Another research project

No. I haven't stopped researching. It's what I do. I just haven't been sharing the results as is my norm. However, I've drawn some conclusions, finally, so it's time to leave them here.

When I began therapy three years ago, I identified some specific problems/ideas/things which I have difficulty understanding or coping with. At the top of my list were these two items:
1. Human relationships, especially friendship.
2. Love, both that which I feel and that which is offered to me.

Most of my research projects have been planned, explored, and reported within a matter of weeks once I decide to look at them. These particular items have been in the process for the past three years, and I'm still not finished. I am, however, at the point where I've asked questions, researched articles, read books, explored in real time, and I'm ready to share my findings and also hear the viewpoints of others.

I'm combining the two items for the sake of this post because they seem to be intertwined in many different ways and one of my research points is to understand how love and friendship (in order to streamline my research, I'm limiting my "human relationships" to friendship in this research project) overlap and if they are interdependent.

This subject is highly emotional for me because it's an area where I feel I lack basic human understanding. I feel insecure and irrational when I discuss and research the traits of love and friendship--so this post may seem less organized and logical than my past research reports have been.

I suppose it's impossible to define love in any concrete way. I asked many people about their definitions which included short descriptions and synonyms (fondness, passion, warmth, deep feeling, joy), and anecdotes in which the person speaking "felt loved." All this is very nice, but it can only suggest each individual's experience with that emotion he/she feels is love, and that might be something completely different from my own experience. What I've gleaned from my research is this: everyone feels love at different levels and intensities--but each seems to know it when it happens. For the sake of clarity, I'm not including the feelings that come from attraction as love. I'm speaking of the feelings that last longer than three weeks at a time, and exist when a person feels reasonable rather than twitterpated. Keep that in mind as you read, please.

My research, although including the thoughts and opinions of others, was to ascertain my personal ideas and thoughts about love as it pertains to me. These are my conclusions:
1. I feel love for people regardless of whether or not I feel safe with, or trust them.
2. My love is based on my perceptions of that person--this can have a basis in the physical, spiritual, or emotional interactions I have with them.
3. While I am usually able to control or manipulate feelings when they occur, it is impossible for me to control my feelings of love. They just happen. I do not choose the people I love.
4. Once I have fallen in love with a person, it seems impossible for me to stop loving them. For example: As a small child I developed a deep love for the cousin who later molested me. Even today, that love still exists, and while I mourn the actions that hurt me, my heart still cares about the person responsible for those actions. Sometimes I think it would be more healthy for me if I could stop loving him--but the point is moot. I can't. So it is with any that I love--even if time and distance have separated us for a very long time--I don't know how to stop loving.
5. Love consumes. Sometimes I love so much it hurts. I have felt this way about my children, and about Darrin, and have felt similarly for people in my life who are close to me. I don't like this part of love. It feels tangible and beyond my control.
6. Love can heal deep wounds. It can also cause them.

Moving on to friendship, these are the conclusions (again--they only apply to me, personally) I have drawn:
1. Friendship, for me, is more binding than love. I often feel feelings of love for whomever I'm with, but never form an attachment to that person. I may not see him/her again for months and that's okay. I still feel love or affection, but not a need to spend time or talk with that person often. Friendship, for me, forms when that attachment happens and I feel drawn to that person often.
2. Friendship cannot exist without love. I am not friends with people until after I've fallen in love with them. But it must have other components for it to be viable for me. Chief among those is a feeling of safety. If I feel unsafe with a person, I will not be his/her friend. Trust is added to this--I trust the person won't hurt or betray me in any way. I trust that my friend will keep my confidences. I feel that I can relax, even if just for a moment with that person.
3. I suppose there are many people whom I love, but would not necessarily choose to spend my time. For me, a friend is one with whom I click in some way. We share interests or a sense of humor. We communicate often and well. We enjoy being together and miss each other when we're apart.
4. I suppose the thing that marks a person as my friend more than anything else is if they can withstand the person who is really me. I've had many attempted friends--those who filled the above criteria--who, in the end, could not bear being my friend. They fell in love with the idea of me, not with the person I actually was. In their minds they built someone who had lived through troubles gracefully, who was self-confident and mostly happy all the time. Their Samantha-ideal was always around to listen and support them in their difficulties, but had very few of her own. In truth, they never really saw me, but were looking instead for a figment of their own imaginations. There have been very few who, when they saw the ugly parts of me, were able to stay. The truth about Samantha is that she is insecure, sometimes needy, often unhealthy, afraid, sometimes unable to listen and consumed by her own trivial and persistent problems, and underneath it all runs a thread of sadness that never goes away. The other truth is that Samantha sees beauty in nearly every part of life, she laughs often because it feels good, she loves being alive, and underneath it all is a thread of determination that one day things will come together and the ugly parts will become more beautiful. Honestly, I completely understand why the whole picture is so much more difficult to love than the idea of Samantha. I'm not sure that, given the opportunity, I could be my friend.

So there it is. I've listed no sources because I have way too many, and also because this is more of a summary of my own thoughts and opinions. Feel free to add to, editorialize, disagree with, or orate about your own thoughts. This research project is a work in progress, by no means finished. I'm simply making an accounting at the three year mark. Perhaps, in thirty years, I'll have everything figured out.