QUESTION

My parents ignored me when I was growing up, and I just want someone to love me. If I have a baby to love me, will that satisfy my need, even though I am only 18?

ANSWER

First of all, the answer is not searching for something to “love you” but to understand why it is that you don’t feel loved; my understanding of the mind says to me that your lack of feeling loved is based on your experiences in early childhood; the question now becomes, “Would a child be the vehicle to love?”

My answer to this would be no.

You must learn to love yourself even though at times you don’t understand yourself; in my opinion, you can never find love outside of yourself.

Having an infant is not about wanting to be loved by him or her; it’s about providing unconditional love TO THEM; this will difficult if you are looking for the same thing the infant is looking for, which is essentionaly “wanting to be loved”.

I would suggest to you to explore (with a therapist) just how your parents ignoring you impacted you; understanding this will allow you to heal the place that you don’t feel loved and will one day lead to a life that most importantly will be more fullfilling.

QUESTION

Kashee writes: I recently found out my 6 year old has been fabricating a detailed story for the last 2 weeks to her teacher and class.It involves us getting a dog including its name, breed, and day we were picking it up. It seems to have started when the above-described dog showed up on our lawn as a stray. It was actually a neighbor’s dog who we returned it to. Since then she has gone to play at the house with the dog several times. She has wanted a dog for many months. It has been explained several times to her why we can’t get a dog right now. When confronted about her fabrication she said that everyone in her class has a pet and she wanted to be “special” like them. Do you think this is normal for a child to make up such a detailed story? I have concern because there is a history of depression on my husband’s side of the family; and I want to know if I am jumping to conclusions or if this was some type of precursor to depression? This is very different behavior for her as we have provided her with many creative experiences such as Karate, Brownies, swimming, camping, and a 2 year old sister whom she gets along with very well. This concerns me on several levels because, to our knowledge she has never told elaborate lies and always tells us about things she is interested in and we try to provide them, such as Karate, etc. We believe that had her teacher not asked about the dog, we may never have known she was making this up. Any direction you could give would be appreciated.

ANSWER

Dear Kashee,

Children have rich fantasy lives and it is quite normal for your 6 year old to have come up with such a detailed story; children have an ability to suspend reality in order to explore and understand their environment and it’s possibilities; children do not use logic the same as us adults and thus, trying to logically explain to them the reasons why something can or cannot be done (i.e. not getting a dog) can require multiple attempts and still at the end of the day remain unclear to them.

Your 6 year old’s desire to be “special” brings a few things to mind; first of all, I think that in our society most kids get taught that their external reality defines their internal reality; i.e. if you have the latest toy or clothes, that somehow makes you more special); I see this work it’s way into adulthood, where adults seek to feel better about themselves via accumulating material wealth (which is usually on credit cards; average debt for a U.S household = $30,000); children need to be reminded that they are special just the way they are; they need to be reminded that we are all equal and that they have been special since the day they were born; I think that this leads to a greater resilience as adults and less vulnerability to the woes of everyday life.

QUESTION

Stasko writes:  I have been in 4 relationships each with women who are attractive and intelligent but needing some type of emotional help. As a psychologist, I find myself trying to help them in some way through my nuturing personality. Despite the initial positiveness in the relationships(each have been live-in 5+ yr. relationships) I find the relationships have failed for a variety of reasons ranging from having them become diffrerent people with increased self-esteem and then leaving me or becoming withdrawn and wanting to lead seperate lives. Am I choosing this type of person subconsciously or am I just a type of person who feels the need to help others? Please let me know your thoughts.

ANSWER:

Dear Stasko,

One thing I can say with confidence is that I believe in unconscious mental processes; we’ve had millions of experiences in our lives that have given rise to who we are emotionally and mentally; our early childhood experiences were most relevant in determining aspects of our self such as our self image and self esteem among many other self defining characteristics; anything that was painful was put into the unconscious and according to Freud’s theory (which I agree with) set up an internal conflict(s); something that would now remain in our psyche and give rise to behavior that would somehow re-create the conflict (Freud referred to this as the repetition compulsion) in hope of a different outcome; the first step is to recognize the pattern or theme in our relationships and then the work begins; one must through a deep sense of commitment look to understand the events and beliefs that give rise to the choices that are made in our lives; I believe that it is only through this “Inner awakening” can we free ourselves of old repetitive patterns that keep us stuck.