SIGNS YOU'RE REJECTING LOVE WITHOUT KNOWING.

SIGNS YOU'RE REJECTING LOVE WITHOUT KNOWING IT.

Everyone wants to love and be loved. But it's not all that easy and sometimes love can be scary. So how can something so ingrained in us be so terrifying? What are the signs that you're rejecting love without knowing?

1. Misunderstanding What Love Is.

Let's first figure out what love means. Loving someone doesn't always mean you've fallen in love romantically. Love comes to us through our friends, parents, and siblings too. Perhaps you have a strong disconnect in one or more of these relationships. This could be due to you rejecting their love without realizing. One psychologist creates the Triangular theory of Love which illustrates how love affects us in three areas: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Love languages can also affect how you perceive love. If you need physical touch, but they show their love through words you may not feel fulfilled. If you feel like your family, friends, or romantic partner aren't offering you love in accordance with your love language, you may be rejecting how they actually express their love.

2. Feeling Unworthy of Love.

Perhaps you have the opposite issue. Maybe you know what love is, and you feel like you can't be worthy of it. Childhood trauma and rejection can lead to feeling unworthy of love. Later in life, this trauma could have come from neglect or physical abuse. If you have faced abuse in your past, you may think that the love that you want doesn't exist and if it does, you don't deserve it.

3. Unrealistic Expectations.

Everyone deserves love, but not everyone seems to get it. It's hard to be objective with ourselves and what is attainable. Maybe, for example, you're expecting to fall in love like they do in the movies and therefore, you ignore those who are ready in your social circles. There are always differences between partners. Don't let superficial differences keep you from feeling love. The idea of a perfect pairing is dreamed up and displayed in movies, TV, and books. It promotes a culture of unrealistic expectations. That isn't to say that the perfect person for you doesn't exist. You may be denying your feelings for someone because of one or two criteria that don't line up with an unrealistic expectation.

4. Fear of Commitment.

Relationships aren't easy. There is a level of responsibility that comes with it, and a part of that responsibility is commitment. You may feel like you aren't in the right stage of life to fully commit to someone, which is understandable. Potentially losing some of your independence is hard. There might be someone who you could be with, but the fear of committing to them is leading you to shut down. A fear of commitment often stems from an insistence on freedom. This is often called hyper-independence. It could also be the cause of fear of vulnerability. Your fear may be something internal. Do you often avoid talking about yourself even if you really like someone? Are you afraid of showing someone that you aren't perfect? This is another way you could be rejecting love. Intimacy and vulnerability are also necessary for our mental health. Someone is ready to love you, but first, they need to know you. Nobody is perfect. We all have things we need to work on, and it's our quirks that make us human. After all, it's nearly impossible to connect with someone that's perfect because nobody is.

5. Disorders That Make Love Difficult.

There are factors that affect how you look at love. Having a condition like being on the autism spectrum, having a depressive or anxiety condition, among others, can all affect the way you perceive the world around you. Studies have found that depression can affect how you build relationships, through depressive symptoms like social disconnection, feeling apathetic, or withdrawn from others. Another study concluded that individuals with autism struggle to communicate and begin the process of building relationships. While on the surface it may sound like love is a hard topic for those of us with mental disorders of any kind, there is hope. These studies illustrate something that has always been true: love is different for everyone with or without mental disorders. Each of us will face different issues when it comes to love.

Hopefully, we have helped you get a step closer to figuring out how you show and receive love. If love has found you, that is an amazing thing that should be celebrated. If you love someone and they love you, let that inspire you to be the best.