There’s a line in the unbelievable book “Perks of Being a Wallflower” that says what I’m trying to say today quite simply:
We accept the love we think we deserve.
What’s missing, I think, what lacks in this stunning little truth is something else, something that explains the entire point of me writing this essay. I guess what I’d say is this, to follow up:
We think we deserve the love we’ve been taught that we are worth.
Chbosky nailed it with his first quote, make no mistake, but to me it always lacked the foundation, the roots that fed the blossom of its importance. We do accept the love we think we deserve, we always have, but the reason we think we deserve it so often has so little to do with us. We are shaped by how we choose to love, but more, we are shaped by how others choose to love us, in return.
There are some that love unconditionally, that pour out their affection, their connection, their compassion as though they’ve a reservoir infinite within.
There are some that do not.
This is a challenging piece to write, if I am honest, this is highly personal, this is about people I know and love, and those they give that love to. This is about me, too, about things I have endured with people that loved how they were probably taught to love, loved in such a way that their compassion was currency and they had to determine the best way to spend it.
Do not be these people, and if what you know of love was shaped by those that loved you this way, please, I implore you, break this cycle.
For some, “I love you” doesn’t quite mean I love you, it means “what have you done for me lately?” For some it means, if what you do for them has slowed, so too does the love they give. So too does the compassion, the empathy, that they allow themselves to grant others.
There is a cost to this, though they know not we pay it. Loving another this way, loving with condition, is a storm that erodes the shorelines within us. Sometimes it goes swiftly, taken in the torrent, drug back to the sea and lost in the surging whitewater and silt. Sometimes it goes slowly, this quiet abuse, sometimes it’s an erosion that takes years, decades, and then suddenly we find a face in the mirrors we stare into and call it stranger, call it emaciated and ghostlike. Call it “me” and feel forlorn in this naming.
I speak of love often here, more than nearly any other subject I’d imagine, but not this way, not this side. This is the dark side of the moon that illuminates this place, this is the unspoken bit, the kind of love that doesn’t warm, but chills. Compassion as currency is such a dangerous and destructive way to love, but more importantly, to allow yourself to be loved. When those we care for, when those we feel our compassion and empathy for, use the reciprocation of it as currency, something that can be rewarded or withheld to punish you with its lack, it erodes every sense of self-worth you’ve spent your lifetime trying to develop.
When friends, and even more so when family, treat time or tenderness, grace or gratitude, energy or empathy, compassion or care, as something they must spend, something they must barter or trade for your love, it destroys everything it should stand for. Being loved this way creates cycles, it creates patterns of feeling like we need their approval to deserve love, that we need their unconditional affection or compassion, though they know what we cannot admit: It will not happen. Not now, not later, not ever. Love becomes performance art, love becomes a transaction—give enough and you’ll get something back, give too little and you’ll see precisely what you’re worth to them. All smiles when you do what they require, the hollow silence and disappearance when you do not. This is not love, it is control.
Spend enough time in these relationships, with these people, and a redefinition takes place. “Love must be earned,” we begin to believe, “I have to be perfect,” we imagine. Self-care becomes a source of guilt, even resting feels wrong. Every no is laced with apprehension and remorse, the sting of culpability seeping into every choice we must make. Give until you’re empty, make more when you’ve run out. Create warmth for those that reserve theirs for your acquiescence, for themselves first, then second, then again when you need it most.
What becomes of us when this is what we know of the mathematics of love? What do we learn when we see Love as some strange vending machine in which we must put in all our compassion, all our devotion, only to hope that the buttons we press will drop the treats we crave and not get stuck on the rings behind the glass? That our card will be denied?
We think we deserve the love we’ve been taught that we are worth. This is what comes, we lose our worth, we forget it and rely upon others to determine it for us. We believe we are less, and so we so often settle for it. We reinforce to those who withhold, those who punish us with their ambivalence to our joy and peace, that they are right to love us this way, that we do not deserve anything more.
We become the ‘always there’ friends, the child in the family that takes and takes and never complains. We become the excuses we make for the behavior of others, the reluctance to take a stand and finally, finally, defend ourselves. We become the words “I’m sorry” and the soft silence that follows it when we apologize, again and again, for doing absolutely nothing wrong. For having the audacity to believe that maybe this time, this one time, we’ll be treated how we’ve been treating everyone else.
We start believing our value is only tied to our utility, to what we can give or make or create or invent or agree to or purchase or rearrange or fix. We become afraid to say no, to set boundaries, to dare to express our own needs. We feel like not enough, because god dammit, never, not once, have we ever been given enough to feel like it.
Love, becomes conditional. Love, becomes precarious.
If you’ve made it this far you have been loved this way, hell, maybe you’re wise enough to even know you have loved this way. If so, hello. Welcome. I am so proud of you. To recognize these patterns is the first step of many in a long line of healing. It’s the seeing of the red flags, the draining sensation after interactions, the constant need to ‘prove’ your love, your fear of ever daring to speak aloud your needs.
Next we must redefine love. We must redefine compassion. Love, compassion, empathy, care, is a gift, freely given, and never a transaction. True love, real and lasting and enduring and honest and beautiful love, is unconditional, it is not earned through emotional labor.
Next we must set new boundaries, this is arguably the most crucial of all steps. We must learn to say no without guilt, we must learn to communicate to those we need, what we need. We must learn to fight back, for ourselves, for our love, for our worth. When we begin to value our own compassion, when we understand that our capacity for it is a gift, a superpower, it erases the narrative that it’s a weakness to be exploited and manipulated.
Finally, we must seek those that understand true reciprocity. Those that love how we love, those that create healthy relationships based around mutual care and respect, not the one-sided stripping of all we are.
I don’t know where you are, I don’t know what you’ve endured, but I imagine if I asked for a raise of hands for all those who have been loved this way, we’d be a sea of arms and fingertips pointing skyward. We learn these lessons from enduring their teachings, and now we must reclaim what has been lost, what has been taken away.
Do not love this way. Do not abide being loved this way. You are worth so much more, so much more than you’ll ever believe.
Let us see, now, with clear eyes, what love has always meant to be. Let us set down the weights we’ve carried, look into the mirrors and finally, finally, see our own faces again.
Let’s see them smiling back.
