Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Unpacking the Love Map: How Childhood Experiences Influence Adult Desires

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Ever felt like your past is casting a shadow over your love life? Childhood experiences, including trauma, are intricately woven into the nature and the challenges we face in relationships. In this Language of Love Session, I delve into a heartfelt email from Muhammad, a courageous 21-year-old man from Iran. He’s grappling with his sexual orientation and OCD, sharing his attraction to abusive middle-aged men and connecting it to the emotional wounds inflicted by his abusive father. We tackle these heavy topics together, exploring the concept of the "love map"—a psychological framework that reveals how our past, particularly trauma, influences our romantic desires. Here’s what we explore: The impact of childhood trauma and abusive parental relationships on emotional well-being The connection between OCD and unmanaged anxiety  The "love map" concept and how early experiences shape our attractions Understanding a "vandalized lovemap" and its effects on sexual desires and relationships Distinguishing between healthy and harmful relationships The importance of self-discovery and fostering healthy relationship dynamics Don't forget to visit my website for customized courses like 'Good Grief,' 'Quantum Sex,' and more. Let’s embrace our authentic selves and make every moment count! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself, and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Okay, we're diving into it. This session, I thought I would answer a really compelling

email. We weren't, for reasons I think you'll understand, able to get this on live, right, where this gentleman could ask his question, mostly because he lives in Iran. And you'll understand as I read his email to you, not only what his question is, but why it might've been hard for him to call in. So I am answering this for him and I'm going to send it to him,

but I'm also answering it for you because as I'm always telling you, when you ask your question, you're certainly asking for yourself and getting the answer for yourself, but you also happen to be asking for millions of other people who also have the same or similar questions, okay?

So this is from Mohamed. He says, Dr. Berman, I'm a 21-year-old man living in Iran, and I'm reaching out for your expertise. Since reaching puberty, I've realized that I'm gay, but in a way that differs from the norm. I'm exclusively attracted to middle-aged men with specific characteristics, and younger men do not appeal to me.

I believe I may have severe daddy issues stemming from my father's traumatic and abusive behaviors. Unfortunately, my abnormal sexual desires are further complicated by obsessive compulsive disorder. When I encounter a man who fits my type in public, I can't resist looking at him, fantasizing about the relationship. The constant mental activity is exhausting and interferes with my daily life. Additionally, I have masochistic tendencies and desire a dominant father-like figure in my relationships.

my father's abusive behavior and frequent parental arguments have caused me significant emotional distress. He goes on to say that he's tried various medications and they cause all kinds of side effects. He doesn't have access, which breaks my heart, but this is true in most of the Middle East, other than maybe Israel and Saudi Arabia to an extent, Dubai, I don't know. But unfortunately, he says he does not have access to trustworthy mental health professionals in his country. And he's humbly asking for some guidance. So yeah, this is a lot, Muhammad. And there's several things going on here. So first of all, let's just put in a corner for the moment, the OCD and that element. That's part of your trauma history for sure. And we'll get to that in a

minute. But let's unpack because you are not alone in having what we would call atypical sexual desires. Not that I'm saying being attracted to men is atypical, but as you describe it, that it has to be a much older man, it has to be a slightly paternal object, and that you also kind of have a fetish or a desire for masochistic. So whoever your partner would be, the desire is to have someone older, father-like, and sadistic, which would be the partner to masochistic. So someone who at least wanted you to be submissive. But if you're saying masochistic tendencies versus submissive tendencies, the way that I read that, and I'm assuming that's how you mean it, is that you enjoy pain. You find pain sexually arousing. So we have two slightly atypical sexual

desires. One is the masochistic piece of enjoying pain and sometimes humiliation, but usually the masochistic part is pain. And someone who's much older and more in a father role. I mean, listen, if we look at heterosexual relationships, in particular women with older men, we see that every day. So it's not, I don't even feel fully comfortable calling that atypical, but I think it's atypical in this context because you're a young man who is wanting to be attracted to other young people and you're not. So what's in operation here in particular with the father piece is what John Money, who was one of the earliest OG researchers in sexual health, would call a vandalized love map.

Now, let me explain to you what a love map is. A love map is sort of your template or your blueprint that every single one of us has of what turns us on and what type of person, looks, behavior, and otherwise we're sexually attracted to. Now, what most people don't realize is that your love map is actually pretty much built by the time you're seven years old and hopefully didn't have any kind of sexual exchanges with anyone before the age of seven, but that things happen. And so let's just talk about a non-vandalized love map for every single one of us who and what we're attracted to is significantly informed by what our key bonds were and what we were exposed to in the first seven years of life.

