unworthy.. feeling of unworthy

I used to be feeling so unworthy because my dad never loved me, never cared about me or have any concern for me since I was young.
therefore I have always been very hunger for men's attentions and I am sure my dad is the reason why I had borderline trait..

because of the absent or neglect of my dad.. I never been able to build up a good and stable relationship with men.. I have always been experiencing a "phantom pain", "phantom fear", which my friend would like to call it.
When a relationship ended with men, I always feel that it's me who was not good enough or unworthy for their attention, for them to stay in my life.. for them to stay with me
when I am still in a relationship, I get so insecure because I felt that they will eventually abandon me because I am so "unimportant".. and I will ended up pushing them away for many reasons, unconsciously
and it has caused me so much pain.....
I won't realized it after I managed to push them away successfully
and it's because my sense of insecurity is so intense that I can't help it but my defense will act out in pushing them away

which is quite sad... and I recently just managed to push away another guy that I have been seeing, couple times a week for the last two months
It was very sad..
I am still feeling very very sad.. although he is not ready to commit but I did my part (as usual) to say things to keep him away, to push him away.. so that I would be able to leave..

funny enough, while I was feeling so sad that, he was being pushed away and didn't come back.. while I successfully pushed him away and that would be fitting into my belief that "I am not worthy for him to stay", two guys from my past that I have dated and almost dated, contacted me.. and one of them even let me know that I am important to him, and it's sad that we didn't manage to date officially because I wasn't living in the same country as he was.. I left the country for work.
He let me know that I actually mean something to him after 2-3 years and still, I matter a lot to him.
it's nice to know that I actually mean quite a bit to someone, and it denies my belief that I am not worthy for people to stay..

people left for many reasons, the distance, the state of mind and many more
it's never because whether I was "good enough" or "worthy enough" for someone to stay in my life.
I am still adapting to this new belief..
but I am happier.. I was feeling so broken earlier.. and I am happier now..
but still I am feeling quite low... but I guess I have learnt something new this time..

This post made me think of several related thoughts. I don't know if any of this is helpful for you themissingme, but I'm going to throw the thoughts out here -

Something I've read over and over from others with BPD and HPD, is about missing out on unconditional love, the simple question of "why didn't my parent just love me?" I know my sibling and I have struggled with the same question, why? All we could even conclude is that our parent just wasn't capable of love in that way. As you wrote, it had nothing to do with us, nothing wrong with us, just our parent could not feel that emotion for us. It helps to realize this, but it's still hard to accept it.

But there is another darker side to this when it comes to our adult relationships...

There is the falling for someone else too fast, unconditional love, even though we don't know them or anything about them. That can scare someone away, or the opposite, if they are a certain personality type, be overwhelmingly attractive, to have someone fall for them so quickly.

But as you know too, and have written about, it often doesn't end well. This seems to be a common pattern for cluster B types. Idealization to start, but eventually something goes wrong, and when it does, it's all downhill from there. Ironically, and sadly, what started out as unconditional love turns into a great many conditions we place on the other person. Maybe we are just replaying the pattern we experienced as children at that point?

I also think BPD types (and the other cluster B types to some degree), have emotions in extremes, so it's 'unconditional love', or 'highly conditional love', but it's the grey area in the middle we struggle with. It's the area that others seem to be much better at, and because of that, they can ride out the ups/downs in a more stable way.

I think what we really missed out on was 'I love you, you are my child', that core primal emotion, but even parents who care about their children in that way do place conditions on them. They do have expectations of their children. Expectations are healthy, and necessary for us in a society. It's just that so long as there is that 'and I still love you' behind it, it's tolerable, children get through it, grow up, and hopefully enjoy their adult life to some degree.

For BPD, and other cluster B types, it seems that for some, maybe many, the message was so twisted. "I love you in this moment because you did x, y, z", but then the next moment it's "I don't love you now because you did x, y, z" Such a messed up message, that love is given or withheld for what we are doing in the moment to appease our parents.

