Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 8 of 32,000,000)
Learning to Love Myself?
I have been tasked with imagining loving myself rather than seeking love elsewhere.
But how? Starved for connection my entire life. I have gone without nurturing, protection, or the kind of love which would alllow me to exist without fear of it vanishing. Granted, I would benefit from taking better care of myself. And while that might prepare me for healthy connection with another, it will not satisfy my need for intimacy and connection.
In my world, love has been conditional— withdrawn when I failed to be useful or pleasing, which was much of the time.
I don’t know what it means to love myself. I survive myself. Each day, I wake up, and there I am—by myself with myself.
People who love themselves seem to have learned what love feels like because someone has showed them.
And this man who showed me what it was to feel cared for, considered, loved, treasured—wasn’t who he claimed to be.
Was It Real?
Was the love we had real? I mean, it wasn’t not real. But it was crafted and designed by him, executed by him—and then, intermittently retracted by him.
I don’t know. I feel stuck and disturbed by the idea that I’m supposed to now learn to love myself.
My therapist said, “Buy yourself flowers. You don’t need someone else to buy you flowers.”
But it was nothing to do with the flowers. It was about him/us—the consideration, effort, presence. He made me feel seen, heard, chosen. And ultimately, dependent on him making me feel those feelings.
I became emotionally reliant.
Fuck Self-Love
I am devastated by the belief that “no one will love you more than you love yourself.”
If true, and I was indoctrinated to hate myself, then does that mean everyone else will hate me too—forever?
It’s as if love is generational wealth or generational poverty. Some people inherit it. For others, it remains out of reach.
How does that work?
Connection
I am wired for and starved for connection. Not association. Not status. Not proximity.
I crave shared direction and flow—someone to hug, call, listen to, and be initiated by. Someone to laugh with, cry with, cheer for, and fight for—just as they would for me.
I’ve spent my life surviving, on my own. And I reject that healthy connection is hostage to my self-love. I cannot accept that as truth.
My lack of self-love didn’t just make me vulnerable to this love bomb—it made me perfect for it. I was groomed for this. Though I hesitate to use the word, I now recognize a pattern of behavior that feels predatory. Before learning about the two other women, I would have been offended to hear him referred to this way. But patterns don’t lie. I am one of four women devastated by him in just one year, not to mention his wife and daughters. Data and harmful patterns cannot be denied. Even if harm was not the intent, it remains harm.
Disclaimer: I am sharing my personal experience exactly as I recall it. This is my truth, my story, and my perspective~ to document what I lived through.
