When I Feel Love And Hate At The Same Time

We know what it is to feel love and, also, what it is to feel that we hate someone. But what happens when these two feelings are felt at the same time? Why can we feel love and hate for someone at the same time? These totally opposite emotions are found in every human being.

Surely, you have ever suffered this type of mixed feelings regarding someone. We cannot explain it and it confuses us quite a bit, because they are emotions that meet at two different extremes.

But, although it may seem strange to us, we really feel opposite emotions on more than one occasion.  Have you ever felt happy, but sad, at the same time? Maybe yes…

For example, when we must leave our home for a new job opportunity; or when a loved one leaves, but we know it was for the best because they were suffering. It is then when love and hate become part of the same feeling.

I suffer from emotional ambivalence

When we have feelings of love and hate we can begin to consider ourselves emotionally ambivalent. This does not mean that we first feel hate and then love, or vice versa. Emotional ambivalence is characterized by the fact that these two emotions, love and hate, do not replace each other, but can live together without moving one to the other.

Can ambivalence be considered a psychological disorder? On many occasions, this ambivalence occurs in people who suffer from a mental disorder. For example, people with depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, or neurosis may display ambivalent behavior.

But, the most common situation is that where this ambivalence occurs is when we suffer from jealousy. In these, we love the person next to us, but at the same time we hate them for relating to other people or being attractive to others.

Emotional ambivalence is normal, but it can cause us several problems when we interact, since we ourselves would not know how to define what we feel. And what to say if we are in a relationship. Ambivalence can confuse us and cause the relationship to not go as well as we would like.

In the skin of the ambivalent

If you’ve never found yourself in this situation, you probably don’t know what a person whose feelings of love and hate can feel like sharing the same emotion.

• The ambivalent feels attraction and repulsion towards a person.
• The ambivalent person loves a person, but hates certain attitudes they have.
• The ambivalent may want to speak and not speak at the same time.
• The ambivalent may want to act and, at the same time, remain passive.

All these contradictory feelings suffered by the ambivalent person cause something that many of us hate: when we are paralyzed without knowing which path to choose.

Consequences of being emotionally ambivalent

Ambiguity is one of the characteristics of ambivalent people, who see their self-esteem hurt because of their inability to decide between two opposing feelings. The person himself feels strange to his own emotions. You do not know how to act and how to stop feeling two emotions that should never come together in one.

This bewilderment situation causes their self-esteem to be very low, as they cannot maintain a healthy emotional balance. The ambivalent begins to distrust himself, he really does not know what he feels or does not feel anymore. This sometimes leads to anxiety and loneliness that can lead to deep depression.

Emotional ambivalence is not a state that lasts for a long time. At certain times we feel confused by this fusion of emotions, but it is temporary and will not always happen. Unless, as we have already seen, we suffer from some kind of psychological disorder.

And you … are you ambivalent? Do you move between love and hate?