Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
During high school, I was infected with Measles and it just so happened that I had also had an argument with my dad before this infection. Infection starts, the usual ‘measles spots’ come on. Mum freaks when she sees me itching a couple of them. She quickly brings in a sedative and I’m off school and gym classes for the duration. I was given half a tablet of sedative twice daily.
Nonstop sleeping is not fun. By day3 I was done with illness, the bed, the spots, the itching, the inability to sit up, the exhaustion, lack of taste, the silence in the day and the silence at night. We used to live in a 1-bed then, and my siblings were thrown out. Mum used to get back from work and make some hot Mulagutawny Soup for me everyday, it was the only thing that really helped. Around day5 my head started to throb, so much so, that I would wake up, drink the soup, and would not be able to lie down again because of the headache.
During all this, I hadn’t yet started to talk to my dad. The silent treatment was on ‘full time’ at both ends, although he was the one taking care of me through the night. Unknown to me, when I would be restless in the night, he would stay up to press my head or massage my leg. The entire time I was being insufferably entitled and ‘miming’ to my mom to ask my dad to massage my head so I could sleep and he was already doing it!
It took me till the birth of my kids to realise exactly how entitled I had been and how unconditional the attachment of a parent and child is. Every memory of mum and dad doing something crazy like this has reminded me of that feeling of security and the love they showered over me through my traumatic teens and well into married life!
Just a little more 