Why Don't My Parents Love Me?

Even if we notice that our parents treat us badly, there is nothing we can do because we need these same parents to feed us and provide us shelter. As children, we are dependent completely on our parents and our families to survive. But, even more than that, we are dependent on our parent’s love for psychological survival. Without our parent’s love, we begin to ask why. Why don’t my parents love me? At such an early age, our minds are not developed enough to see or understand the truth that we are unloved because our parents themselves are flawed. Our egos are still tied to our parents’ so we need to see our parents as infallible so that our egos too can survive. So, we tell ourselves that we are not loved by our parents because we are unlovable. This lie is the greatest lie tying most of us to our emotional pain. This shame is what then causes us to develop mental health conditions. My mother controlled me because she was hoping to find relief from living in fear. My father, looking for relief from his shame, tried to find it by gambling the small amount of money we had or making my mother feel guilty for not giving him money to have a drink. Since I saw myself as a reflection of my parent’s behavior, as is normal for children, I too began to see myself as nothing but shameful and worthless.

Grown Up Wrong

Just as my parents were trapped in their pain trying to finally hear they are worthy, I too became trapped in my pain, wishing to finally have a mother and father who could love me the way they were supposed to. Rather than the bonds of love keeping us together as a family, what kept us together was our shame and our feelings of unworthiness. Our family became a family defined by pain, but nobody would step out of their pain because they were too scared to see what was on the other end of healing. Humans need validation from each other. We rely on each other for love and psychological survival. When that need is not met, we develop mental health conditions that can last a lifetime if left untreated. The human brain holds on to our pain as memories, but also as changes to the way our brain works. Trauma, pain and abuse change our brain so that we begin to act in destructive ways that are not natural to us. As children, we need our parents to regulate our emotions and make us feel loved and safe. If they abuse and neglect us instead, our brains change. Once our brains change, we begin to abuse ourselves and, in some cases, abuse others. Rejection and abandonment hurt us more than physical pain, causing us to suffer deep feelings of shame and worthlessness.

Come On In

This is why we feel worthless when we ask ourselves why our parents rejected or neglected us. Your emotional pain does not come from within you. It comes from external sources. We are often too scared of the intense pain, shame and negative emotions we will encounter if we decide to open our wounds and begin the healing process. When there is emotional pain within a family, there is a lack of love. We may have heard the word, but we don’t really understand why it is such an important word. I am so ashamed when embarrassing things happen to us? Shame makes you want to hide from other people because you cannot bear to let them see you in your current state of unworthiness. One of the greatest stories that illuminates what shame is is the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. The story goes that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, they suddenly realized they were naked. For the first time in their lives, they felt ashamed to be seen without their clothes on, so they hid behind a bush. Behind the bush, the couple could hide their vulnerable and naked state. Shame makes us feel as though people can see us exactly as we are.

Just Like Starting Over

But, unfortunately, those of us with shame often see ourselves as worthless. For those of us who come from abusive homes where we have internalized the message that we are worthless, we cannot bear for others to see us as we are. You may have noticed that you try to hide your true self from others. Maybe you like to pursue wealth and show off how rich you are, or you cannot bear to leave the house without a full face of makeup and perfectly done hair. You may be the type of person who doesn’t reveal anything about yourself to others or you refuse to let people see any emotion behind your eyes. You may be very controlling, criticizing others’ decisions and choices in life and telling them they are wrong. You may be a perfectionist, judging yourself harshly when you make even the simplest mistakes or you may be dealing with addiction, unable to let go of your dependence on a substance or an future action. These are all examples of ways in which we hide just like Adam and Eve, keeping others from seeing us in our true, naked form. She describes shame as the most powerful, master emotion. In fact, shame goes hand in hand with our childhood emotional pain. Why don’t my parents love me? The root emotion behind this question is shame. As a rejected and abused child, you ask yourself this question because you believe there is something wrong with you. If you were good enough, your parents would love you and not mistreat you. I sympathize deeply with any child like me who ever had to ask themselves this question. It is a question that cuts to the core of who you are and leaves you feeling like the loneliest, most worthless child in the world.