“The beauty of the truth; whether it is good or bad, it is liberating.” ~Paulo Coelho
It’s around the time of your mother or father’s birthday. You browse through the card aisles of your local store getting more and more frustrated because you cannot relate to any of the cards you read. You eventually pick out the most generic birthday card you can find and think, “Okay, I’m off the hook until the next holiday.”
Celebrations often bring up a lot of unresolved issues in families, even in among the most well functioning ones. We are reminded that the relationships we have with loved ones are not only not the way we would like them to be, they are downright unfulfilling.
Sure, you can accept that your relationship with your family is not what you want. In fact, that’s the healthiest way to look at it, but you still must interact with them, and that just leaves you feeling depleted.
No one can say that they had a perfect childhood. If someone was to ask a room of people if they grew up in a dysfunctional family, I would be the first to raise my hand.
Personalities clash from time to time; however, there’s a specific way that people feel when their parents loved them with conditions. There’s a nagging outlook that something was and is always missing, a deep emptiness.
Unconditional love is when someone loves you without confines. They express their love to you whether you succeed or fail. They don’t hold it against you if you’re going through a tough time. Their love is constant.
Conditional love is when someone expects perfection at all times, and if you fail, they’re extremely disappointed. They treat failure as a character flaw and have a hard time accepting mistakes. They don’t truly see you. They rarely build you up and instead tear you down.
The emotions associated with inconsistent parental love are similar to the feelings one may experience during loss. Numbness, anger, sadness, and loneliness are common when you’re working toward acceptance, which is a vital phase of healing after an emotionally lonely childhood. In time you’ll come to the realization that you cannot change your parents and say goodbye to the relationship that will never be.
Conditional love from a parent is one of the reasons why so many people feel that they will never be enough and have a deep longing for something more in life.
Not sure if your parents love you conditionally? Here are some signs to look out for.
1. You feel drained and beaten down after seeing your parent.
No interaction is ideal from start to finish in any relationship, but if you feel consistently exhausted after seeing your parent, it’s worth looking deeper into your relationship with them. Feeling tired after each interaction with a parent is not the norm.
2. You never felt like you were good enough as a child or even now as an adult.
You are perfectly aware of all of your positive attributes in your personal life and career; however, you feel like you’re a failure. Nothing you do makes you feel like you’ve succeeded.
3. Your parents rarely beamed with pride over your accomplishments.
Your parent never really talked about you with pride, though you may have heard them boast about your brother, sister, or even acquaintances to others.
4. They downplay your achievements.
You accomplish a challenging personal goal. Someone asks you about it and before you can answer him or her, your parent talks over you denying or downplaying your achievement.
5. They openly reject you in front of others.
You show up at a family event, and even if you and your parent are seemingly on good terms, they avoid contact with you at all costs. It leaves you feeling deeply hurt and confused, wondering what you did to make them avoid you like the plague.
6. You dread expressing yourself or talking openly with your parent.
Your parent says something that may seem insensitive. You’re thrown off and would like to address it, but you’re afraid to express how you feel because you know it wouldn’t be worth the agony. You feel they might lash out, turn the tables on you, or deny your feelings.
7. You feel they don’t see the adult version of you.
No matter how much therapy you’ve been through, how many self-help books you’ve read, how many successes you’ve achieved, or how many people you meet in your adult life that make you feel that you are loved and accepted for who you are, you still feel defensive and attacked in your parent’s presence. You logically know your positive attributes, but around your parent you feel like the child who was trapped in a dysfunctional home with little hope of escaping.
You may be thinking that all this sounds strikingly similar to the relationship you have with your parent. If so, it’s going to be okay. You are not alone in this. Remember I raised my hand too when the topic of dysfunctional families came up earlier in the article?
It takes self-awareness, support, self-care, and patience to heal. Just recognizing conditional love isn’t enough to ease the pain. But there is something you can do to create a little relief when you feel those familiar feelings bubbling up.
First, take a moment to close your eyes and take some deep belly breaths, filling your stomach up with air. Feel the tension in your body. Where are you holding it most—your stomach, chest, jaw, or shoulders? Breathe and release it with each breath until your body feels completely relaxed.
Next, picture yourself in a bright, beautiful forest or open meadow. You walk through the grass and come to an enchanted pond with a pinkish, golden light. You find a metal pitcher sitting on the edge of the pond and pick it up. You then dip the pitcher into the pond collecting the beautiful liquid.
