Unloving

Month 3 of my 12 Month Challenge to read a book a month. This book was intense. It dealt with what they call an Unloving spirit. Other people call it ‘dark shadows,’ ‘archetypes,’ and things like that.
The book is Unloving: I don’t like what I see by Henry Wright.
The Unloving spirit was described something like this: It keeps you from loving yourself and loving others.
Good thing they also described what they think a spirit is: A disembodied entity. Basically a person without a body that can obviously make a puppet out of people. Something you can’t always see, because it isn’t in our dimension but definitely makes some ‘anomalies’ appear in our world.
I find this book very plausible from the Christian perspective. But I won’t go into whether or not spirits or ‘disembodied entities’ actually exist, just more on what the book was talking about.
In this Wright’s experience, feeling so unloved comes from people who tell you aren’t worth anything or abusing you. From family members to spouses. People who are burdened with this will start the cycle all over again by abusing others and their victims will abuse others too.
But whats more is that it doesn’t allow the person to accept themselves. And it is really sad when the only reason they don’t accept themselves is because the people around them that should have loved them didn’t.
And seriously we haven’t even gotten to the worst part, when someone does finally step up and love this person for who they are and unconditionally, they can’t accept it. They end up pushing the love they need away. They feel unworthy of it.
It is almost addictive. Habits were formed long ago that would avoid all avenues to love. And things were put in to replace that hole meant for love. And when you try to get rid of those habits and coping mechanisms, withdrawal-type sickness occurs. It is a serious battle to get rid of this habit or addiction to being unloved.
To me the most interesting parts of the book came when they listed the illnesses that come out of this. Schizophrenia, certain imaginations, autoimmune diseases, MCS/EI.
Also self-mutilation, self-hatred, and perfectionism comes out of this. I’m not saying that I think everyone who is a perfectionist has this problem of feeling unloved but it might be one of the things to look for. I know that is why I’m a perfectionist. And even where my OCD comes from. When things aren’t perfect in certain ways I have to fix them or I think I’ll lose my mind.
The only reason I can find that neither I or anyone else should feel unloved for the rest of our lives is because, if God is God and he loves us all who am I to say that I shouldn’t be loved?
Things at home, at work or any other place where people are abused may not be healthy and may continue to stay unhealthy but a person and God can be fixed and this cycle of being unloved can be broken.
I’m really glad this book didn’t just talk about what being unloved was and does but they also talked about ways to combat it:

• When people aren’t willing to accept peace like you are walk away from them.
• And this definition of love: “Love doesn’t take, it only participates in what it has been given.” I think that works both ways. Not just for a person but for what other people do to that person.

It is so weird how when someone has an addiction, people who don’t have the addiction start shaking that person and are like, “Just stop it!” Or, “You’re crazy, that’s not real!”
And seriously, sometimes when I’m looking over my notes for this book I’m like this is really weird and almost fantasy-like. Then I wonder, well where did the fantasy genre come from anyway?
All of this may not be plausible to you, but I’d do anything to avoid schizophrenia! I guess the real reason I will even keep this book on my shelf is because it deals with stuff I’m dealing with. It strikes a cord that I haven’t been able to and have been trying to. When I grow up, all I want to be is a healthy adult.

Things I learned from this book?
1. There are probably people I will have to walk on the other side of the street from.
2. People who are ‘not acceptable’ in society or, ‘politically correct’, including Christians, aren’t supposed to be doomed for the trash.
3. Everyone in the world won’t drop or ditch me, just happens that I’m around quite a few who will.