My last thought of the moment is that we also need to be careful when in a relationship, to avoid repeating that with a partner. "I love you now because you are doing what I want", and "I don't love you now when you aren't".

this is a great post that took me a while to digest..
it's true that because of this missing piece of unconditional love.. and the mixed message that we got from our parents, because you did this and that, so I love you now.. because you didn't do this and that, I no longer love you..
and then we a grown up.. I can't help but to repeat this twisted pattern.. and bring this into the relationship.. with great insecurity and sense of instability of self including others..

and because of this emptiness, the hole, the instability of our emotions,
I fall too quickly, and I push away too quickly, and therefore I get scared very quickly as well.. when I dont even know much about this person that I have fallen for

got too excited very quickly, fell into it too quickly, grab onto someone too quickly and got disappointed too quickly.. expected too much too soon, and it's all because of this great intensity of emptiness.. because I am too desperate for feeling close with someone.. for closeness, for emotional closeness, for physical closelness.. maybe I am just lonely at the end of the day, too lonely.. so that I would take all the attention that I can get and see that as love.. maybe that's why I fell for someone too quickly.

it's sad to acknowledge the fact or even accept the fact that our parents did not have the capacity to love us in the unconditional way.. it's still terribly sad to even read this sentense..

this loneliness of mine is totally blurring my eyes when it comes to relationships.. am I just too lonely so I settle for less? is it true that I like him so much or it's just the attention that I enjoy? am I picking on him because I don't like him as much? (that's probably true as some people that I fell for in the past, I didn't pick on them as much), is it my defense that keeps me away from forming a relationship?
I can't tell anymore

all I can tell is that I am sad, feeling lonely, feeling alone and all sad by myself.
I couldn't care less about him, and all I can see is my own loneliness.. maybe it shows that I didn't like him that much/ or I don't like him THAT much..

still sad though.
:-/

Fortunately it's completely normal to repeat our patterns. They are often unconscious, and habitual. Even if we are aware, it's hard to break habits for almost everyone.

I do think it's awesome that you are aware of your patterns. That is the hardest part because people who won't even see they have a problem have no hope yet of change. Still hard to do, but impossible for those who won't/can't because they are blind to them.

I did some reading on psychologytoday and learnt that.. thanks to my bpd symptoms
I will only pick on people who I might be able to see the future with..
so that will keep me away from them
my unconsciousness thought that I can keep myself away from this by PICKING ON PEOPLE.. so I can talk myself out
I won't pick on those who I don't see a future with..

this is a crazy defense.. trying to keep me alone forever.. keeping me lonely and sad...
I am going to therapy now, twice a month.. just to establish my trust in men.. to repair the broken image that my dad has created.. I hope that would help ;-/

help me to rebuild the trust, rebuild the role model
:-> so it can weaken my defense and allow me to fall in love and build something up with someone again

For whatever it's worth...

In my culture there are a lot of very empathetic, kind men. Your situation may be different in that regard, but what I wanted to write is -

A relationship with such a guy is probably going to be mostly peaceful, he is not going to relate to dramatic ups/downs that can be both a curse, but also those highly dramatic interactions can be an attraction for people with cluster B personalities. It's like, oh, we both relate to this! We may also instigate those moments because we have anger/hurt to get out of our system.

If you do meet such a guy, his empathy comes from a place of sensitivity, so he will be someone who can be easily hurt too, though may not show it immediately. The warning is, yes, if you are holding a lot of deep hurt due to your father, that taking it on them will drive them away eventually.

It's ironic that when we grow up being abused (mentally or physically), we can end up also repeating this part of the pattern too, be abusive ourselves towards others, not necessarily consciously, but it happens. It can take a conscious effort to remind ourselves, but you aren't the one who hurt me, you don't deserve this. Good to read you are in therapy and hopefully your therapist allows you to express your anger/hurt without judgment.