What Made You Feel Love As A Child?

[Sobanya]

In my childhood I felt loved when my parents anticipated in fooling around with me. These are the moments when you can have fun and have no worries about how you are going to be perceived by others. I felt no cringe, my parents felt no cringe, and we were happy to be in this state together and do silly things. Naturally sharing and accepting each other's emotions in any activity felt very loving. Also, it felt loving too when they silently helped me with tasks I couldn't handle myself like bandaging a wound or carrying heavy stuff. Protection and support of any kind actually

 

And I felt unloved when we couldn't connect like this. The bad thing is that I can't call my parents emotionally stable. Sometimes when I strived for connection and understanding they could push me away and feel anger towards me. I often saw how their egos came into play when I made a good point against their opinion. Every time when emotional connection could not be built because of my parents' close-mindedness, I felt unloved. The feeling would not go away even when I consoled myself with an idea that this is not their fault and they always want best for me when they are in a proper mood. Feeling of disconnection wouldn't go away as I knew that this would repeat again

 

I've tried to summarize dynamics of love in my family with this. Of course, in my childhood I didn't have many concepts to bear in my head, so it's hard to remember certain situations when I could realize my own feeling of being loved or unloved. Some things just felt good and some did not, that's all

[Soullee]

I was born to strict Muslim parents. And they started indoctrinating me since i was 7. But i was rebellious against them during my childhood. I just wanted to live life. They wanted me to live for after life. So in my inner being i was like the opposite to them. i never felt deep emotion for them. Because as i can see now our relationship was authoritarian. In my father words he said i love you but have to be " muslim like him". My mother if i try to get close to her. She start to feel it. But at the same time she scare for me and start forcing her religion on me. So they can't love me fully as I'm as normal person because they go to hell for that. Even now i live away from my parents and i find it hard to call them because all the religion bullshit. 

In the other hand my grandma was something alse. Now don't get me wrong my parents stood by me most of my life. But i didn't feel loved as much i did from grandama. I spend a lot of time with her as i kid. And i preferred to live with her away from my parents. she was very welcoming. Warm. And light hearted and I felt safe with her. She wasn't a great mentor for me as kid. But she advise me when i do something wrong. But never forced anything on me. She just accepted me as I'm. She  created safe environment for me to be. Whatever i want to be. I wasn't forced to anything. And she loved me all the time. As kid just me and her. In cold winter sitting the living room drinking black tea and watching tv and just been quiet was the best time of my life.

R. I. P. Grandama i love you forever. 

[Dazgwny]

I was quite the athlete during my school years. Sprinting and football/soccer whichever you choose to call it. So from the age of 4 through to 16. Every single race, every single football match, my grandad was just there. Even when my mother and father couldn’t make the events due to whatever other commitments they may have had. I’d look over from the start line or from on the pitch, and there he was, my grandad, come rain or shine, whether I was to win or lose, he was just there. Even when I didn’t want him to be there incase I lost. 2nd to me was failure, 3rd was a complete disaster. And I came 2nd many many times. Always afterwards there was no judgment for defeat, just pride from him that I had tried my best. He didn’t say anything about being proud, I just knew he was. I’d sulk and he’d say, it’s alright, it was a good race, or a good game. It’s more standout now when I think back about the earlier years of this process, because as time went on, it helped me deal with and accept defeat, and buckle up and go again the next time round. Without any pressure. Other than that which I would put on myself. It was just the looking over though, and there he was, just there, for support. No matter the circumstances. That truly made me feel loved. And still does the thought of it to this day. It still crosses my mind from time to time when I think about him. I think, he was just there, every time, every single fucking time, without fail. And trust me there was a lot of times.  Crazy dedication. The dedication was clearly through love

[caspex]

Made me feel loved:

- Hugging

- Cuddling

- Getting genuinely praised for my accomplishments

- Getting heard and not dismissed

- My parents believing me over anyone else in a situation.

- My parents encouraging me to get good marks, however when I failed to do so, them accepting me without being disappointed. "It's ok, you passed."

