Lonesome tonight children?

The emotional development of a child, depends on the emotional bonds built with the parents. To the extent that these exist, then it gives the child a template, upon which other relationships, with friendships and lovers can be built. To the extent that that trusting relationship is displaced with a lack of trust, and a lack of learned ability to show and receive affection, then you are quite incapable of trusting and receiving and showing affection for others. I didn’t behave in a way, which was expectant of affection from others, and I certainly didn’t show any affection, for underlying everything is a feeling that people simply find me disgusting. It wasn’t a consciously thought through process, it was just a state, a predisposition, the result of a process that I had little control over.

One of my favourite songs was New Order’s Lonesome Tonight,….

I walk along the street
I look into your eyes
I’m pleasant when we meet
I’m there when you go home
How many times before
Could you tell I didn’t care?
When you turned your back on me
I knew we’d get nowhere
Do you believe in youth?
The history of all truth
A heart that’s left at home
Becomes a heart of stone

Do you believe in truth?
The lies we told of youth
A cause we call our own
Beside an empty throne
How many times before
Could you tell I didn’t care?
When you reached out in your sleep
And you knew I wasn’t there
My eyes are made of stone
Just like your sordid home
How many times before
Did you leave my soul alone?

To know that having a heart of stone is a common experience gives the smallest sense of hope that it is the result of a process, rather than an essence of being, and a process that can perhaps be worked out of. I recently found this comment about the music of New Order from a man named John Williams:

What I am about to say will shock many – God knows it shocks me… I have been so very depressed – almost to the point of suicidal particularly since the split from a long term partner. ‘Finding’ New Order’s songs again – they have always been my fav band since rising from the ashes of JD – has made me realise that life has to go on. This music lifts me like no other. Perhaps it reminds me of being 20 when life was so good.. It lifts me up. It embraces me. It loves me. It gives me hope.