Parental “Unconditional Love”

*edit* As of yesterday, I learned something that puts all of this in a much clearer light for me now: I have been the child of a Narcissistic Mother and Enabling Father. I knew something was terribly wrong all my life but only since I learned of the precise traits a mother with these tendencies exhibits yesterday did everything begin to click. Being raised this way wrought damage that I’ve only recently begun to understand the full scale of. The worst part is that because I wasn’t aware enough to protect myself, I am currently stuck in a situation in which I have to deal with her on a daily basis. The gaslighting/crazy-making (not something that only applies to socio- or psychopaths, but to narcissists and borderlines too) was partially successful it seems, but I have to give myself some credit too– the anger I’ve been trying to keep down all this time (and sometimes not succeeding, tbh) was my internal BS detector going at full blast trying to tell me “NO, YOU DON’T HAVE TO TAKE THIS CRAP!” Except while I apparently was able to mostly resist the gaslighting she’s gotten into inflicting upon me in the last year or two, I can’t just flip a switch and undo about 30 years of brainwashing. Apparently I have to accept and complete a grieving process for my “lost” childhood and the “mother” I never truly had. Only then can I hope to heal. Since I’m trapped caring for her right now, I’m not convinced I can do these things yet. But I just might be a step closer to surviving all of this, if I can.

In a sense, I’ve always been stumped when hearing of the term “unconditional love.” Not in the everyday world, and certainly not in fiction (where I probably learned it from, before consciously noticing examples of it in real life), but in mental health assessment surveys, and typically on my counsellors’ checklists of things to talk about. Relationships (not just in childhood but in adulthood too) with the parents are huge, after all. I think I understand the term well enough to define it clearly now: the certainty that no matter what kind of person you are or what you do, you are still loved. Right? Well, I hope so.

Yesterday, I figured out why I’ve always understood what those words stood for in a manner akin to the way most people understand algebra. (In a cold, clinical sense where you know the meaning of the words, but don’t feel them.) It wasn’t that my parents were putting conditions on their love; it’s that there was no such “love” in the first place. Only obligations to feed and clothe.

This warped my sense of self in more sinister ways than I could have ever imagined until very recently. It’s given me issues with guilt and shame, and a clawing wish for acknowledgement and understanding that I cannot lose, no matter what I try. But there is no one who wants to understand or acknowledge me now, at least that I know of. While I have made hundreds of friends in my lifetime and had a couple of boyfriends too, aside from those romantic partners (which I’ve long since given up pursuing in my “life”), I don’t know how to get close enough to anyone to be able to talk about things like how incredibly fucked up I am emotionally. (Entrusting the keys to my emotional health to a romantic partner seems like an exceedingly bad idea for someone as messed up as me anyways.)

So yeah, in the end I guess this is just a shout out to any other folks out there who never felt the love. I haven’t gotten into the current problems that make me wish I was never born, but I know this lack of (expected) love is the root of why they’re so insurmountable for me.