You hold it against your body and take another, deep belly breath. Then you hold the pitcher to your nose and smell it, and it smells like the scent that you love the most—like apples, peppermint, lavender, whatever it may be.
Now allow your heart to slowly open up. This may take some time. Even if your heart doesn’t feel completely open, relax and pour this magnificent liquid downward into your chest area. Let it flow through your heart, your core. DEEP BREATH.
Your chest opens even more as you sense the space you’re in. Allow yourself to focus on the presence of your surroundings. Now, just sit there for a moment. Take another deep breath and pull the presence back into your chest. Hold it in for a moment and let it flow to your feet. Hold it, then release it into the ground/Earth.
Open your eyes once you’re ready and feel how this visualization has created space for peace, acceptance, and presence.
You are and will be okay.
Take comfort in the fact that, in time, with the help of solid friendships, partners, self-care habits, support groups, coaches, or therapists, you will recognize that your experience with your parents was less about you, and more about the lack of love they may have received when they were children.
Their pain is not yours and it most definitely was and is not your fault. The best you can do is channel your experience into the changes you’re in control of. The thoughts you choose to believe, the people you select to be around, and the self-care rituals you want to have.
Recognizing your pain is the beginning of healing. Many loving wishes.
About Kimberly Diaz-Rosso
Kimberly is an LMSW, Certified Life Coach, and lifetime learner who lives in New York with her husband, son, and dog. She practices mindfulness daily and believes meditation has greatly improved her life. She can most often be seen enjoying time with her family, immersing herself in educational trainings, and connecting with others on their journey to self-improvement. Visit her at kimberlyrosso.com.
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.
Thank you Kim, I needed this today 🙂
thanks but i just created sins to myself for looking at the cons from my parents, but its all true that they dont like me
Interesting Post
Unconditional Love can be one heck of a condition if its not understood.
Many people, I think, associate the idea of ‘unconditional love’ with ‘unconditional allowing’. However, like the idea of freedom when you exercise it your setting boundaries which can feel like a paradox but isn’t. When you love someone unconditionally, the attributes (boundaries) of accountability, responsibility, meaning and purpose are involved. If I don’t get to be accountable you are telling me that nothing I do or am matters? That cannot be love.
Unconditional love requires healthy boundaries and of because we love others only as we are capable of loving ourselves unconditional love starts by learning to love ourselves unconditionally. In the journey of individuation, we are confronted with our experience of mother and father. Learning to love our selves unconditionally we take ownership for being our own mother and father – our relationship to the ability to nurture and protect ourselves. As long as we project that outwards, we will never see our parents clearly and doing so love them unconditionally.
Love this. Beautifully written!
Thank you for your thoughtful comment on unconditional love. When you say, “When you love someone unconditionally, the attributes (boundaries) of accountability, responsibility, meaning and purpose are involved.” It is well put and so very true.
Great
May I turn your question around to ask What tells you your adult son uses conditional love.?
We are parents of three grown ups but our middle child sees the world as against him. We become easy targets. We are boyTh mental health professionals. He’s always had a rough time but he only unravels with family. He’s breaking our family up. Is it our fault? Is it genes? He’s a lot like my older brother in temperament. He has a skewed view and perceives anger where there is none. He feels afraid but calls it anger.
Thank you so very much!
I’m so glad it helped you Ann.
I’m sad to hear that you, your family and your son are finding it hard to connect with one another. I appreciate your insight and hope you and your son find a common ground to help you move forward. Many blessing your way Ann.
Ouch – Bullseye.
“he is breaking up our family”, “is it genes” ” he sees the world against him” .. Sounds like blameful language to me. Children who gets blamed a lot and not feel appreciated or seen, understood show signs of anger dispair etc. I feel like you have to drop looking for someone to blame – nor him nor yourself (also blaming your self and not learning from it wont help) Just understand , listen purely of what the feeling underneath behaviours and beliefs.
Missing from this conversation is that humans are naturally sadists, almost everyone. Human groups need scapegoats to abuse in order for the group to feel fulfilled and have good group motivation. Disallowing scapegoating increases inefficiency and it ruins group morale. So, people will give birth to scapegoats to abuse those scapegoats for the sadistic entertainment for the rest of the group to improve individual and group morale. This is the sad fact of humanity. Even parents who treat everyone with respect may tray their own child even a talented high producing child very poorly for the fun of bullying. Most people do not realize when they are doing this. It’s not deliberate evil, it’s genetic evil at a fundamental level. These sadists feel it’s right and natural to scapegoat because it is.