I mean, he kind of is joking when he says this, but really not when my husband says that I remind him very much of his absolutely beloved kindergarten teacher who looked a lot like me and was very loving and affectionate. And he had a huge little seven-year-old boy crush on her. And I guess that's part of his love map, right? Often we are attracted to people who had a healthy relationship with our parents. You remind us of some of the healthier qualities or the more optimistic qualities of our parents. So it's really interesting to think about. And for all of us, it's just a curious and interesting exercise to think about what your love map may be. But in particular, if you have a specific fetish, and by fetish, what that means is that you kind of need that thing. I don't mean that just like you like feet, but that you really need feet to turn you on, or you like a little spanking here and there, but that's different.

That's just like I enjoy a little spanking. I like a little masochism play versus I need to be hurt in order to be sexually aroused. That now is in the love map vandalization category. So here, classic example, and then we'll get to your example, Mohamed, is like a little boy. I've seen so many men like this who have perhaps a diaper fetish or a spanking fetish or even a baby fetish where they like to be treated and dressed like a baby and that turns them on. Almost always, as a young, young child still in diapers, but they can remember it. I hear this story so often. So let's call it an example, but a very frequent example because this isn't the only way this fetish develops. They were being thrown over their one parent's knee in their diapers and they were being spanked. And as they were being spanked, the little kid's penis was rubbing up naturally against the leg on which it was rubbing against and an accidental erection happened. And then there's like this synapse, and maybe it happened more than once, especially. And then there's like this synapse connection in the brain between pleasure and the smell of rubber diapers, because I see this a lot in much, much older men before disposable diapers, when they used to use those rubber panties over cloth nappies. and I see it in spanking fetishes that they were spanked. So when there was arousal and pain at the same time or arousal and an object at the same time,

then often that click happens and that becomes a fetish. I don't like the derogatory or punitive concept of a vandalized love map. That seems a little judgmental to me, but I'm just using that because that's the term. Here's a shout out to any woman who has experienced a horrible loss, is going through grief, I just want you to know, you don't need to do this alone.

And you also don't have to go through this. You can grow through it. You can come out the other side of horrible loss, a more self-actualized, tapped in, tuned in, empowered version of yourself. You can continue a relationship with your loved ones on the other side. I am living proof of that. With the losses I have had, especially of my sweet boy, Sammy, who's forever 16, I can tell you that you actually don't have to just suffer through this. And that is why I am holding a retreat for women in Chicago called From Heartbreak to Healing. I'm bringing in a whole bunch of my favorite healer teacher friends, and we are together going to take you through the process, not only of showing you how to heal, but making it inspiring,

uplifting, and beautiful. It's only women this time. I'll do some for men and for couples as well. But this time it's only women. So come and be embraced by a sacred sisterhood, meet other like-minded people, and learn how to not just have to go through this horrible pain,

but grow through it in beautiful ways. Just go to the link in my bio on my Instagram page of Dr. Laura Berman, or go to Eventbrite and search for Heartbreak to Healing Chicago and it'll come right up. I hope to see you there. Now, in your case, Muhammad, this is a vandalized love map as a result of trauma, which is a slightly bit different because what you're doing here is you are trying to work out and reclaim the trauma on your terms.

So another example of this would be, and I see this very often in women who have been raped, for instance, or sexually assaulted, not all of them by any means, but a portion of them will have rape fantasies, will need to act out the rape, even with a loved and trusted partner in order to get turned on

because there's a part of their psyche that is trying to take the power back from that, that is trying to rewrite that story. So if they act out the rape on their terms, not only is it arousing, but it's empowering. So for you, this is, and you know this from the way what you wrote, Muhammad, this is all about your father's abuse

and a vandalized love map. I'm not saying because you got turned on by your father's abuse in this case, but that this is a trauma response because your father abandoned, in your experience as a child, he abandoned the relationship and was abusive and scary. And that's the only bond you know. So how beautiful, this is what your psyche is thinking,

how beautiful would it be to find another abusive man who A, is familiar to me, because that's the only kind of love from a man I've ever known, but also who loves me in a way my father couldn't, right? Now, what ends up happening as a result of that, and you didn't mention this in your email, but I'm guessing this is what happens to you,

is that you go underground and you meet some of these men who treat you horribly because I will say, I mean, this may be a topic for other show, but you can have a sadomasochistic relationship with someone or a dominant-submissive relationship with someone, which is unbelievably beautiful and loving when it is mutually consensual

and the rules are in place and the boundaries are in place and everybody is enjoying their roles and it feels full of trust and really fulfilling. There's nothing wrong with that. And I've worked with and met so many couples like that, but that's not what we're talking about here. And my guess is,

since you're probably underground with this, not only because of your family, but also because of your culture and where you live, you probably are meeting people who really are mean and abusive. And this isn't like a fetish for them too, but they really have issues. And so they are now adding and compounding your trauma. So you not only have the trauma with your dad, but now you may have been traumatized by newer relationships as well. So the most, most, most important thing to do, And I honestly don't know. I'm guessing that in Iran, you don't have access to the World Wide Web in the same way the rest of us did. Like if you were reaching out to me from some teeny, teeny, tiny town on the Bible Belt where you could never go to a therapist and talk about this, I would have you logging on to programs in somatic experiencing. There's so many great ones.

