Not loved…

I am going to visit this place, Dalhalla, this evening.

Madeleine Åsbrink in her bok "Starting Anew" at page 18:

“I was frightened to death being unloved, despised and rejected by all people, afraid of becoming totally alone.”

So she had, all her life, tried to adapt and to earn love? Being the clever, managing, and achieving. Was the eldest of three siblings?

She had to learn to say “no”. The response from her environment ranged from a clear lack of approval to acceptation of her and her boundaries. When others responded with sour looks or icing silence she at first started to question herself. She thought it was maybe wrong of her to say no and show what she stood for (did she actually know what she stood for?).

She started to choose what people she wanted to have around her in her life, who liked her for the one she was and is, and for the one she wanted to be.

This quickly led her further to a big and complicated territory for her, namely relations. Who was she in her relations? She discovered that she was the big, strong, driving, initiative-taking, responsible-taking – an one who gave.

She longed for something else, and started the journey towards mutual, reciprocal, warm and near relations. Many of her old relations disappeared during this journey, while others became deepened and new people came into her life too.

The relation with her husband came to a crisis of course. But he had started a parallel journey, and they worked things out with a lot of struggles and efforts, because she had feelings for him still. During this journey the responsibility has been put on the right places she thinks, each one of them take responsibility for their own words, actions, feelings and needs. The trust and relation had to be rebuilt again.

They have both realized that a near relation doesn’t come of itself, but is borne in a conscious work and daily efforts. Both must want to and contribute to hundred percent for a relation to blossom.

She sees herself around and thinks there aren’t many models, but in most cases it is one who wants more than the other in a relation. This makes nearness impossible, a nearness we all are longing for, but as many of us are unconsciously afraid of. Due to early experiences…

Actually Åsbrink writes about her early experiences and in the literature list Alice Miller’s “The Drama” is mentioned.