Loved

I know I am loved. I often can't see why. I know my children love me. I don't think they could quantify why though, I perhaps wonder if it's just that they have been trained to love me, it's expected that small children love their mothers.

I know my husband loves me. I wonder if it's still the love for a wife, or it's that he is my best friend, or it's a dutiful love. He married me and now he's stuck here.

There are others I know care. I know I have friends who care. Again I wonder if it's a duty thing again. It's been implied that church members love me sacrificially.
They are required to love me. Although some obviously do that more than others.

I have some wonderful professionals looking after me, as well as some who, well, are not so great.  Again, some you can see do care. They care how I have cared and had fondness for some of my clients. They care, but they are paid to.

Today was a bit of an eye opener. I said that I didn't want to leave my children motherless. It was only them that concerned me. I was selfish though and in pain every day and that I could easily slip into thinking that although it would be horrible, they would be fine.  My general view point has been that if even my mother, and then the mother replacement figure I had grown close to, could not love me and have rejected me, how could anyone else come close to feeling I was important?

My counsellor became very serious.

"Since you told me yesterday I have been reflecting on what a reality without you would have looked like. How I would feel. It struck me that having met you only six months ago how devastated by the loss of you I would be. The loss of you would devastate me, it would destroy your husband and children. You are loved. You are important."

Wow! That is quite a realisation. I almost tried to argue. I tried to challenge it. My mind trying hard to convince me that it could not be true. You are unlovable. This lovely lady is saying what you need to hear. You aren't really important.

Then as I left, she held me. Not the friendly, sympathy hug from last week. A tight, long cuddle. A hug I've only shared with the closest of my friends, and not many of them really. Just reliving it now I feel quite tearful.

I'm not huggy. I know touch is important. I'm a hand holder, a shoulder tapper. I'm a baby head kisser and hand stroker. I don't cuddle adults. My in laws are cuddly. This wasn't even like my mother in law hugs, not even the lovely time she called me clever for producing her first grandchild. I like to think she forgot she was basically congratulating me for having sex with her youngest son!

The most recent, even remotely similar, contact I had was in July. 8 months ago. Sitting on my hospital bed with both me and my friend sobbing. Love, care and concern. I didn't need somebody trying to argue with words. Today she was wise enough to know that my brain is too traumatised and too self loathing to hear words which challenge my view of myself.

So, she held me. Held me quietly. Held me how I hold my daughter when she cannot find words or understand my words. The tight hold. The breathing into her that I do for my daughter. True containment. I don't need another mother figure, although it is both Biblical and evolutionary that young women are build up by a range of maternal figures. I just need somebody to show me love in such a way I had no argument and no defence. Exactly the reasons I contain my frightened and overwhelmed child.

I don't think you will ever know how you soothed my heart today. I am wobbly. I think one single rejection or negative experience would still shake me like an earthquake. For the first time in weeks, months even, I saw the tiniest bit of light. The smallest hope that someone, someone who doesn't have to love me. Doesn't have to have me as important in her life, actually cares. That perhaps those who should love me but don't, or can't show it, are unable to because of something in them. Not something making me unlovable.

I'm pretty certain that you have saved my life today. I'm not saying I don't think death would be a welcome release. I don't think I'd even go so far to express regret for what I tried to do. I think you have definitely bought me some time. Bought with love rather than fear of consequences. I had planned to try again this week. Now, I feel I can live a bit longer to see what might happen.