Comment by Lana on 15 Sep 2009 at 11:13 am

Dear Karen,

Talk to us about love, faith and trust. I am a student who read your story after surviving my own issues after being raped by an uncle. I thought my uncle loved me. I thought lots of people loved me. In general I love people. I trusted my uncle. Did you ever assume someone loved you only to find out they didn’t and be hurt by them? I can identify with the facts that there are many levels of love even though to me love is love. Can you feel love after all you’ve gone through? In our class discussion I couldn’t participate being that I have mixed feelings. I trust your opinion. Love hurts. I don’t think I could trust anymore. I lost faith in people and God. Have you ever felt like me?

Lana

Dear Lana,

This is by far the hardest question I have been asked.  Love.  How does anyone define love? I admit I couldn’t answer your question immediately like I usually do with the many questions that I have answered. My grief regarding love at times feels endless. But I continue to have hope.

Yes, love can hurt. I recently walked out of my first creative writing class when asked to write about love. The teacher asked us to write our thoughts on “Love is a many splendored thing” and “Love makes the world go round.”  Needless to say, a tough subject for a woman with an abusive past. I started to write, became overly emotional, and excused myself. I’m not even sure I can return.

I continue to struggle with love issues. I hope someday my past insecurities regarding love will subside into a low, pleasant hum. I know I can love. I am able to. I found my ability to love buried deep within me during my therapeutic years. Like you, I also thought I had lost the ability to love anyone after the past hurt I experienced. My faith was tested! But I knew I would be able to love again, and I did.

After many years of trying to build trust, regain my faith, and finally learn to love again after being mistreated, I found that during therapy I had grown to love Dr. Baer, as my mentor, parental figure, and confidant, for his patience, support, guidance, and unconditional care. My first feelings of love came from feeling loved by him.  For the first time ever, I felt my feelings of being loved were real. I felt loved in the same way a child looks up to her parents with admiration, respect–that special kind of love. A child’s love that is hard to describe. But yes, I felt loved, and that was a miracle.

I had to learn love from the beginning, inside out, as if I never understood the meaning of love in the first place. I had spent years emotionally challenged by love, faith, and the hardest of all, trust.  My ability to love and be loved was stolen from me by the cruel hands of my abusers.

One must learn trust before one can love. My first trust came from my sessions with Dr. Baer; he unconditionally listened and cared for me without judgement. It took many years before my feelings fell quietly into a respectful place within my troubled heart. My alters learned to trust, have faith, and love before I did. I can now feel all that they have gained regarding love because, as a whole, I gained so much love from all of them and Dr. Baer.

I found that through loving Dr. Baer I was able to love most everyone that crossed my path, whether they deserved my new feelings of love or not.  I felt on top of the world with all the newness I experienced feeling loved, and learning how to love. I felt whole for the first time. It’s such an amazing feeling to be loved. I only wish I could maintain it. My ability to trust, have faith, be loved, and to love are always in a fragile state. For someone once severly abused like me, constant reassurance is needed. I may need more reassurance and love than most, but after a lifetime of hurt, who can blame me.

I am saddened by your unhappy quest to find love but understand all that you feel. Your uncle stole your innocence from you for his own selfish pleasure and needs. My abusers stole mine. It’s such a selfish act. Whether you’re a child or an adult healing from past abuse, it’s important for you to understand that you need to love yourself because people are human and can hurt you. Be careful and guard your heart.

Sending my love to you. Wishing all my best on your journey to your own peaceful heart.

Karen