The Fear of Being Unloved

“The greatest terror a child can have is that he is unloved,

 and rejection is the hell he fears.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

The worst childhood message I received was “You are not lovable… as you are.” I never knew unconditional love. Instead I learned a conditioned love that danced to this rule “I love you when you’re good, but I don’t love you when you’re bad.”

It didn’t take me long to realize that I could never be “good” all of the time and so I could never truly be loveable. From that day forward, I never felt safe. I learned that if I was good, I might receive accolades from my parents and feel somewhat acceptable and comfortable. But all it took was one wrong word or deed and I was quickly robbed of my safety and salvation through instant rejection.

Parental affection was withdrawn usually through scolding or the silent treatment or a combination of both. Shame and guilt were used to shoot me down. “I am so disappointed in you…” “I am so ashamed of you…” and “I’m embarrassed to even call you my child…” were among the many toxic introductions to the scoldings that I recall. And all of them served to severely damage my self-esteem.

As a result, I developed a severe perfectionist streak. Even though I often failed at it, I did my best to be the Good Boy. At least when I was good I was lovable, even if it was for a very short period of time. That small bit of breathing room was better than suffocating in total self-loathing. Being the Good Boy didn’t make me feel safe. I knew I could still be emotionally abandoned by my parents at any moment, so I was always on my guard, but at least I didn’t always feel completely worthless.

Today I still struggle with the very real fear of being unlovable. I realize that I still have a very wounded inner-child living within the recesses of my soul and that child is every bit as fearful of rejection today as it was many a year ago. Of course I have a lot of knowledge today that wasn’t available to me as a child. I know now that love cannot be earned through being the Good Boy. And I know that real love isn’t gained through people-pleasing or caretaking or pretending to be perfect.

Real love is a gift. It is a gift from a Higher Power and from people who are wise enough to look beyond behavior and to love the very soul of another person. Most importantly real love is a gift we first give to ourselves. People who love unconditionally have gone through the daily real-life struggle of coming to terms with their imperfections and learning to love themselves despite their faults and failings. And they have also gone through the daily struggle of learning to love others—in particular the people they are most fond of—in the same way.

It is a constant struggle to love unconditionally. When we are young, we learn to judge ourselves and others harshly, and, as a result, the instinct to critically judge is so engrained in us as adults. So when we make the choice to love unconditionally, we find ourselves constantly struggling between our judgments and our ability to look beyond these judgments and to honestly love the beauty of the person underneath the judgments.

I very much want to believe that I am lovable just the way I am. And I very much want to believe the same about other people. So I am struggling with the negative judgments I still make against myself and others. I am trying to see all of us in a new light, one that’s free of criticism, or that can at least place criticism into proper perspective so that it doesn’t trump my own value or the value of any other human being.

Everyone deserves to believe that he or she is lovable. There are no legitimate exceptions to this. Everyone is born lovable. Everyone is lovable—despite his or her behavior, despite physical appearance, despite ethnicity, despite gender, despite sexual orientation, despite any and all abilities/disabilities, despite EVERYTHING!