People who are afraid to love may have multiple platforms to cultivate their fear. The most common option why people are afraid to love is the global disappointment in love they experienced in the past.
The classic scenario: a person experienced great love and was ultimately left alone with his suffering. He was abandoned, betrayed, not appreciated, cheated on, etc. In general, love traumatized a person. Then he recovered from the acute state for a long time, then in a chronic form he dragged suffering with him throughout his life.
1st type. Disappointed
The main reason : personality viscosity.
In psychology there is such a term - personality viscosity. Such people are characterized by a lack of flexibility, immaturity of the psyche, they get stuck in stress, do not fight it, constantly delve into their problem, analyze something and regularly press the red pain button. Having experienced a strong disappointment in love, they did not let go of the situation, did not get out of it, did not process it, did not adapt to the new life, did not forget anything and continue to be stressed. After the experience, they can no longer imagine that it could be different. For them, love equals suffering.
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There's no need to rush
Don't you fall in love at first sight or so much that sparks fly out of your eyes? Are you cautious and need time? Fine! Understand that this is a positive fact rather than a negative one.
Take your time and develop your relationship calmly. Be wise, honest, direct and open with your partner.
Slow-cooked love is often strong and respectful.
In addition, it is less traumatic psychologically than lightning love, when the habits and shortcomings of one person can become a complete surprise to another.
2nd type. Unloved children
Main reason : the basic emotion of love is not developed.
The second option why people are afraid to love has its roots in childhood. Such people, as small children, experienced a lack of love. Their parents didn't like them. This applies to both ordinary children who had fathers and mothers, and children from an orphanage, for whom such a basic emotion as love is in its infancy: they, in principle, do not know how to love.
For those who were not loved in childhood, love is equated to something scary and incomprehensible. Like most people, they are frightened by everything new, and love is a completely new emotion for them. If the situation becomes pathological, such people remain alone and even begin to hide from the world. For people who experienced deprivation in childhood, love - a natural feeling for every person - remains an undisclosed feeling.
Epilogue
Love is multifaceted. Love is not universal. It has no clear boundaries. Everyone has their own definition of this feeling. How do you personally feel about love? Perhaps you should change your point of view, and your fears will disappear by themselves?!
Love can take you by surprise. Appear under the guise of friendship, common interests, weekly conversations in the pub. She doesn't have to be crazy. It can be as simple or as complex as you wish.
But love is, first of all, communication with a person who means a lot to you . And when all the fears are behind you, you can open up to your feelings and truly love, you can enjoy a love relationship, while getting to know not only yourself, but also your partner.
Good luck and love to you!
3rd type. Uncompromising careerists
The main reason : the prohibition to feel, experience emotions.
The third type of people who are afraid of love are modern careerists.
This type of personality is still not very popular in Russia, but in European countries there are already many such young people. These people deliberately refuse love and emotions because they are faced with what they consider to be more global tasks, for example, moving up the career ladder. They perceive love as an obstacle to achieving their goals. Such people deliberately protect themselves from emotional contacts. Yes, they have sex, but they don't allow emotions. This personality type is a relatively new invention of mankind; it appeared about a hundred years ago. But the popularity of this approach is growing every day. Healthy? Share the article on VKontakte or Facebook in 1 click!
Causes
The fear of love haunts many people on the planet. However, the reason for its occurrence is different for everyone:
- Reluctance to lose personal freedom. Modern women are especially susceptible to this fear. Today's representatives of the fair sex no longer consider having a family an essential component of success. They dream of self-development, a successful career and travel. A love relationship or marriage should, in the opinion of a lady suffering from philophobia, turn her into a powerless housewife.
- Fear of the collapse of a serious relationship. Love phobia may be associated with fear of the future. A person (most often a woman) suffers from the fear of being rejected. Fear of possible separation prevents him from building relationships.
- Formation of an ideal image. Women are much more likely than men to idealize their future partner. Guys are usually satisfied with the attractive appearance of their chosen one and her ability to run a household. A girl dreams of starting a serious relationship with a handsome, strong, intelligent man. Among the mandatory qualities of the future chosen one should be high income and loyalty to the woman he loves. Over the years, new details are added to the ideal image. The inability to find compliance with the ideal in real life leads to philophobia.
- Disappointment with previous relationships. An unreasonable fear of love can be the result of a bad experience, sometimes someone else's. If the parents constantly quarreled and noisily sorted things out in front of the child, the daughter or son grows up in fear of repeating the fate of the father and mother. An unsuccessful marriage or an unhappy first love experience also causes philophobia.
- Fear of unrequited affection. A person who is afraid to fill his heart with love believes that he will not receive reciprocal feelings from the object of his adoration. He is sure that he will suffer from unrequited love. It is with these fears that the fear of falling in love is associated.
- Misunderstanding of your desires. If a person is not able to answer questions about what love is and what a partner should be like, he is susceptible to fear of relationships with the opposite sex. For fear of making the wrong choice, the philophobe refuses to communicate and withdraws into himself.
