# I feel no love



## Guest (Mar 31, 2005)

I remember when I started my (group) therapy about 13 months ago, I was able to feel love, to quite a great extent and know this was something that would get me through this therapy.
Today however, and this has been going on for a longer time I realize, I feel that my ability to love is gone/my feelings of love are gone.
I dont feel love about anything anymore. I feel indifferent, numb, careless, angry, grieving. I feel more and more that Ive basically given up hope, to a better life, to recovering.
In one way, the indifference feels good, because I dont feel anxiety.
But I cant feel love anymore either.
And when I love, I cant trust it, and experience the futility of my love.
Its there, and then I know it will be gone, so who cares to love.
How can I trust love?

I have thought that because therapy is a healing process, Im in the phase of working through anger and pain, so its logical I cannot experience love with all these emotions stirring around in me. But then I think, where did my love go? And my joy? Or maybe I feel something that resembles love, but actually isnt. My heart is closed.

By nature Im a loving, caring and giving person, but lately, Ive come to hate myself, wanting noone near, wanting to destroy, and I start hating more. Withdrawing myself from people, dont wanna talk to anyone etc. Thats not me. It scares me.
A possible explanation is that Im getting to the core of my trauma's and thats why I can only feel bad. It worries me.

Im gonna quit therapy anyway, since its shown its better for me to go individual therapy and to a group for Complex PTSD once a week.

I also realized yesterday that I have never felt loved by my mother.
Maybe she did love me, but I never FELT it. Thats a huge realization.

Anyway, Im rambling. I dont really have a point to make. Just wanted to write it down. Usually this helps me to see new things about certain problems.
Can you guys here experience/feel love?

Wendy


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## Guest (Mar 31, 2005)

Its part of the process of healing and moving on, some people get stuck in their anger and hate for life. Try your best not to be angry at life, it only makes things worst. You are focusing too much onto your disorder when you should be focusing towards getting out of the hole your stuck in. I know how the past can seem so sweet compared to the present and you look back and become sad and angry at what you have become. Anger and sadness are not gonna help. You have to be stronger than those emotions.


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

yea i don't feel love anymore either about anything like music, sports, i don't care as much about my family and friends, although i know deep inside i love my family and they love me i don't feel it, because it feels as if i'm stuck in this nightmare and i'm really not here. like you i don't feel the anxiety as well, just pretty emotionless most of the time and when i show emotions there not real emotions. i'm faking it.


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## JAG (Aug 31, 2004)

I'm sure if you think about it rationally you have had moments of feeling love and other moments when you couldn't feel love. That's the way life is.


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## berlin (Aug 19, 2004)

I don't know JAG, Ive never experienced life so rationaly, objectively as I do now and from this emotionless and clinical standpoint I can say love is very limited.
I don't 'feel' for my children what I once did for a pet. Im aware that deep down I love them more than life -but I dont experience it. Love will be the driving force of my care for them, I act lovingly and appropriately but I can't access this grandest of emotions. I never grow tired of telling them I love them, I want to make sure they 'feel' it, but like much else Im just enough removed to not connect.
All others are surplus to give and recieve from. My relationship has suffered. But I keep trying, straining for the slightest warmth as I watch my boys play, appreciating how wonderous it would be involved more in their lives. 
Wendy, I think perhaps it hurts too much to feel? What do you think?


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

Ah - jij hebt eindelijk durven loslaten.

De definitie die jij ooit had van liefde, en de regels en voorkeuren, die zijn nu even helemaal weg.

De stoel die je hebt leren waarderen is niet dat wat je normaliter mooi zou hebben gevonden. Welke stoel je echt mooi vind - hoor het graag ;-)

Gebruik deze leegte om deze in te vullen met jouw klanken en kleuren.


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## Guest (Mar 31, 2005)

Des, het voelt inderdaad als leegte, maar het voelt erg kut.
Ik begrijp wat je bedoeld met wat je zegt in je post, maar het lukt me niet de link te leggen naar mijn situatie.

Ik begrijp verstandelijk dat je in leegte alles kunt creeren.
Hoe zie jij dit in mijn post?

Zo leuk he, gewoon lekker ons eigen taaltje spreken hier, h??rlijk. :wink:

*************************************************************
Sorry guys for the dutch, but we like it this way, its fun.  
Will reply more this weekend. Thanks for the posts! 8)


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## bat (Aug 18, 2004)

hi berlin

you said maybe it hurts too much to feel. it really does for me. even when in chronic states of dp my emotions of love are unbearable- like when in 'ordinary' times i loved music that was 'bitter sweet' i find the pathos of love really hard. i still find it really hard to answer the phone to my family but am caught in a kind of constant grief feeling about them. i don't know the answer to this, but maybe you're right and there is a cut off point


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## person3 (Aug 10, 2004)

des can you say that in english? i want to know and i'm sure it could help me...i see where wendy is at


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

Ik kan het grootste deel begrijpen, zo zorgvuldig zijn wat u opzet. 
Een moderator houdt horloge :wink:

It's really a pretty easy language to read. Just think of talking in German......maybe while eating spaghetti. Oh, and add lots of extra "z"s.

I will let Des do his own translating though.........


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

sc said:


> Ik kan het grootste deel begrijpen, zo zorgvuldig zijn wat u opzet.
> Een moderator houdt horloge :wink:
> 
> It's really a pretty easy language to read. Just think of talking in German......maybe while eating spaghetti. Oh, and add lots of extra "z"s.
> ...


Вы не можете держать вахту на нас русские!


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

enigma said:


> sc said:
> 
> 
> > Ik kan het grootste deel begrijpen, zo zorgvuldig zijn wat u opzet.
> ...


your russian ? im russian


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

Johnny_Utah said:


> your russian ? im russian


Вы были рождены там.

