Seeking parental Love

A child’s search for love, that never came the way they needed it.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted one thing more than anything else: for my father to love me.

Not the kind of love you say out of obligation, or the performative kind you show in public to keep up appearances. I wanted the quiet kind of love—felt in the eyes, in a hand on the shoulder, in the words, “I see you. I’m proud of you. I’m here.”

But that love never came.
And for a child, the absence of that kind of love isn’t just sad—it’s devastating to the developing brain.

The Biological Blueprint of Love

Our need for connection is not a weakness. It’s biology. From birth, the human brain is hardwired for attachment. The amygdala—our fear and threat detection center—and the ventral striatum—our reward center—work together to form bonds with primary caregivers.

When we receive consistent affection, attunement, and emotional presence, the brain’s oxytocin and dopamine systems regulate our nervous system. That’s how a child learns: I am safe. I am loved. I matter.

But for me, those moments were rare or absent.
What I received was a kind of coldness that made me question if I was even visible.

My dad wasn’t abusive in the traditional sense. He didn’t hit me. He didn’t scream. But he also didn’t hug. Or ask how I was. Or say he was proud. If I showed emotion, I was told to stop being dramatic. If I cried, I was met with discomfort or silence. If I needed comfort, I felt like a burden.

He was emotionally shut off, and the room always felt colder when he was in it.

And so my nervous system did what it had to do: it adapted.

Adapting to Survive: The Child Who Tries Harder

When a child doesn’t receive consistent emotional attunement, the brain doesn’t conclude that the parent is emotionally damaged. That’s far too dangerous for a dependent child to process.

Instead, the child concludes: There must be something wrong with me.

This is the brilliance—and the tragedy—of attachment theory: the child will sacrifice truth and authenticity for connection and survival.

So I tried harder. I became the good kid. The peacekeeper. The one who didn’t need anything. I got straight A’s. I was helpful. I smiled even when I was sad. I anticipated his moods. I apologized for things I didn’t do. I hoped that if I was perfect enough, he would finally look at me with something other than that distant gaze.

But the connection never came.

The Hidden Cost: Anxious Attachment and Hypervigilance

What I didn’t know then was that my brain had entered a state of emotional hypervigilance.

This constant monitoring of emotional threat causes the amygdala to become overactive. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for self-regulation, empathy, and perspective, becomes overwhelmed. The result? Chronic anxiety. Over-responsibility. A distorted belief system that says:
I must earn love by being useful, good, quiet, strong, or invisible.

I developed what psychologists now call an anxious-preoccupied attachment style—always seeking closeness, approval, and safety, but never feeling secure. My body was in a near-constant state of low-grade fight-or-flight, and I didn’t even know it.

This followed me into friendships. Intimacy. Work. I was constantly asking, “What do I need to be in order to be loved today?”

The Family Dynamic: When Love Feels Scarce

I wasn’t an only child. I had an older brother and a younger sister. And when emotional love feels like a limited resource, siblings often become competitors.

My brother shut down. He learned to weaponize anger and sarcasm. He called me “too emotional,” laughed at me when I tried to talk about my feelings.

My sister? She disappeared emotionally—attached herself to whichever parent felt safest, asked no questions, showed no vulnerability.

We all coped in different ways. None of us were free.
We were just kids trying to survive in a system that had no emotional language.

And because I refused to pretend everything was fine, because I still hoped for something better, I became the scapegoat—the child who carried the discomfort the others were trying to ignore.

The Breaking Point: Therapy and the Grief of What Never Was

I didn’t fully understand the damage until years later, sitting across from a therapist in my late twenties. I described my childhood as though I were reading a case study—no emotion, just facts.

She paused, then said gently:

“You were a child trying to earn something that should have been given unconditionally. That was not your failure—it was theirs.”

And for the first time, I cried.
Not out of weakness, but because someone finally saw the truth I had buried for decades. “It wasn’t my fault”.

Understanding My Father’s Limitations

The hardest part of my healing was letting go of the fantasy that one day my father would change. That he’d finally see me, hug me, apologize, say he was proud.

But that day never came.
And I finally realized why.

My father wasn’t choosing to withhold love.
He simply didn’t know how to give it.

What I once saw as cruelty, I’ve come to understand as emotional immaturity—a kind of developmental arrest. Some people, especially those who grew up in survival mode, never develop the neurological or emotional capacity to be vulnerable, nurturing, or emotionally present.

Research shows that unresolved trauma can freeze parts of the emotional brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex and insula, which are key in empathy, self-reflection, and emotional regulation. If those areas were never activated in his own childhood, then expressing love—especially the kind I needed—may have felt foreign or even threatening to him.

In that sense, he didn’t fail me because he didn’t care.
He failed me because he couldn’t grow beyond his own wounds.

He may have loved me in the only language he knew—providing, fixing things around the house, staying physically present. But emotional love requires a level of vulnerability that some people will never reach.

Grieving the Fantasy, Accepting the Reality

Letting go of the fantasy of the father I wanted was like grieving a death.
Not a physical one—but the death of hope, the death of who I needed him to be.

And in that grief, I created space for something new: self-compassion.

Healing Through Rewiring

Healing isn’t just about insight—it’s about rewiring.

Through neuroplasticity, the brain can change. It learns to regulate through new experiences of safety and emotional honesty. I began reparenting myself—soothing my inner child, speaking kindly to myself, giving myself the love I’d been chasing in others.

I created emotional safety from the inside out.

Every time I said to myself, “You’re allowed to feel this,” I was rebuilding neural pathways in my medial prefrontal cortex—strengthening my capacity for self-love.

And slowly, my nervous system began to calm.

The Liberation of Loving Myself

Today, the ache still lingers. It probably always will. I still feel a sting when I see a father and son connect in a way I never knew. But I no longer chase it.

I no longer abandon myself for crumbs of approval.
I no longer confuse rejection with truth.

I’ve learned that my softness is not weakness—it’s resilience.
That my longing wasn’t shameful—it was sacred.
That my father’s silence said more about his pain than my worth.

He loved me in the only way he knew.
It wasn’t enough. But it was all he had.

And now, I give myself what he couldn’t.

I see me.
I hear me.
I love me.

And for the first time in my life, that’s enough.