You’ve Been Hurt By Love. Are You Shut Down? Why & How to Change That
You’ve been hurt by love. Maybe many times. Here’s what can happen: You criticize yourself for wanting anything. Feel stupid if you try to date. Believe it won’t work out before you even try. Wonder how anyone could love you because of “the way you are.” Tell yourself that you’re OK alone, it’s better that way. ( That’s far from the truth, but you don’t see any other option.)
You’re stuck. Is it possible to get unstuck? You need help getting the critical voice out of your head.
So, let’s talk about that critical voice. Where does it come from? What purpose does it now serve?
That Critical Voice in Your Head
Where Does It Come From?
Many people have critical voices in their heads. Childhood experiences of being hurt by love create those critical voices: Being criticized or mistreated by parents or those who you needed to love you. Having distant parents you couldn’t engage, so you believed there must be something wrong with you. A sibling who was favored, which made you think it must be because you weren’t “as good.”
These are painful experiences. If you’re a small child who isn’t given love and encouragement, who doesn’t have a parental “mirror” that makes you feel good and valued, you blame yourself.
You don’t have any other way to think about why love is hurting you and you aren’t loved. You try your hardest to get good grades, behave well, be quiet, and help out, but it never seems enough. Or you’re angry and resentful, understandably, which makes you feel worse about yourself. But you can’t help it.
Without knowing it, a critical voice develops in your head. You believe it. It’s what you heard or thought about yourself, so what’s new? You listen to it and find yourself discounting anything “good” about you. When you’ve been hurt by love, you’re sure those good things “aren’t true” or you’ll quickly lose them.
This makes it almost impossible to open up fully to love, or believe love will stay. You shut down.
What Purpose Does Your Critical Voice Serve?
It’s probably hard to believe your critical voice has a purpose. That voice is miserable to live with so what good does it do? That’s a good question. The voice doesn’t help, but it thinks it does.
What do I mean by that? Critical voices can act as self-protection – like a warning. “You better not open up. Remember what happened before. Wanting something isn’t safe. You’re crazy to like him (or her), and you won’t get back what you want. You know that.” To prove it, you look for signs.
And, you’ll believe you see those signs – because that voice misinterprets things. So, you follow your critical voice’s “rules.” You keep your heart closed, wary, distrustful of any hunger for love.
You’ll have no hunger, longing, or desire. That is if you listen to your critical voice that says: “Don’t feel it. Then, you won’t be hurt. Rejected. Or, abandoned.” Is that safer? Or is it not?
Is It “Strong” To Be Shut Down to Love?
Shutting yourself down isn’t “strong,” even if you try to think it is. It’s a (sort of) power born of fear; hard walls erected against betrayal; the “never again” that doesn’t allow hope or change.
Your critical, seemingly self-protective, voice might call you “weak” for your needs or wanting to find love. Or, to try again. But is that “stupid?” If you believe it is, instead of trying to find lessons from the past, you might stay withdrawn. Or find yourself in a dance of “come close, go away.”
“Go away” puts you in charge of the rejection. But you also stay alone, unsatisfied, left with the belief this is a sign of strength. It’s only a strong wall against your desire.
You’re in a vicious cycle. You can’t believe in hope. But, there’s a problem with that: if you can’t hope, you also can’t find what you need. You can only have fantasies of love. Or thwart love before it hurts you.
How can you break free of the past and change your belief that hope is dangerous?
How to Change Your Belief that Hope is Dangerous
Opening up is a risk. It always is. No one can control where it will lead you. You can’t control the other person any more than you could control parents or people who hurt you in the past.
If you interpreted their reactions as “your fault,” as any child does, you likely live with that interpretation now. Thinking that if a date doesn’t turn into a second one, or someone doesn’t want a relationship, it’s because of you. You take it personally. You think you aren’t good enough and that’s why you’ve been hurt by love.
That belief about yourself is the real problem with hope. It’s the main thing that interferes. And, it likely makes you (or made you before your shutdown) continue to pursue the wrong person. It’s as if, unconsciously, he or she is the parent whose love you need to prove you can get.
That never works. And, of course, opening up is then an even bigger risk than in a less charged situation. It’s important to keep your radar focused on who is interested in you and who is not.
Don’t go after the “who is not,” or take it personally. Move on. You deserve more.
If you can’t move on, if you stay shut down, if you’re scared and can’t get free of the critical voice in your head, psychotherapy is a (really) good option. If it’s failed you in the past, keep looking.
Psychotherapy is like any relationship. Find a therapist who fits and gives you what you need. It’s important not to stay “loyal” to something that gives you “nothing.” Including being shut down.
Having a Voice & Choosing Love Well
You had no voice as a child. Most likely you weren’t heard or were afraid to speak up about your feelings. It’s also likely that you’ve repeated that situation in love relationships. That happens.
That can change.
Your critical voice might say: “That’s how it will always be.” Please don’t believe it. What happened in the past is not “your fate.” You can decide to change the course of your life, and the self-critical, self-imposed “rules” inside that keep you shut down. You need some help. With help:
- You can explore the past and learn how it lives in your present love life (or lack of).
- Find freedom to be who you are, and people who do accept you.
- Speak up for what you need. Say “no” to people who can’t give it.
- Learn boundaries that protect you from repeating the hurt of the past.
Finding people, a therapist, where you can be open about your feelings and who you are, can help you heal. You’ll have support, real and not imagined, that translates to openness in love relationships too. You don’t have to stay shut down, fearful that things will always be the same.
Life can change. You can accept yourself, stop the critical voice, find and have what you need.
Would You Like to Know More?
Read my recent blog post on, All We Imagine as Light, on my film site, Characters on the Couch. Nurse Prabha is a perfect example of the loneliness of being shut down after love hurts you.
