I’ve never been in a long-lasting relationship and even my friendships seem distant because I just can’t stand the feeling of love/affection. As a kid, when my parents told me that they loved me, I distinctly remember dry-heaving in disgust and discomfort. I’ve gotten slightly better with that, but now that I’m older and more mature I’m beginning to feel “love” toward others and it makes me just as uncomfortable. Any time I find myself getting particularly close to someone, I begin to resent them. I want to hurt them. If I somehow manage to get into a romantic relationship with somebody, I want to hurt them, I find myself fantasizing about mutilating them and I have no idea why. If I’m having sex, all I can think about is mutilating my partner’s genitals. I’d like to add that I’m a lesbian, so I only date those of my own gender and therefore only want to do that to them (if that’s significant). I don’t know if it’s a fetish, but even if it is, I still think that’s concerning. Even with my friends, I wanna slam their head into a wall the more I like them.
The closest thing I can compare it to is cute aggression — y’know, when you wanna smother cute little animals for no reason other than their cuteness. I feel like my situation is different, though; I don’t want to smother my friends and lovers, I don’t even just want to simply kill them, I want to torture them and beat them and mutilate them. Even if I don’t want to hurt them, I start to hate them. Even if it’s someone who doesn’t “love”me back, like a celebrity. If I get really into a certain celebrity, I soon begin to hate them and wish they never existed. Why do I hate everything I love? Why do I want to hurt people? I’ve only ever wanted to hurt people too, I’d never hurt an animal and even thinking about it brings me nearly to tears. So why am I so violent toward my own kind?
There are many theories about these issues. It could be that you lacked the proper developmental interactions to develop empathy. For instance, if you were unloved as a child and/or your caretakers were abusive, these negative interactions could have disrupted or inhibited your capacity to learn empathy. There are many other possibilities but without a complete and comprehensive examination, yours is a difficult question to answer.
Knowing why you are this way is arguably less important than finding a solution to prevent it from negatively impacting your life. If you can’t feel love and have difficulty interacting with people, then you will struggle with relationships. In addition, you might also hurt someone which could lead to your imprisonment and loss of freedom.
I would recommend counseling. Counselors will not be shocked by your feelings. These are all things they are familiar with. They will know how to help you. Good luck and please take care.
Dr. Kristina Randle
