Working Through My Attachment Disorder

      What follows are deep rooted, difficult, very personal things which I have been working through over the past week. I am posting them here in the public eye as with everything I post, vulnerable as it makes me, so that these might benefit others who might be going through similar things:

     Lord, what is it you want me to know today?
     "That I love you, and I have always loved you. And that I am so proud of the man you've become."
     Is there anything else?
     "Not yet. Later."
     These were the words the Lord gave me yesterday when I asked Him what He wanted me to know. And I... I questioned it. I felt numb and non-reactive. Was that really the Lord? Yet it was the same message for me every time.
     Why was I questioning it? More to the point, why didn't I trust it? Why was there a massive shield wall standing as a barrier between God's very positive message of love towards me and my heart, or my innermost emotions? Why did I feel the need to protect myself from it?
     I have felt His love before. It was overwhelming, all consuming, an infinite plenum. But now as I sit and think about it, I always deflected it towards others even as He told me that it was the same towards me as well. I protected myself from it then too.
     The question which was asked of me then is "why?" The truth is that while I have made it a choice and a point to love others in the best way I can at the moment, I have, since I was very little, come to not trust that anyone truly does or could love or have affection for me. Naturally, as this extended to virtually everyone, it also extended to God's love for me.
     What do you do when God tells you He loves you, and you just stand there frozen and unable to respond because you've made such a practice of assuming no one is going to, that your first instinct is to assume you heard wrong, and not trust it. But then you know at least intellectually that He does. And for some reason, it's not processing. And so you try to make your brain process it, and your brain fights back and tries to start shutting down, causing headaches, and making you feel ill because it is fighting to defend itself from trusting that love. You make it a point to do everything you can to love, but it becomes a threatening thing that you might actually be loved back. And you have to dig, really dig internally to figure out why you're reacting with such a pushback against it emotionally. And the deeper you dig, the worse it gets.
     You run into fear where no fear should exist. You run into pain. You run into feelings of not being enough, or being unworthy. And even still, you are being handed the thing you want most in the world freely, and you are terrified to accept it freely, to welcome it, to see it as something you can trust.
     It was only two sentences. The words weren't lofty but ordinary and simple to understand. But those two sentences began to act like wrecking balls within me, and I am still struggling through it this morning as my own deep, unconscious barriers aren't coming down easily. The words were simple, but they, like every word from Him, don't return empty and accomplish the purpose for which He sends them.
*  *  *
     I'm working through how to accept love from others, and God in particular. I've come to understand where the barrier came from to begin with. There was someone I knew who outwardly didn't want to be loved. They never would have said this openly, but they reacted negatively every time I would try to get close, berating and abusing me emotionally and verbally. I think they did actually want love, but they themselves were in a place where it frightened them when it was actually offered, and they didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, their constant rejection and abuse of attempted love transferred to me as well as I began to internalize that abuse, and then began to emotionally and verbally abuse myself. I struggle to keep myself from trying prove how unworthy I am, how bad I am, how stupid I am by bringing up all of the mistakes I have made in the past. But now I am aware of it, and I am aware of where it comes from. Throughout my life, I've had all the classic symptoms of an attachment disorder, pushing away those who tried to get close to me and almost clinging to total strangers I would never see again at times, and now I know where it comes from, and where it began.
     And now it's time to cut those threads and connections so I can work on healing from it. It's time to let go of that person. Not to stop loving them, but to stop giving them emotional power over me. Real love lets go. And the attempt to give and elicit affection where it should have been relationally expected was a natural attachment, not actual love. It is this continued attachment which has brought on a great deal of misery and suffering in my life. It's time to let it go, and love this person by letting them go.
     I can't let their attachment disorder be mine any longer. It helps no one. It benefits no one. It doesn't pull them out of it, it only drags me back to be a participant in their personal hell. And I am no longer willing to do that. It is time to let go, and move on.