familial abuse and society

I think people feel loved by their abuser, ones who take out their familial trauma on their family, because some elements of love are offered. It's a partial offering: abuse is love minus a few elements, either one or all. If you coax out the strands of love you might be able to see what was missing, what got twisted up and bruised… we can feel some aspects of love that way, but rarely more than the hurt.

Nobody knows how to make love. We are discouraged from doing so and our loveless world marches on. I think love demands my attention though, because of my personal history of abuse, It tells me we’ve been on this path, NOT that we should stay on this path. The difference between the past and the present is that only one is in our power to act upon. So we have to do something, as much as we can, if we ever want to live in a world for our existing self.