Imagine you had a problematic childhood. You might not even remember it, and to be honest it almost doesn’t matter. You only need to look at how you feel about yourself now, to be able to know what really went on.

The most glaring sign of having had a bad start is a deep sense of self-hatred.

You think you’re ugly. You can’t bear to look in mirrors. You never want to upset anyone and deep down you think people don’t like you, at-least not for who you are. You feel unworthy and strange. In many ways you feel ‘not right.’

Underneath such feelings, there will have been the normal offenders: an inconsistent and unaffectionate caregiver, some intrusiveness and irritability, neglect and abuse.

There are only so many ways these kind of wounds form.

But the biggest consequences show up in love. Here after mustering up the courage to seek connection, you have two options.

First, to fall in love with mean, unresponsive, possibly abusive, and sporadically unavailable people.

You can fall in love with people who are already in relationships, or maybe those who don’t text you back, who make you feel small and unworthy, constantly anxious and uncertain. You can fall in love people who think you’re unlovable.

Or, you can love people who really like you, who think you’re charming, sweet, and attractive.

And you can feel incredibly sick around them.

You can become a master at seeking out what’s wrong with them: they aren’t good looking enough, they are lame and have no options. You criticize their career, maybe the shape of their eyes, or perhaps their taste in music.

You become as critical of them as your caregivers were once critical of you. Really, how can someone who likes you be anything but a loser?

You end up pushing them away. Maybe not directly but by becoming unresponsive or by flirting with strangers. You have, after all, become an expert at eroding trust.

The toxic cycle continues for most of your life. Sickening available people. And an unavailable ones. And in between them overwhelming loneliness.

Is there a way out?

There might be perhaps a third option.

To fully grasp what’s going on and to share it with someone who shows kindness and responsiveness, someone who might have both problems of their own and perhaps a good therapist.

To meet someone who triggers us with their tenderness, then to explain to them what we know of our problem. Rather than pretending that we are healthy and are receptive of love without difficulty, we can maybe tell them, “I want to be normal so bad, I crave to be able tolerate love, but I am sick. My past means I can’t accept it, I turn against it and the person offering it. But I don’t want to live like this anymore. I am sick of sabotaging my relationships and pushing away good people. Please help me hold the anxiety of being loved. Please forgive me for being sick.”

If the person doesn’t immediately run for the hills, if they can see the humanness behind our shame and guilty, the hurt behind our sickness, we will be making astronomical progress. We won’t be healed just quite yet, but we will have at-least a grasp of how sick we are, and we will have found way to express the terror that arises within us whenever love knocks at the door.