- Getting hurt and my parents really acting alert and giving me attention, them really caring

- My father wanting me to do better in academics.

- My father asking me to help him out with Hindu rituals and prayers. 

- Getting explicitly told that I am loved.

 

Made me feel unloved:

- Getting beaten sometimes. (Not badly, just enough. Indian parents here... so it's common.)

- Little sister being born and all the attention being diverted towards her. I knew I was gonna feel this way back then, and I knew a baby needs more attention than an 11 year old, so I tried to suck it up. But I really did feel a bit unloved.

- My mum scolding me and lashing out at me for messing up something

[EternalForest]

Throwing papers planes with friends. It's something fun I did after school every day that helped me develop creativity. We'd constantly try and make better and better planes. And watching them fly up to the sky was a rush that gives me chills even typing this.

[The Rainmaker]

Imagination and creativity. Playing with my brothers and creating fictional worlds and characters with our stuffed animals. Playing pretend.

[bythos]

As a kid I got nothing. There was a source of great toxicity in my family. But something came up from my late teens. My father once told me that he trusts me completely, even with stuff that he wouldn't dare mention to my mother, and that he would stick his neck out for me. That was right after he had realized that my worldview is quite antithetical to his own. His worldview was a big deal to him but he managed to put it aside for me. Acceptance is the keyword for me here. In bright shining letters.

[PenguinPablo]

Validating and cherishing my existence... through a simple but heartfelt hug. when you're all alone in the world FOR YEARS, a simple hug is therapeutic 

[max duewel]

When I was 12 I failed 6th grade with a lot of bad grades, during this time I felt absolutely worthless because In my family your sense of worth was largely determined by what you achieve. One day my mom told me that she is very sorry for me that I failed my class and that this must be a very challenging experience for me, because of this she gifted me two music CDs to cheer me up. This is deeply stuck in my memory because for the first time in my life I felt seen and emphasized. Furthermore, I was shocked in a positive way that my mom was caring for me despite me not fulfilling her expectations.

 

I was 9 or so when one day me, and my dad were driving to France. On the highway, he needed to do something in the car and asked me to hold the steeringwheel while he was doing it. I was super afraid but my dad said that I don't need to be and that he knows that I can do it. Afterward, it felt great because I recognized my dad trusted me with his life and he truly believed in my ability.

Edited May 7, 2022 by max duewel

[Seeker_of_truth]

My parents did a shit job in providing me love. I mostly got love from my grandparents or other people in my life. 

Loved

• Feeling protected - seeing that someone was willing to fight for me or cares about me. When my pain was their pain.
• Believing in me blindly even when situations make them doubt it. I don't think I'm capable of that but seeing someone do that was wow, someone who doesn't love me would not do that.
• Seeing the best in me. Appreciating me. Making me feel good about who I am.
• My grandfather used to take me to the store and let me buy whatever I wanted. I think this made me feel free. This was in contrast to my parents who'd put so many conditions before buying a small thing even for my birthday - where everything had to be earned by doing what they liked me to do.
• Being taken care of and being treated as if I mattered. 
• As for love from siblings, I saw my older siblings as cool and whenever they thought I was cool, I felt belonged and loved.

Going back to these memories is making me cry like I haven't for years. Those were good times and I was a joyful kid, I'm kind of sad about the person I have become now.

Unloved

• Not approving me when they didn't like things I liked to do - from smirky remarks as if they know everything, scolding and getting physically punished. 
• Not approving who I am and instead constantly speaking negatively about it and wanting me to change it.
• When someone believes in a lie about me. This is the most hurting of all and I remember unable to hold in my tears whenever these happened. When they believe in a lie (especially when that lie is so wrong about me) and act as if it was true even after arguing that it was a lie, I can't stand it. I think I have lost a large capacity to love them after these incidents. They also lose my respect completely and I start seeing them as disgusting. This is like the opposite of blindly believing in me, they blindly unbelieve me.
• Feeling unbelonged.

