or you confuse kindness for love. You think that you don’t deserve any better because you are not loved, and you no longer love yourself.
You’re being toyed with and the feelings you’re experiencing aren’t love. But the longer you’re exposed to bad behavior, the more normal it becomes.
You start thinking that all this is normal, that there’s no other kind of love. What’s even worse, you don’t think that you deserve the better kind.
You just want this person to love you, even if that means spending all your time trying to get them to care. So, you start thinking that they do love you in their own way and that that’s how love works.
Love isn’t supposed to hurt, but after emotional abuse you think love means something else.
That it means making this person happy no matter how miserable it makes you. Even when they treat you poorly, you still believe they love you.
So, you start thinking that loving someone means treating them poorly. This is the kind of love you search for because of your past. It has a lot to do with your relationship with your parents and the role models you had growing up.
If you’ve never seen a peaceful, happy, steady love, how will you know that it’s even possible? After emotional abuse, you think love means something else, something akin to torture.
Yelling and screaming at each other is how all couples work out their problems, right? Constantly breaking up and making up is normal, not so?
It’s not, but after being exposed to emotional abuse for long enough, your perception of love changes. You expect those crumbs of affection you settle for because you don’t regard yourself worthy of love.
Love means something entirely different, though. You’d know that you are loved if you really were because this person would prove it to you in their actions.
They wouldn’t ignore you and leave you hanging when you need them the most. A person who loves you would be there for you no matter what.
Maybe you had chemistry with this person and thought, “I’ve found it, this must be love.” But love and passion are not the same, and drama is not an essential part of love.
Love is when you find someone you can imagine yourself growing old with – and still like having them around. Would you get along with this person if you grew old together?
Love’s supposed to make you feel safe and bring stability into your life, not uncertainty.
Maybe you think that love involves mind games, but the one that will last forever most certainly doesn’t. It’s the warm coming-home feeling you get when this person holds you and you feel like nothing could ever hurt you.
After having gone through emotional abuse, you may even have come to believe that people show love by hurting you.
Don’t ever think that you love someone just because you’re crying over them, because they would be there to wipe those tears away.
They would be the cause of your smile, not your tears.
A person who loves you would respect you and shower you with love and affection. They would take your feelings seriously and always consider you before doing something.
This is because you’ll matter enough to them to go the extra mile for you, and truth be told, you deserve it. But after emotional abuse, you don’t think you deserve love and your self-esteem is non-existent.
A person who loves you won’t make you earn their love. They’ll give their love to you freely because you mean the world to them.
Love isn’t that feeling that the world is going to end if this person doesn’t respond to your text. It’s building a world with them and knowing that they’ll always be there.
Most importantly, love is supposed to make you feel good, not bad. It’s supposed to be the wind beneath your wings that keeps you aiming for the top.
It would never break your wings and make you feel like you’re unworthy of love. Love is not supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to heal.
There are some stages of healing you’ll have to go through after emotional abuse to relearn what love is.
You should know that this person is supposed to always be glad to see you and think of you when they’re away. They’ll try to make you happy, not to break you into pieces.
When you give them your heart, they’ll treat it with care and treasure it forever. Loving someone doesn’t feel the same after going through emotional abuse though.
You’re not going to be able to trust this person for a while, and you’ll be confused by their love. You won’t understand that it’s how love is supposed to feel.
Guys need to know a few things before dating a girl who’s been through emotional abuse. This is not the kind of girl who should be toyed with anymore.
She needs a real man who’ll protect her, not harm her. Most importantly, she needs to feel safe and never doubt his love because he keeps showing it with everything he does.
He’ll need to help her learn what love is again, and he’ll teach her by giving her that love. Eventually, she’ll be able to differentiate genuine emotion from purely bad behavior.
Finally, she’ll know the real meaning of love.