I think groups who require a scapegoat, the scapegoat of that group should estrange from that group. It’s a rotten thing to be picked as a scapegoat but you don’t have to tolerate it. The group will find a new scapegoat or they will be less efficient and somewhat grumpy. Once we can admit that sadism is a perverse but ubiquitous characteristic in human behavior, a scummy characteristic, then it can reduce the pain. Sadism is the most disgusting trait in humanity and to me it’s an unforgivable sin. Scapegoating is an act of sadism. Parents can be sadists because most humans are sadists and the least threatening of a scapegoat is a parents child and that’s why parents can be so cruel to their own children, it’s the safest way to abuse someone without suffering legal or physical consequences. Even parents who seem kind and empathetic to the world can treat their own children like trash because humans on average love bullying the meek. I have noticed almost no only-children are forced into becoming scapegoats. Three isn’t a big enough number to choose a scapegoat but 4 is enough. The best way to avoid scapegoating your own child is to have only one child or even better, get sterilized and never bring child flesh into this planet of the Trash Apes. Most humans are evil and only feign nobility, most people are posers. I know “it’s complicated” but the bottom line is most humans are rotten monsters to the core and only pretend to be decent for their reputation. Last thing, it’s rarely just one parent. Sadism is a group effort in humankind most often. Many times it’s the parents, grand parents, siblings and even neighbors who all gang up on the scapegoat for the thrill of a team effort. Only when we can admit the demonic, sadistic, prurient, and greedy nature of man that can we deal with the fallout. Looking through rose colored glasses into this cesspool existence doesn’t change the state of the cesspool. It still stinks even if it looks nicer in rose colored tints. Now imagine the scapegoater finally understanding it’s the scapegoaters who are the wrongdoers, who are demonic sadists undeserving of love or any kind of relationship. People who scapegoat others are trash, the lowest form of filth in the cosmos and since most humans are sadists, humanity on average is evil. I never scapegoat. It’s immoral, it’s disgusting, it’s trashy. I’d like to see a law against it but since almost everyone is guilty it’s just not enforceable and that’s why the mad scientist doctors who did the Tuskegee Experiment t, who for forty years infected and murdered our fellow Americans and not one of those dirtbag mad scientist sadists served a second behind bars. From 1930s to the 1970s! Zero accountability but in perfect example of human virtue theater, the government offered a shoulder to cry on and nothing more! The Tuskegee experiment was an act of scapegoating! And there was no seething public demanding the execution of said murderers because humans are sadistic, perverted trash apes, enemy of life on Earth, enemies of the cosmos. Is it too much to ask for a plague to wipe out trash ape kind? We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction and many humans laugh evil cackles and guffaws over news thousands of penguins died because of human causes climate change. Humans are a pestilence on this planet and even though I’m not a sadist, nor a spineless coward, I’m OK with not existing so long as no other trash apes exist either. We all could stop this if we actually cared but we don’t. Scapegoating will be a fundamental part of trash ape nature until humans go extinct. I’ve loved long enough and seen enough of how society and humans operate. All the evil in mankind is ultimately related to Homo Detritus breeding strategy. The sadism, narcissism, public over consumption, the scapegoating, the status building, the diminishing the status of others including other life forms, the sadistic exploitation of people, animals and the environment, all related to breeding strategy. It’s why we have so much rape. That’s how humans reproduce when they get the chance. And why a woman wouldn’t kill a rape baby is beyond me. You know that baby has rapist genes already, scum of the earth and not even born yet! Mother Nature doesn’t care how children are conceived and that’s why I predict if humans survive the sixth mass extinction humans will become a rape based species whose offspring will primarily come from acts of rape. We even have lawmakers who defend rape as a reasonable and moral breeding strategy, Rep King.
The last thing I want to say is if you are a victim of scapegoating, realize it’s not you, it’s Trash Ape Kind. The scapegoated are rarely the most evil among mankind even when they are habitually abused. The scapegoaters always seem very comfortable with powerful elitists perpetrating the most heinous of atrocities and perversions yet the scapegoaters still choose to scapegoat their own flesh and blood! It’s in Trash Ape Nature. Judge them as evil, let them know that you know they are sadistic monsters who practice the most heinous degrees of moral relativism and then never speak to them again. And only speak ill of them when you do. They deserve nothing but sadness and loneliness. They deserve only infinite despair.