[Marvelllious]

For me as a kid I had this really interesting form of extreme playfullness when i was by myself, I was pretty shy but now i grew up to be very social. I discovored this playfullness last week again and it gave me the ability to switch in this state whenever i want. It is basically seeing whatever comes up in my mind when there is something happening infront of me and fully expressing it. The thought can be connected to feeling or some picture of yourself expressing a certain face. It's all about letting this spontanious flow take over. That's what kids do they just say what they EXPIRIENCE(thought,feeling,imagination,desire,ect.) without much thought of social acceptance. One other thing when interacting with others is rocking the flow with imagination, say it outloud and the other person would countinue the creation of the absurd little thing you just LET happen.

 

I am happy i still remember this... when i was 5 years of age what gave me most joy was watching a movie then cosplaying it. That's how i developed this good capacity to relate to others now as a teenager. Acceptance is for sure a huge part of it but when you're a kid, you're not aware of how you do it so in a way you are acceptance itself. You accept if you're wrong and the cool part is being wrong or losing was just a stepping stone to greater joy. Great attention drained me. My expirience was spoiled and made worse when I had to constantly find a way to put myself in a box of how exactly I am feeling. This natural way of being creates a vortex around you of unlimited possibility which is God, Love ect. Innocense is just your ability to see that there really isn't something that serious about the world in the present moment. It's all about seeing what elements are around you at the present and creating something with them, if you had too much to choose from you wouldn't know what to create. Seeing these elements and switching them around just for the sake of it makes people who see you not afraid ,love you to the core. I do this even now and people will never skip an oppourtunity to tell me how cool i am. And i smile laugh and stay humble. This is it.

[Nemra]

Loved 

• When my parents gave me the flash, which was the only way to connect to a wifi. It was very slow, like 10 to 15 kilobytes per second.
• When my father gave me permission to use his laptop for gaming sometimes.
• When my mother helped me in doing my homework. Back then I was really scared from teachers. I wasn't able to study for the exams, I always started to cry, because I was very alone as a kid. I didn't have a close friend to talk to. But my mother always had my back emotionally. She would say that none of that matters, everything would be okay, don't study if you don't want, even if they give a low grade I will be ok with it. For me the exams were a life and death situation.
• When me and my family traveled to different place, like the pyramids, Alexandria, the red see, ... .
• When my family was always there for me when I had different kind of illnesses. If it wasn't for my sister, I would be dead. She was the first to notice that I was having a epileptic seizure when I was asleep. My mother was there, when I was literally boiling from having a cold. My body's temperature was like 40°C. My father would look for a good doctor without having a rest. You couldn't not experience a deep love when you see that your family, even if it is broken apart emotionally, is there to look after you when you are on a bed after having a surgery.
• When we went to shopping, even if we didn't buy anything. I loved when my father would take me to the tech section.

Unloved

• When my sister imitated me. If I didn't play by her rules, she would really hurt me. I didn't understand why would someone get aggressive for not agreeing on something. I really wanted her to understand me, because I did understand her, but didn't know how to talk to her. 
• When my father always judged me for having from his perspective weird thoughts. We barely had a conversation. Even if we had, he would always control the conversation and he would make it about himself and how I should think. One of the best thing that I loved to do was to be lost in my imagination. I would create an entire world with different characters in it and I would talk to them, be them, and experience them. I mostly did it, because I wanted to have different kind of experience with the characters from real life. I know it is crazy, but I loved it. It was my entertainment back then. I wanted to share what I felt and thought with my father, but he would get angry at me.

Of course there are a lot of things that happened to me. These are the things that I remember now.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Understander

[Guest Edvardas]

They sent me on vacation with our relatives, but did not go themselves. They only had enough money for one person to go. 

At the time I felt love in the form of joy and adventure. I didnt understand the sacrifice they made until later. 

I think the hard part of being a parent is you sacrifice without getting any appreciation, or very little compared to the sacrifice. Yet, you still do it out of love. It's other-serving.

[soos_mite_ah]

On 5/5/2022 at 7:34 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

I felt loved whenever people would spend quality time with me. That ranged from my mom watching TV with me, my dad and I sneaking out to get ice cream, and my uncle riding his bike with me and taking me to the park to play tennis. Even if it was just running errands, I still enjoyed tagging along and helping my family out. I just enjoyed people being present with me. 