Я буду американским (только мной полюбите русского).

e


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

enigma said:


> (только мной полюбите русского).


Actually, I'm not sure that last part may've meant what I _thought_ it did,lol!

Oh well. :roll:

e


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

And Wendy, I'm not making light here.

I fully empathize with what you're saying.

Though it's kind of hard for me to think about feeling love when I've been an emotional 'flatliner' for as far back as I can remember.

Just keep in mind that you _will_ see better days.

Stay strong.

e


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

ya ne panemayu teba, thi naverni chohniti!


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

Johnny_Utah said:


> ya ne panemayu teba,


"I don't understand you" (?)



> thi naverni chohniti!


Total blank. (Not something about a doomsday machine, is it?)

e


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

BTW, did you leave there before or after the Soviet Union collapsed?

e


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

after of course


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## enigma (Feb 18, 2005)

Okay.

My Russian _stinks_ btw (so pay it no mind,lol!).

e


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

what I said was rather poetic (in a sense) - well the translation:

the definition you had of love, and the rules and preferals, are suddenly gone.

The chair you have learned to appreciate is not the chair you would have appreciated if you would have felt what you feel (free translation). So tell me, what kind of chair do you really like?

And use the emptiness you are feeling to paint it with your colours and fill it with your sounds.

So - that was my rambling in Dutch; and although it sounds cheesy in English in Dutch it sounds rather harsh :wink:


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

what I was telling Wendy was that she is in the midst of a process where things fall into place.

She is starting to realize that the things she took for granted for many years are not HER true choice. The chair which she liked (in the context of herself and the environment which shaped her) is not beautiful anymore.

The emptiness is something disappearing (the old thoughts, habits etc.) but nothing has replaced that empty feeling yet. So she feels lost and confused. The old secure predispositions are gone and new ones are not there to fill in the void.

So I invited her to shape up her life with likes and dislikes of the real Wendy. And as action leads to reaction we will learn (and see) a totally different person. And we will react accordingly.

Have not been here for a while - my English is getting worse :wink:

sorry dat het hier over haar heb


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## person3 (Aug 10, 2004)

so it's like it's not that she's incapable of love, it's just that her idea of love was previously based on what others told her about..she never really lived for HEr?


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

every human is capable of loving - like every animal. But - we tend to have something special, our capability to reason. And sometimes we reason wrong things. Even the things we like and dislike ;-)


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

What I think is going on is that (regarding the point I have come in therapy) Im blocking every feeling out. The closer I get to the pain, the more I want to NOT feel it. I think its this going on, and in answer to your question, Berlin. Its too painful.

There is other stuff going on as well. 
Des you say that basically what you think is happening is that the emptiness I feel is due to letting go off past patterns without having anything new in place.
Im not sure this is going on, but could well be a little bit.
I dont know. I feel the emptiness I create has more to do with not wanting to feel anything. I wonder if I block more, btw, or that these patterns of NEEDING to block painfull stuff out are more emerging (and maybe using them more consciously), if that makes sense?

Im encouraged in therapy to express myself in all I feel. And Im doing that more and more (which is also very scary). Im encouraged to express my anger as well. If I wouldnt do it, that would be a garuanteed way to have it stuck inside me for the rest of my life.
This also results in having days that I feel my Dp is lifting. Then I feel tremendous internal anger and at the same time feel very strong.
Past painfull/traumatic experiences and memories are starting to feel like they happened to me, that they are 'mine'. Hard to describe.
I feel this is an ongoing process, it has proven to be until now.

I feel Im rambling here, there are too many thoughts going through my head.

I also think what Des means is that when you get so lost and confused, there is no holding on to old patterns or ways of dealing with things the way you are used to. So you have to develop new ones.

For me what is hardest, is to OWN that what has happened in my life and what it has caused me. To make it Mine. Ofcourse that was is the DP is there for.

The deeper I go into myself, the more horrible I feel to the point of not wanting to live anymore. I cannot see the end of the tunnel, Im still in it. Its horrible.

I do feel I am capable of love, because I know I am, but I feel only 'darkness'.

Maybe more about this later, but thanks for posting people, it has got me thinking.


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

> I also think what Des means is that when you get so lost and confused, there is no holding on to old patterns or ways of dealing with things the way you are used to. So you have to develop new ones.


yes!

sterkte hiermee - dit is heel moeilijk. Je gaat jezelf leren kennen. Schrik niet maar wees tevreden.


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

> she never really lived for HEr?


Person3, you hit on something here. I realize that I think having feelings, wants, needs for myself, is selfish. If that is a basis to live on, there is no way I CAN live is there? 
Basically everyone knows what love is and how to love.
I think in my case (and what Ive seen is the case with many people) is that love becomes attached to negative meanings and thoughts and experiences.
We stop loving, or mistake love for something else, we become screwed up in a way, but the ability to love, will always remain the same, that will never change. Thats the good news :wink:


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2005)

Bedankt Des, ik snap 't. Soms ben ik de weg weer helemaal kwijt.
Mezelf leren kennen, gaat dat nog LEUK ook worden? :roll:


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## DM (Aug 12, 2004)

als het goed gaat, en het zal goed gaan...je gaat een fantastische tijd tegemoet - eentje zonder schuldgevoel, eentje met dat wat jij wilt, absoluut ook met frustraties, maar het zijn wel jouw frustraties. Laten we zeggen dat je dan eindelijk in jouw eigen toneelstuk gaat acteren ipv dat je een figurant bent in andermans sketches.


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## Brainsilence02 (Jan 29, 2005)

?????? ??????? ?? ?????????? ?? ?????????;


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