2.7
Not feeling loved by either one or both of your parents creates huge and multiple triggers. Having a daughter of my own, I can't fathom parents who don't love their children the way they should be loved. I can't imagine not hugging your kids, not being there for them or not loving them unconditionally.
Growing up in that situation creates difficulties with our relationships. We do whatever we can to try to win their affection. We get excited over the smallest positive response from them and mistake that for being loved. We continue to search for ways to make them love us and escalate what we did that got us our positive response before to try to recreate that again.
The problem is, we think this is normal. So we take that same behavior to our other relationships even as adults. We think being treated badly and being ignored is normal, and we continue to do whatever it takes to win over our significant other's affection.
I have this listed as a trigger because being in an adult relationship that has the same nuances as growing up, we're taken back to our childhood. We remember the feeling of insecurity, of not feeling loved. We remember the pain and anger we felt as a child.
As an adult, those insecure feelings come back and make it hard for us to react rationally to bad relationships. It alters our ability to look at the situation for what it is. We revert back to our childhood response of trying to please rather than what should be our adult response of establishing expectations and boundaries.
Evaluate your relationships and how you respond. Are you being treated with respect and love? Is the give and take fairly equal or one sided? You deserve to be in a relationship where the love and respect is mutual. If you need help sorting this out, seek help from a therapist. If you would like to share your triggers with me, I would love to hear from you.
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