I also felt loved when people would play silly little games with me. I was a very hyper active child so I needed to be pretty active or else I was prone to get cranky. It could range from playing pretend, making up stories, or playing practical jokes on people. I think I just really needed that outlet to help me grow as a child. Definitely helped me be more creative early on. 

Finally, I loved it when people would cuddle with me. I loved it when I could cuddle up with my grandmother and she would tell me stories of the ways that my dad got into trouble as a little kid. Another time I remember was when I liked taking naps with my dad and I would curl up next to him.  I think a lot of this had to do with the rest of my family being relatively touchy feely and just an abundance of physical affection was shown to me and my cousins and as a result I got socialized accordingly. 

Now that I actually think about it, I don't think much has changed. I would say that my love language is close tie between physical touch and quality time. I also generally need people who are going to challenge me intellectually and creatively while still having a light hearted air about it both on a platonic and romantic level as well. So I think if I were to sum it up in a sentence, the things that would make me feel loved includes being present (physically and emotionally) and allowing yourself to grow in a fun way at your own pace. 

I forgot to make the unloved section of my post. I think it's important to reiterate my previous post because there is often this notion of if someone is toxic, they are toxic 100% of the time when that is simply not the case. I also don't want to paint a rosy picture of my experiences. 

My parents were both pretty emotionally invalidating and my uncle as I grew up barely took the time to know me and would either project what I was like when I was 6 ish on to me now or what he thinks all kids are like. My uncle is also really bad at respecting people's boundaries to the point where my dad feels the need to lie to him a lot of the time because he knows that my uncle doesn't take that type of thing seriously.  My dad also had a pretty explosive sense of anger back in the day and even though there are times where I deserved to be disciplined, some things that he said were completely out of line. My mom would also nitpick about my grades, appearance, and my friends to the point where I can't really trust her and talk to her. She would also constantly compare me to a couple of my friends who she really liked but when it came to the rest of my friends, she would basically trash talk about them for really petty reasons (i.e. she thought one of them was ugly etc.) My mom would also give me and my dad the silent treatment everytime she got pisssed off and that can range for a couple days to a couple of months. The longest was 4 months where she would barely talk to me. I also would get hit multiple times by my mom for the dumbest reasons (i.e. getting a 92 on an exam) to the point where I was legitimately afraid of her.

She has tried to apologize multiple times for all of this but everytime it seemed very disengenous in the sense that she never quite understood why her behavior is wrong but rather she just wants to say thing so that I keep her in my life. And the sad part is, I don't think she is capable of understanding either. Both she and my dad have this idea of *let's sweep things under the rug and move on like it never happened.* And when I do display obvious symptoms of trauma I'm still processing, they are just like *just leave it in the past and move on already. We aren't doing anything to you anymore. Why do you have to hold on to this and wreck this family?* And it's like..... that is literally part of the problem. I wasn't given the time to heal at my own pace or on my own terms. Their idea of me healing is us being a happy family because that serves their interests yet the more I heal, the more I realize that I shouldn't be around them anymore. So there is a lot of conflict and lack of understanding there regarding why I'm so distant emotionally all the time. 

That's really scratching the surface. I would say that over all despite all of this and more, I never felt unloved by them because I know that they do care about me but they have their own fucked up shit they never addressed. If anything, I would say that rather than feeling unloved, I felt disrespected. Then again, I do often try to empathize them and try to get to the bottom of why they are the way they are (for better and for worse) to ease the frustration why I'm treated this way. I know that they love me and I love them back but I do recognize that my relationship with them was not healthy by any means. 

[Leo Gura]

Great stuff! Keep em coming.

[AtheisticNonduality]

My earliest memory is when I was three on the lawn outside a hospital in Boston. It was my third birthday, and my father had bought me a kite and was demonstrating it in the sky. My mother had cancer and was wearing a white hospital gown, standing pretty far away. There was a cement truck that I was fascinated with while trying to get my mother's attention to point it out to her. I did feel love, but it was very sad and distant.

