Am I Loved Only Because I Perform?

"We frequently define ourselves, largely, by how our early environments define us. Whatever we're perpetually praised and punished for as children often becomes internalized and generalized. So, if you're consistently praised for your grades, you may come to consider yourself intelligent. If you're praised for your ball skills, you may come to consider yourself an athlete. If you're punished for your grades, you may come to consider yourself stupid. And if you're punished for your limited athletic ability, you may come to consider yourself weak. As children, we ask ourselves: What does it take to receive love? And we often come to define ourselves, via the feedback of rewards and punishments (and our interpretations of them), by the afforded doses of affection."

"Psychotherapist on X, Frannyfanny, profoundly wrote, "A professor of mine would say some version of this. 'Your parents loved you, but did they delight in you?' Did their face light up when you walked into a room? Could they enjoy your emerging subjectivity, enough that you remember the feeling of being deeply loved, just because?'" Here, she was referring to the unconditional form of love, where love exists without much effort."

"But what about when parents only delight in their children when they perform, entertain, and bring honor to the rest? What happens when delight is conditional and earned? Many of the patients I've seen over the years are socially prescribed perfectionists, meaning they believe others expect and demand perfection from them. Further, the foundational belief is that true love is conditional, predicated on perfection in some meaningful area(s)."

Perfectionism often arises when love and approval are granted based on performance. Children internalize patterns of praise and punishment and form identities tied to achievements or shortcomings. Parental delight that appears only when children perform teaches that love must be earned. Socially prescribed perfectionists expect others to demand perfection and therefore distrust unconditional love. Experiments in therapy, including deliberate underperformance, can reveal that love can exist in multiple forms beyond performance-based affection and can open the possibility of experiencing less conditional acceptance.

Read at Psychology Today