So there's traumahealing.org, which is a great website where you can find somatic experiencing trauma specialists all over the country and the world. There is the SA method. I just recently interviewed him, Sa DeSimone, who wrote Spiritually We. He has the SA method, which is somatic activated healing, which is for trauma. So there's lots of programs online that you can go through to help you start releasing somatically from the body, which is a huge part of trauma healing, as well as talking is and processing is. So yes, in order for you to move beyond this, and I wouldn't even call it a fetish, but this sexual need and desire that you have, you are going to have to get some form of trauma therapy. Now, if you want to read some books, The Body Keeps the Score is a great one.

Another great book is Healing from Trauma by Jasmine Lee Corey. That's an obvious title. Healing Developmental Trauma is another really good one. That's by Lawrence Heller. Another great one is Peter Levine. Now, he's written a couple of amazing books on somatic experiencing, but the one I'm thinking of is Healing Trauma, a pioneering program for restoring the wisdom of your body. It's like kind of a 12-phase healing trauma program. Now, the tricky thing with this is that it can be tricky

to do this kind of intense healing on your own because a lot of things come up and you sometimes need added support. So I'm a little bit nervous about you doing this on your own. So even if there's a way that you could leave the country and go on a retreat, or you could do an online program where you have access to coaches and clinicians that are trauma-informed, that would be amazing for you. Now, the OCD thing that you talk about, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, does compound things that is also a trauma reaction because OCD is about control. And so most of us develop those tendencies in childhood or earlier in life, sometimes later in life, but it's usually as a result of our lives feeling completely out of our control.

And so the OCD routines and strategies make us feel safer and make us feel less out of control. And if you grew up in a chaotic, abusive household, you definitely are craving some degree of safety and control because it was unbelievably unsafe and chaotic growing up. So once again, OCD will get a lot better with trauma treatment. There's also EMDR. That's a form of trauma treatment that is really, really effective, even used in different military programs for helping with PTSD. But that's really what you have. Now, if you can find a dominant father-like figure who is willing to play with you in the S&M

place, but is not like a horrible human being who is going to treat you with love and reverence and care and use the power they have over you sexually for good, not evil, you can find those people in discussion boards and groups. I mean, you have to do a lot of vetting and you have to move slowly, but you absolutely can find a partner who is loving and who has a compatible fetish with yours, especially today with all the access we have to people around the world. But it's not easy and it's not going to be easy for you in particular where you are. But my tendency, honestly, is not to try to change or, quote unquote, unvandalize your love map. My hope for you and my prayer and my intention is that you get the trauma healing you need by whatever means

necessary, leaving the country for a while, doing an online course, whatever it takes. Because if you can do that, then not only will all of this other stuff likely change, but in addition to that, you will find so many areas of your life improve for the better, in particular, the OCD. Now, medications may help, but what I find is that people just use those. They over-prescribe them. They only work to a certain extent. They're a band-aid. They aren't really getting to the core of the problem and they aren't really setting you free. They are just making it easier to stay in the situation you're in. So that doesn't mean there isn't a role for medications and that they won't ever help you. They can help you. But I do think getting to the core of it and healing that

is really, really what's necessary. Listen, I know you have questions and things that you want some assistance with, and I am here to help. So that's what my Language of Love sessions are for. I can talk to you live on the line, or you can email your questions and I will answer them. And you can send them anonymously. It can be about a friend or a neighbor or someone you know. But what I want you to know is that when you ask that question, you're asking not only for yourself, but all the millions of other people who have the same question because they do and are learning right along with you. So if you have a question or you want me to talk about something or answer something or help you with a struggle, you can always email me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com.

That's languageoflovepod, as in podcast, at gmail.com. so i hope that gives you some guidance i am so so sorry that what happened to you happened you did not deserve that no child deserves that unfortunately it's all too common all over the world in the united states as well but what breaks my heart is that you live in a country where you can't fully express yourself just even as a gay man. And so that in and of itself is a kind of trauma. So I am praying for you and hoping that not only do you get to hear this, which I know you will, but that you will be able to also get the healing that you need in one of these ways and keep us posted on how you're doing. And if you have a question,

you can always email it to languageoflovepod at gmail.com. I love answering your questions. I'll see you next time. I wrote me a prescription But there is no cure for a crush