My mother was my favorite person in the world during my childhood. Snuggling, watching movies, reading little books like the McDuff series. My memory is not bringing up much else now, but I feel a lot more.

There was a time when I was at some party at some other child's house where the children were in the basement and the adults were upstairs, and I was really upset because I couldn't find the way out of the basement. So that's another example where the love wasn't gone but just far away.

Unlovingness is what I felt a lot of the time in the schooling system. I didn't really understand other people but was immersed inwardly. In preschool, there were puzzles that were made of pieces to different stars and planets and nebulae that made images of outer space with these colorful cosmic bodies and swirly wisps of galaxy on a black void, the vacuum of space. And I had very existential thoughts taking place in an introverted chamber of a really wondrous, philosophical feeling. I was thinking about, with the mental backdrop of these outer space pictures in mind, where the space came from. And I asked myself why there's something rather than nothing in the scant language I had access to at the time, but I felt meaning, like a cosmic pull, from that. And while zoned into that, I was zoned out of the school lesson and the rest of the things in my environment, which I couldn't understand.

I didn't speak to people at school much, barely at all, and used to get taken aside into a room with the slower kids because I was very bad "academically"  in elementary school. So there was some concern that I was autistic or slow that caused me to undergo some test, which I remember but didn't really comprehend the meaning of. Apparently, I was not autistic or low IQ but actually with a prodigious IQ and a little introversion, but I doubt some of that characterization a bit.

I had a teacher that was strict to the point of being abusive, and, not wanting to be a target, I became more inclined toward academics. It was at that point that my intelligence became like a drug, where I enjoyed being able to understand things better than other people just by being myself. I definitely got love and validation out of that.

I've made myself feel unloved before. I've hurt other people and myself. There were points where I ruined my mind and made it uninhabitable to my soul, and I suppose my goal now is to let the soul return.

[BuddhistLover]

Pop Music, Swimming in the pool with my mother, eating food, ice cream, Hugging my friends, dancing around singing loudly, taking codeine medication for foot wound, taking vacations

Edited May 8, 2022 by BuddhistLover

[BlurryBoi]

When i was sick or scared in the middle of the night, my father waking up to take care of me (without any reluctance).

(Protection, Care, Unconditional Acceptance, Help, Survival)

 

Playing RPG with Legos with my brother, designing story together.

(Complicity, Team, Unity, Significance, Play) 

 

Cooking a cake with my mother.

(Complicity, Significance, Beauty, Creativity, Giving)

 

I guess the earliest i remember would be just my mom noticing me to breastfeed me or to sing something for my todler-self.

(Survival, Beauty, Significance, Giving) 

Edited May 8, 2022 by BlurryBoi

[Aiden grannen]

      What made me feel loved as a kid was when id sit on top of my grandmas lap playing patty cake with her I remember playing this with her over an over id sit there and die of laughter.

Another time I felt love was when my grandparents would let me come into their restaurant and let me make/give me whatever I wanted off the menu. The first thing my grandma would do when I walked into the  restaurant was giving  me a huge plate of French toast drowning in butter and syrup I wouldn't even have to ask for it she knew exactly what I wanted.

 

My Grandma would also  literally buy me whatever toy I wanted as a kid id come home with a new toy every time I went to see her. 

 

One of the ways my grandma made me feel sad as a kid was when I asked her who was better looking  me or my dad? I remember her saying " your dad was vary handsome" that memory as a kid always stuck with me. 

 

 

[axiom]

I have thought about this deeply, and I don't recall ever feeling loved as a child. I had a father who beat me up, a mother who turned a blind eye, and an older brother who bullied me. I had noone to turn to, and suicidal ideation was pretty much the prevailing theme of my life from the earliest I can remember until I was in my mid 30s. 

I think this may be why my "heroic dose" mushroom trip a year ago was so insane in scale. I felt love, unmistakeably, for the first time in my life. It feels strange to finally know what it is.