First-Born Daughters

First-born daughters are their own source of self-undoing in love. Yet, they are often deeply pure and sincere in their affections because they have always been of service to others and feel profoundly responsible for how others feel - above their own emotions and personal desires. So much so that they hold an ingrained belief that they must earn the right to be blessed with true love - or that they do not entirely deserve it. They often have trouble receiving love and truly letting go to allow themselves to express love with utter reckless abandon - because love feels so good, too good - and things that feel good, which belong to them alone, feel selfish. They feel most at home by being needed - motivated to achieve so that they can give more, not understanding that to give in a sustainable manner means giving from an overflowing cup.

First-born daughters were raised to suppress their own identity, with expectations and responsibilities projected onto them - the love they have always known is conditional. To hold it together, they must put others before themselves - this, they are taught, makes them worthy of love. Many are highly sensitive and emotional - skilled at perceiving their parents' expectations due to survival and masters at noticing their siblings' silent struggles, ensuring their siblings never have to walk alone. Yet, these first-born daughters traverse the graveyard of their own lost dreams with quiet resignation, often carrying their own pains silently because others always come first. They do not want to burden those they love with their own issues because they know the pain of others so intimately. So even as gentle souls, they learn to push through their tears, rising again and again - even when their hearts ache with a howl so ferocious it would tear apart the moon. They push themselves forward, completely self-propelled. The armour of perfection becomes all they know, for that is when they feel they truly deserve love.

This aspect is even more dire for first-born daughters of ethnic families. They are responsible for and embody the totality of their siblings' actions. If their siblings misbehave, it is their fault for not guiding them and for not putting their younger siblings' well-being above their own. It is drilled into them that their life is one where they must always lead by example with utter excellence and perfection - and where necessary, guide their siblings with a firm hand. They become the hypercritical judge and jury of themselves. With this, an all-or-nothing approach emerges, tearing through external achievements with a tenacious hunger - all in an effort to feed their inner self-worth. So they push their sensitive natures and creative dreams down, where maladaptive daydreaming becomes a salvation and indulgence during the hushed hours of the evening - longing to be saved, perhaps from themselves.

Yet, to cope with their sensitive natures, they have no choice but to master functional detachment for survival - switching off the part of them that inhibits them from achieving perfection externally. Not because it isn't there, but because that part of them is so protected - habitually trained to be pushed down - that it exists in an ivory tower, with no long hair to throw down for their saviour to climb up - this part of them, unlike others, becomes their shadow self. A first-born daughter's shadow self is a Rapunzel waiting for their prince to fight off their dragon - which is also their perfectionist self - so that they can immerse in their emotions.

The most beautiful aspect is that they rarely resent their family for putting them in this position - for they understand that every family needs spiritual glue. They believe true love is one of self-sacrifice, reinforcing their complete lack of boundaries, with self-love perceived as selfish. However, this complete lack of boundaries presents an issue when dealing with others in romantic attachments - causing co-dependency, a lack of self-actualisation, suppressed authenticity, and anxiety.

First-born daughters are exceptionally discerning in love - they rarely open up without feeling safe. But once they do attach, the floodgates open - and they almost do not know what to do with the tsunami that comes through. Thus, romantic attachments are their place of utmost vulnerability because their emotional selves are almost like a spiritual infant that cannot distinguish their own needs. They melt into others, unsure of which emotions are their own or those of another. Mirroring is common, so much so that they lose themselves, drowning in unfamiliar emotional waters, forgetting who they really are - or perhaps realising they never knew who they truly are at all. It is through love that they learn they do not know the difference between compromise and complete surrender, often giving of themselves to the point where retrospective resentment hits suddenly, blindsiding them - because they never questioned what they so desired - thus, that which they suppressed rears its head violently and instantaneously - at the worst of times.

Love unravels them because love, in all its glory, is perfectly imperfect and messy - and challenges the long-held perfectionist paradigm within themselves. The awareness of such undoing is terrifying - the quiet nagging of their lack of worth for such divine love haunts them subconsciously. For as much as they long to see and be seen, they are terrified of being seen for all the parts of them that are imperfect - and seemingly perceived to be unredeemable. A part of this is also because they have never been truly seen - not by their family, nor have they permitted themselves to do so. Their first love is often an identity awakening. For once, a person they love sees them as they are and acknowledges the version of them that longs to exist externally. What is brought to light is their inability to see all that they are.

Through this experience, they often slowly recognise their discomfort with expressing their gentle love - often cringing at the loving words they wish to shower upon the man in their lives. Because they are drowning in pent-up emotional intensity, they are terrified that they will scare their love off. So many things are left unsaid, words held back, because their voice - their true voice - was never permitted, as though it never mattered.

There is an overwhelming desire to be perfect for the man they love, as perfection is the purest form of self-offering they have known - almost becoming a presence unto itself. Perfectionism, while beneficial for achieving excellence in external fields, is highly corrosive in love. They see love itself as something they must be perfect for - believing that if they are not, they will disappoint the man they love. When loved well, they feel extremely safe and both relaxed yet equally on edge, because they feel that if they relax too much, their human imperfections will slip through. The narrative, long since ingrained, is that imperfections result in disappointment from others. Thus, these first-born daughters are almost immobilised by their own fear - the fear of disappointing the man they adore, of disappointing him with their amplified imperfections because of love. The thought of hurting the man they love also hurts them - pain is an emotion all too familiar to them, one they have internalised. There is a deep self-sacrificial desire to protect him from what they perceive to be a greater pain. And so, many make the executive decision to leave, as an act of love - often abruptly. Because they know if they don't leave suddenly, they may never leave. Also, by doing so, they control the narrative, because they feel completely out of control emotionally.

The degree of tragedy and torment they wrestle with is almost pleasurable because it reinforces that their self-sacrifice makes their love for the person more real - for the love they have known has never been easy. They suppress their ferocious emotions, often silently spiralling out. Yet, over time, their suppression becomes a cauterised wound, something they gaslight themselves into believing is somewhat healed - when it is torn apart hourly by their desire to love. The unsettling truth is that some have mastered suppression to something akin to a light switch, where there is an ability to completely block out, detach, and depersonalise - so much so that memories and emotions can be numbed out in real time. But in hindsight, they question if they have become monsters for being able to do so - heartbroken at what they have become, experiencing immense guilt for the pain they have caused - creating a self-destructive cycle.

There is a melancholic tragedy to it all - for they have the capacity to love others' imperfections, yet deprive others of the opportunity to love them in the same way. But for many, such is a rite of passage - to endure loss and suffering to realise their identity is not just that of a first-born daughter. And thus begins their long arduous journey of integration.