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| | Notices | Welcome to PTSD Forum. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a life threatening, debilitating disorder that can break down a sufferer’s body through anxiety and stress. Further it poses a significant suicide risk resulting from the brains neurological imbalance and chemical depression. Sufferers often live in denial, thus this community is aimed at helping PTSD sufferers help themselves through others experiences, guidance and education. We are here for the sufferer, spouse and families surrounding PTSD. Spouses and family are too often forgotten in this equation, and often they receive all the worst that PTSD has to offer. If you're involved in any way with PTSD, get registered and help yourself now. Non-active members will eventually be deleted. If you are not a sufferer, carer or someone within the mental health industry, and active, then there is little reason for you to be a member of this forum. Non-active members with zero posts are deleted periodically during the year. |  | | 
18-03-2008, 11:03 AM
|  | | | Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 78
| |  What is Your Understanding of Love?
I've always struggled with the feeling/concept/defining of love.
Love to me seems to be something that has to be earned and easily lost. Lost when you don't do enough for that person.
I feel confused about what love means and how it's supposed to feel, as it was not something traught/shown/given when I was young.
This is a definition I found and wrote in my journal which has help me.
We come to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, and often painful..something we had to give up our own dreams and desires for....Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you of balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace!
Last edited by Nicolette; 19-03-2008 at 09:57 PM.
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18-03-2008, 11:26 AM
|  | | | Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: USA ~ Midwest
Posts: 105
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Hello empowered,
Love....that is a huge emotion and a beautiful thing. Love does not hurt, is kind and accpepting. I believe the following words sum it up...
No one falls in love by choice, it’s by chance.
No one stays in love by chance, it’s work.
No one falls out of love by chance, it’s by choice.
When you meet the right person, you will know when it is love. You may think that you are ready for love...but you may not really be. When you are truly ready, love will find you and it will be wonderful. My prayers are with you.
Sisu
Last edited by Nicolette; 23-03-2008 at 09:33 AM.
Reason: Please do not paste from Word directly into the forum as it creates formatting issues
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18-03-2008, 11:57 AM
|  | Moderated Member | | Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 159
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Boy, whenever anyone uses the word with me, I want to run or puke.
But I like the definition. I'll hang onto in my brain. I don't want to be isolated forever. This journey is about change. |
18-03-2008, 12:04 PM
|  | Moderator Chat PTSD Forum | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: North Carolina, USA
Posts: 597
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I wish I could offer something like a definition but I can't. I, too, never understood what love was because of my childhood. For years and years, I had such a twisted outlook on what love must be. Then, I met my husband and it was like the world came to a screeching halt and then restarted again.
I feel like being "valued, cared for, and respected" are things that I should expect from friends, not just lovers. Though, a lover should be your friend, as well.
Love is something that two people create and not something that is predetermined.
Best,
Rachel |
18-03-2008, 03:05 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Canada
Posts: 138
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Love to me implies gentleness ... a choice to do no harm ... a deep constancy of kindness and presence ... cherishment ... a sense of home with another being ... a singular way of seeing and being seen ... a sturdy, no-nonsense respect ... a "no matter what" kind of presence ... an ease and safety in being-with ...
It is difficult to define! 
A quotation comes to mind: "Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best." (Gabriela Mistral)
Roo |
18-03-2008, 07:34 PM
|  | | | Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Ma
Posts: 2,289
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Love sucks........Can you tell I have had a few bad relationships??? LOL!!!!! |
18-03-2008, 10:14 PM
| | | | Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 78
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She Cat, I dare say you have never known true love. You thought you did, but if it isn't true love, nothing can be imitated forever. I dare say that whatever you felt and thought of as love was nothing of the sort. Real love never ends in divorce - it ends in death. And until you find it, you can't understand it.
I don't mean to be offensive, but that's the long and short of it. |
19-03-2008, 12:29 AM
| | | | Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 84
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While I don't have a definition of my own to offer, I am touched by the ones given here. On second thought, my one word definition would be: gentleness. That means even when being angry or stern or whatever...just always gentle...careful of another's fragility. |
19-03-2008, 12:43 AM
|  | | | Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Ontario
Posts: 1,381
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lOVE IS LIKE ANOTHER FOUR LETTER WORD FOR ME FOR RELATIONSHIPS, MY mOM AND NOW FRIENDS TOO! oops!
I can only receive and give unconditional love from my son.
Someone, anyone that says they love me.....always leaves me in the end. Your family is supposed to show love to you mine only shows resentment and hate. |
19-03-2008, 12:45 AM
| | | | Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Ontario
Posts: 1,381
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Love has only shown me hurt and abandonment. | | Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode | 
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