I read something in Get Me Out of Here tonight that really resonated with me.  The author was debating with her therapist about how she was so much stronger before she started seeing him.  How she survived life up to that point by being tough and making it through.  Her point was that the world is a fucked up hateful place and hate is more powerful than love so people have to be tough to endure life.  He had a totally different view.

“Love is infinitely more powerful that hate.  You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth.  Your parents weren’t all hate or all abuse.  There were tender moments, whether or not you choose to remember them now.  There were those moments, however brief, when you felt safe.  You felt loved, and you savored every minute of it and held it closest to your heart.  And as you grew up, you sought love anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend’s parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them.  They are what sustained you. <clip> Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by.  But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you.  That’s what has gotten you by.”

My god, that pretty much summarized my entire life.  Everything I have ever done has been to seek out love because I needed it so badly just to survive.  I have always believed that I’m a strong, brave, and hugely adventurous thrill seeker in life because I keep putting myself into dangerous situations with people just to have the chance to be with them but in reality I was simply doing anything and everything possible to find those “tiny droplets of love”.  My behavior has been so completely twisted that “normal” people never wanted to spend time with me.  Eventually I learned that I didn’t get love from them, which drove me to learn how to seek out other twisted people because they were the only ones who would could tolerate being around me and would be willing to give me those tiny droplets.

No wonder I’m so addicted to “crazy” people and “insane” situations in life!  I’ve spend a lifetime learning that is the only thing which provides the nutrient of love to keep me going because healthy people don’t stick around me long enough to learn to love me.  Plus, I think I was so blinded by my own chaos and distorted perceptions that I was never able to see any little pieces of love that may have actually come my way from “normal” people.  I was so distrusting and terrified of humanity that at first the only thing I ever saw in people was judgment and rejection.

This really explains something else too.  Lately I have been wondering why I hold on to every little note, card, email, and word that people give me which demonstrate love.  For example, *ex-fiancee* sent me a very short text the other day that said “For the most, you treated me very well *my name*.  When you get your issues straightened out you will make a very good partner to someone.”  I’ve read that thing at least 30 times already and will probably read it at least 300 more.  Little things like that really do sustain me!  They give me hope and keep me going.  If I did not hold onto “tiny droplets of love” like this as tightly as I do I know without any doubt that I would have given up decades ago and my body would be plant food by now. 

The implications of this are absolutely HUGE for me.  These thoughts shed even more light onto last Saturday and why I had such a hugely inappropriate reaction to everything.  I felt tiny droplets of love from people and was so thirsty from grieving the loss of not being at the wedding with *ex-fiancee* that I completely latched onto those droplets.

I think I understand now what my therapist meant yesterday when he said “Be tender with my addict.”  Allow my addict to taste the droplets of love that people freely offer but keep him calm and submissive with my own feelings of self love so he does not feel compelled to break free and gorge until he vomits all over everyone.

Now the question at hand is how the hell do I do THAT?  Before just now I thought I had learned self love over this past year but at this point I’m not sure anymore.  If I had it figured out then why does my addict still break free and attempt to devour every ounce of a person’s love when all they offered to me was a small slice?