How To Get My Basic Needs of Love Met?

[Ayham]

Alright, it has been a while since I have posted here, and I have wanted to delete my account at some point. I want to go briefly over my life right now since I am now 19. I finished high school, got into AI and robots engineering, social skills went up the roof and I became extremely confident as opposed to how I used to be, I excelled academically and became one of the top students, I made high quality connections with professors and company owners, I got in many leadership positions, I won first place in technical competitions, and I was also was continuing my self-actualization stuff. That was my freshman year which ended.

But past 2 months, I have only been depressed, due to 3 main reasons.

1. My relative, someone who highly influenced me, and was closer to me than my father, is dying out of cancer. That has been immensely painful.

2. Even though I am building a good infrastructure, I still don't have a source of income, and my family depends on me as my father is not here, and the financial situation has been getting worse and I am highly responsible to fix it but I just... don't know what to do.

3. I loved a girl in uni. 6 months ago, we started getting close and everything went well, but she is kind of really stage blue and doesn't want relationships, I confessed to her by programming a website with a game and a long message and she was crying out of happiness, and we continued "friendship" that felt like more, she would get jealous if I talk to other girls and tell me how I am the first person she fears losing, etc. And guess what? 2 months ago, after 6 months of closeness like that, some guy was trying to get close to her and calling her cute. I really panicked and just needed reassurance, as we didn't have an official label, but I kept getting more and more panicking and at some point she felt scared and like I was trying to control her, and she started distancing more and more and I kept chasing like an idiot, until at this point she literally acts like she doesn't know me and wants me gone, even though she used to be the one who cried if she thinks she might lose me. I know I acted needy but come on.

To be honest, the third reason has hurt me the most, I really loved her from the depths of my heart, we were each other's first close connection like that, and I just didn't want to lose her, and I did. She wants nothing to do with me anymore, and probably replaced me with that guy. I know I pressured her but I just did it out of fear, I didn't "hurt her" in any way. Yes she was part stage blue but really smart and developed in other ways and we had similar values in life. Now the person she is with me (when I talk to her, which I don't) is... so mean and cold that I don't know her anymore. I don't want her anymore as I don't want a girl who replaced me like that, but I am still deeply hurt.

I watched Leo's fake spirituality video and I really resonated with it, been years since I last watched Leo and this really went deep. The problem is, yes I seek to value Truth and genuine spirituality, but I can't get my basic needs of affection and love met. I am heavily traumatized from war and family issues which leads me to strong fear of abandonment and attachment issues, and a high need for love.

My culture here in Iraq doesn't really help to meet what I need as love, and even though since I am now popular and have a high status in my uni, I know I can get with a lot of girls but I just... can't trust or love again after what happened.

I don't just want casual love. I want deep intimacy, strong connection, quality moments, loyalty, expression, and vulnerability.
I know I am supposed to love myself first, and yes I am working on that, I improve, but no amount of loving myself at my current state will help. I know it is the root solution, but part of me needs to at least experience this external love I am talking about to realize it won't fulfill me, it is a human need after all.

What I experienced with that girl was limited as she was careful to not let it grow into a relationship to not clash with her family values. 
I just want to feel loved and valued for once. I am so love starved that a few days ago my grandpa told me "I love you", and I teared up.


So, I think to be able to deal with the other issues, I need to take care of the need for love thing, how do I deal with this in your opinion? Especially in my culture where dating is very hard and finding suitable people is even harder.

I would also appreciate @Emerald and @Leo Gura input too.

[Rishabh R]

@Ayham As per the third one. It meant that that girl was receptive to you and this alone is a proof that there will be girls who will be receptive you.

I also considered myself as unattractive to girls at University but later I realised that I wasn't focussing on the fact that there were few girls who were receptive to me and there will be in the future. I was just jealous of my friends having beautiful girlfriends but they were the wrong girls for me. 

As per the 1st one there is a realisation that I have experienced a little bit but heard from Mark Manson. Most relationships in our life will end (by the way sorry for your relative).

With time your needs will be met even though that sounds impossible right now due to your environment.

Just trying to let you know my thoughts regarding this. Best of luck.

 

[ryoko]

First mistake, expecting love and framing love as a need. That's not how it works. You can only give love, and being possessive is the opposite of love. Freedom is one of the highest expressions of love. Letting others be. Build yourself, love is for you to give. And give it without restraints, but never force yourself to contribute what you don't have enough. 

Second mistake, labelling the girl as stage blue. Labeling anyone through Spiral Dynamics is out of the question. Don't ever do that. It's meant for analyzing groups of people and Spiral Dynamics is quite incomplete, check out Cynefin and Complexity Theory for reference. 

Third, connecting your self worth to academic achievements. This can backfire immensely later on, especially if you choose a path of your own. Anyways, expect a lot of work, you'll have to unlearn a lot of things learnt in school when you start building yourself. 

Not gonna comment on financial stuffs going on in your life, but I'd argue you have to sort it out yourself, and find your own optimal path. I'll tell this, the more you focus on earning, the less you'll learn what you truly have a passion for. Be comfortable with being absolutely poor while you're training yourself. And don't take debts or loans, ever. 

[Emerald]

I see that this situation has left you once bitten, twice shy.

So, it's a very common response after heartbreak to be hesitant to open up again for fear of experiencing the pain again.

What I would say is to allow yourself to fully process the pain of the disconnection. But then, after a time, you must allow yourself to trust another person with your heart.

The price of opening up to love is to risk heartbreak.

So, the more okay you are with experiencing the pain of heartbreak and loss, the more capacity you will have to open up to new love.