We become vulnerable when we truly love
Any beginning relationship can be compared to a walk through a dark forest. This is uncharted territory, and many people have natural, normal, justifiable fears of the unknown. Love is a kind of risk. We begin to faithfully trust our partner, thereby allowing him to influence us.
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In such a situation we feel vulnerable. The main subconscious defense becomes dull. All the habits that were there before this connection allowed me to feel focused or self-sufficient, but then they begin to fade into the background. We tend to believe that the more we care about a person, the more we may suffer.
Relationships can alienate you from your family
Relationships can be a kind of symbol of final maturation. They mean that we begin to live our own lives as independent, autonomous people. This may also mean moving away from your family. This is very similar to the destruction of the old self-image, this separation is not really happening. It does not mean literally abandoning your relatives, but rather letting them go on an emotional level: no longer feeling like a child and starting your journey as an accomplished person.
Men and feelings
Men often have complexes with expressing emotions. Many parents tell boys from childhood that feelings are for girls, and a man should be strict, without tenderness and affection. This is incorrect upbringing and can have negative consequences in the future. As adults, they become hidden people and are afraid to show emotions.
The strongest half of humanity lives with their heads and cold calculations. They put logic first. This in turn says that they have a vulnerable soul, since it is his defensive reaction that helps him. But feelings are inherent in all people.
Men are on the side of action and if they like a girl, he will definitely get her. But he is not always sure that the feelings are reciprocal and is afraid to act. He is afraid of a smile, refusal, rudeness on her part.
How masks appear
We become isolated. We close ourselves in the sink. We are forced to repeat the types of behavior that were once effective. We create strategies to achieve security that we think we are not worthy of.
- Some people constantly look to the outside world for confirmation that they can be loved.
- Others cry or complain to get attention.
- Many people try to prove that they are worthy of love.
- Some people isolate themselves from the outside world, afraid to see the “truth” in it: no one loves them (although in any case they subconsciously expect someone to prove the opposite).
Thus, we create our own personality, a complete structure, a fancy dress, a wall that is designed to protect us, but, like any protective structure, it also isolates us.
Without realizing it, we open the door to our most neurotic and contradictory traits. Two forces come into conflict:
- one represents our desire to open up, straighten out, be ourselves and establish deep contacts with life;
- the other corresponds to a fancy dress, a brake, learned roles that shape our personality, masks behind which we feel confident.
This is how we enter into a relationship with a partner, and in this relationship, if the fear of being vulnerable is not exposed, then its presence becomes more obvious.
Paradoxically, this unpleasant feeling is a consequence of one of the best properties of love: its ability to awaken our true essence, including the desire to throw off all masks.
“With you I can be who I am” - this is the phrase we all want to say, and it is the one that delights our ears most of all.
When two people love each other, there is a growing desire between them to open up and show themselves as they really are.
This does not mean that love makes us so brave, but its very presence heals emotional wounds and fills the voids associated with our vulnerability. But fear still remains, threatening, sometimes hidden, sometimes holding back love.
If you fail to free yourself from fears, you will not be able to feel love again, but the price seems too high to pay without protests. After all, all our doubts are usually caused by the fear of being abandoned and the fear of being useless.
Types of phobias
Philophobia combines various fears.
Sometimes the cause of the disease can be determined by identifying a specific type of phobia .
By eliminating a specific fear, it is possible to free a person from the horror of experiencing love and make him happy.
Philophobia refers to the fear of conditions. This group includes the following phobias:
- hypengiophobia - fear of financial responsibility, usually men suffer from this;
- atychiphobia - fear of failure, occurs in conjunction with the previous one;
- zelophobia - fear of experiencing a feeling of jealousy, develops as a result of past relationships where this feeling was constantly present;
- body dysmorphic disorder is the fear of being physically unattractive. Women often suffer from this after their loved one’s betrayal.
Also, representatives of the fair sex may experience gerontophobia (fear of old age) and obesophobia (fear of becoming fat).
Regardless of the type of phobia, a person feels unhappy and needs outside help.
Treatment
Philophobia is often difficult to diagnose. Especially when the patient stubbornly denies the presence of fear, attributing all symptoms to external circumstances.
The main step in treating a phobia is the patient’s awareness of his problem and the desire to get rid of it. It is impossible to force a philophobe to begin treatment.
A person whom the philophobe trusts and values their relationship can help the patient make a decision to see a specialist.
In the treatment of fears, preference is given to non-drug treatment .
The basis of treatment is psychotherapy. These can be individual sessions with a doctor or group classes.
In individual sessions, Gestalt therapy methods are used, aimed at understanding the cause of the disease. The doctor, together with the patient, works through past negative situations, forming new positive images.
Group classes are aimed at developing personal growth, the ability to interact with people, increasing self-esteem and stress resistance.
In particularly severe situations, when the symptoms of phobia are very severe, the doctor prescribes medication. To relieve negative symptoms, the following types of drugs are used:
- tranquilizers that relieve anxiety, fear, panic;
- antipsychotics intended to combat nervous disorders;
- Antidepressants are used for a tendency to depression and suicidal thoughts.
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