post-breakup

here is what a shared in the message, and maybe it will be a helpful perspective. This is what i discovered at some point on my path, this is how my love for myself showed itself to me, when i realized these things. I just was mistaken, i misunderstood myself.

here it is:
you are so sad you don’t realize that your sadness is only because you have a deep respect and tenderness for your own heart.
you’ve only been trained to deny it.
i will try to help you recognize how much you love yourself.
your love for yourself is already there, or else why would you care if she/he hurts you?
if you didn’t love yourself, why would you let me know you are crying? you love yourself so much you are being your own friend and hero to find another person to help you.
if you didn’t love yourself, you would abandon yourself when you are in pain but you look for ways to soothe.
you just look and find the wrong things. but you do your best.
that is love.
if you don’t do something well, it doesn’t mean you are not sincere.
your tender regard for yourself is obvious to me. i am a stranger. you’ve only learned some bad habits when it comes to expressing it and nurturing it.
this will make sense at some point if it doesn’t now.
you don’t need to come up with love that isn’t there, you need to recognize the love you already have.

and why would you love yourself as much as you obviously do, if you don’t also know you are worthy?
you know all these things.
you just are mistaken about them.
it’s a simple misunderstanding..
it will take time but i promise if you don’t believe it now you will eventually.
you love yourself enough to even be patient and keep trying when you feel so much pain you are in agony.
you actually love yourself very very much.

you know you are worthy and that is why you never want to be hurt like that again.
if you didn’t know you were worthy, you would never look for love at all.
you know you are worthy, and that’s why you came to these boards. you know your voice matters, you know you pain matters enough to share it.
you are advocating for yourself because you know you are worthy.
You know you are worthy and so you cry.
if you didn’t know you are worthy, you would hope it all happens again, you would wish yourself harm.
you might speak to yourself in unloving terms , that’s just a bad habit, a learned habit, a habit that bruises and confuses you.
you love yourself and that’s why you love others.
you know they are worthy. you know they are worthy of a beautiful gift you can give them, and that gift is you, yourself. And so you give the best gift you have. You give yourself.
you’re just confused. you have been conditioned by other people , your parents, society, your partners, who also did not know they love themselves. they were also confused.
it may sound crazy, but it is not.
the idea that you do not love yourself, or think you are worthy, that is the crazy idea. of course you do.
we express our love for ourself in what we choose.
you are trying to choose love. you are not trying to choose hate, or indifference, or cruelty.
you simply do not have insight into how to choose well.
how could you? you weren’t taught, because people didn’t know.

this is simple and profound and hope begins the moment you see how much you already know your worth, you already love yourself.

did you ever feel proud of an accomplishment?
of course. because you love yourself.

it goes on and on. look and see every thing you do because you do love yourself. it will give you the courage you need to get better at loving yourself WELL.

there is nothing more true or more persistent than the love you already have.

this made me cry, in a good way of course :-)

trusting yourself to learn how to love yourself well, takes time.
but you have time and the most faithful friend available in yourself.
i think you should just keep being brave and listen to yourself more, not less.
just allow a shift in your misunderstanding, it is simple but not easy.
i believe this.

i would say the point of the relationship becomes moot once you realize you thought you needed it to do something it can’t do.
dont overthink that part.
maybe just take some time to feel the love for yourself.
when i felt mine for the first time it made me cry and i felt proud that i could be so courageous even though i wasn’t skillful.
i sure was trying hard and that made me feel good. 

nothing else mattered to me as much as that and i never got abused again.

Very interesting topic as usual!

I second every description here, especially the one written by comeheregoaway.
It doesn't even sound exaggerated to me, this is truly how I feel when I get rejected and my abandonment issues come to the surface. It sounds extreme, but it's a very very painful place to be.
It's very deep and intense....probably the worst feeling I know of.

Thanks a lot for the long message you wrote, tgat, about what you would say to a person suffering from this.
This is definitely something I'm going to keep to try and remind myself of my worth and capacity to love and be loved! This is gold.

What you are saying is very true. It is about giving less attention to the negative and more to the positive.
Of course it's not as easy as it sounds, and this is not the only method to make things better, but it's definitely one important tool.
Some therapists emphasize the fact that self-love among people like AP's is not exactly lacking, that it is there to begin with, like for everyone else, but that it is somehow buried deep down and inhibited by all the negative self-talk. So it is truly about nourishing that little flame that would like to shine brighter inside our heart (I'm getting poetic now...).

Regarding the misunderstanding, I came across the same concept very recently. I don't know if any of you have gotten those ads on Facebook recently about Artie Wu from Preside Meditation. I bought his 25 USD package with a series of audio files. One session was very interesting, precisely about this concept of original misunderstanding, during our childhood. For APs (perhaps for avoidants as well?), we learned very early on that love was conditional. I will only receive love IF. If I do this, if I do that....But this is actually a misunderstanding. Our parents did love us somehow. Even if they treated us badly. I still have a hard time accepting this but I am getting there. But because of their own attachment issues, their love for us was perceived by us as being conditional. The guy's point was that our parents would still love us even if we didn't do the things that we thought we had to do in order to be loved in return. Hence the misunderstanding. This is what we need to learn to differentiate.

Also happy to have found my way here

Nice poem! And quite insightful at a time you didn't know about attachment theory!
It is there somewhere inside us, but often silenced. We need to find it, and let it be heard, let is take the space it needs for it to thrive and grow.