Attachment Problems or Problematic Relationship?

Hi friends! I hope you are doing well. I'm back with an interesting topic that has come up multiple times in my career as a therapist: abandonment and the fear of it.

What is the fear of abandonment, you ask? It is a feeling of insecurity in a relationship, where negative thoughts contribute to a person's anxiety regarding the 'steadiness' of their current partnership or friendship. It is often irrational and does not respond well to logic. It can feel overwhelming, and frightening. It can make you feel like you're going 'crazy' if your partner or friend doesn't text back in a timely manner, gets upset with you, or forgets an important date. You might find yourself constantly scanning for signs that impending doom is on the horizon.

Fear of abandonment usually originates in childhood. John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, mused that children come into this world pre-programmed to form attachments (both physical and emotional) to their caregivers in order to increase their chances of surviving to adulthood. These bonds we form with our caregivers can effect how we relate to our intimate relationships presently. A fear of being abandoned is developed when our caregiver was inconsistent in responding to our cues and needs as infants and young children. For example, an inconsistent response might look like responding to a baby's cry the first three times, and then ignoring their cry and looking at one's phone the next two times. The baby doesn't know what to expect from their caregiver so often they will escalate their behaviors in order to get their need for attention met. I use the word 'need' there on purpose. Babies who do not get this need met suffer from smaller brain sizes and less neural connections, as seen here in this research study where they compared children from healthy homes and children from homes or orphanages with severe emotional/physical neglect.

Here's the thing though: adults need attention from our personal relationships, too. We don't function well when the lines in our relationships are blurry or otherwise unclear. This seems to show up a lot in my sessions with clients, where they will tell me they have a fear of abandonment, which may very well be true, but then they tell me all about their partner or friend who, either consciously or subconsciously, triggers this fear with their actions (or lack of action). So, today, I thought we could do a quick exercise to help us distinguish between a fear of abandonment or... actually being abandoned by people who claim to love us.

There's a few questions to ask ourselves to determine if our reaction is past-based (thus not really our partner's fault) or present-based (and possibly be because of our partner's behaviors).

1. What are my requirements in a relationship to feel safe?

2. Have I communicated these requirements to my partner?

3. Is my partner willing to abide by these requirements or are they unable to do so?

In using these questions, you can then begin to determine for yourself what you need to feel supported by a romantic partner. I tell people that attachment requirements need to be specific, and attainable by both parties, and they must be agreed upon by everyone in the relationship.

Examples of safety protocols might be wanting a phone call from your partner before they head home from work, sharing passwords (if in a long term committed relationship), spending time together before bed, etc. These have to be determined by each individual, so they are typically very personalized. The important thing to remember is this: 'Is my partner capable and willing to do these things? Are they doing things that actively work against my emotional safety?'

Only you can know in your heart if the person you are with is able to help you manage your wounded attachment style gracefully. And the person you will always be in relationship with is yourself. If you are operating from a place of meeting your emotional needs, and are curious, open-minded, courageous and creative, then you already know the right answer for you. Don't convince yourself that it's always 'you' that is the faulty one.

Take exquisite care of yourself,

Make it Make Sense: 3 Lessons We Gain from Trauma

Hi friends!

I hope you are taking good care of yourself in this spring season of weddings and graduations and Mother's Day and the school year winding down, etc. I know that for me, this year especially, I have noticed the graduation and holidays hitting harder than normal. I'm not entirely sure why, and I want to normalize that for you as well. Sometimes, seasons just strike us differently from year to year, and even therapists don't always know why this is.

I digress.

Anyways, I was having a conversation with a colleague today, and we were talking about... trauma, particularly childhood trauma from parents or caregivers. My colleague was discussing something that their mother had done to them in childhood that clearly demonstrated the lack of attachment/caring their parent received as a child. And I responded saying, "Well, that makes sense, and it still doesn't make it okay." Thus, the idea for this post was born. If you are working through trauma, especially from childhood or close personal relationships, at some point in your healing journey, you will recognize three things:

"It's not my fault."

Before healing, we often take on the responsibility of other people's behavior when it really has very little to do with us. We may find ourselves making excuses for a parent or caregiver who just couldn't or wouldn't show up in the ways we needed them to. Telling our small hurting child selves inside, 'Mom hit me because I was a hard child.' Or 'Grandpa sexually abused me because I never said no when it happened the first time." Part of working through trauma is releasing our child selves from the responsibility or guilt associated with someone else's decisions, actions or neglect.

"This wasn't normal or okay."

A pattern I've noticed over years of doing trauma therapy is that people often will tell me things about their childhood or in their relationships that would make a 'normal' person just drop their jaw in horror. And clients will be totally unaware initially how concerning the story they are telling me is. The moment we start to make some headway is when I can say to them gently, "You know, the feeling of discomfort or fear or unease you experienced is because what happened to you wasn't normal, and it wasn't okay." The relief people feel when they understand that their bodies and minds were reacting very normally to abnormal circumstances is a game changer for most.

"And now that I know more, what happened to me does make some sense. However, just because I can understand the context of someone's past wounded behavior, still doesn't make their actions justifiable or okay."

Whew. This one is the hardest for people, and it's because it requires us to move from a cognitive understanding of trauma and why it occurred into a soul-level understanding.

What do I mean by that? Soul level means you're able to see things for what they were, and your view of yourself no longer is held to the standard of your biggest wounds. Soul-level understanding often equates to forgiveness of the people who have hurt us, but not giving them increased access to our lives, our families, our careers, etc. You can love someone who hurts you, but with deep healing, you choose to love them from afar and with appropriate boundaries. When you've done the healing work, you can recognize that all people hurt people, and your view of the aggressors in your life might be more compassionate than before. And yet, you won't give them more room to wreak havoc or cause pain. That's change on a cellular/soul level. That's change that is generational and lasting. That is the healing we therapists hope for, for all of our clients.

Let me know if you are interested in partnering together to learn how these three lessons from trauma can apply to your life in particular. Know that I am rooting for you and your success.

Take exquisite care of yourself,

Hurry Up and Wait

Hi friends! I hope your healing journey is going well. My mental wellbeing always tends to thrive in the Spring and Summertime, with the warm sunlight and the increase in daytime hours in the evening. I know this isn't true for everybody, and if that isn't true for you, know that I am thinking of you and hope your healing comes to you quickly.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

This brings us to the topic of today's blog: waiting. My husband and I are selling our house (we moved a few months back to a new home that better fits our needs as a family). If you want to learn a valuable lesson about waiting, then there is no better process than selling a home (or being pregnant, or getting a degree, writing a book, etc.). We originally listed our house and got a buyer, but that fell through, due to some really hard circumstances for the buyer. So we relisted, and we waited. And the waiting wasn't even that long (we are now under contract again, and back to the waiting). It was the anxiety I felt in the waiting that was so difficult. I struggled with the unknown and sitting with the discomfort of not knowing, of not being certain, was really hard. And I sense that is hard for many of us. Human beings like certainty and they like speed, and unfortunately life doesn't always work like that.

Many years ago, I had a cascade of anxiety symptoms. I'm talking like I was crying daily, couldn't function, had panic attacks, felt totally miserable, and when I went to get help, my sweet therapist at the time said, "Anxiety is all about not being comfortable with waiting and being uncomfortable in that." So I learned how to wait well, and eventually my anxiety became manageable again. Waiting well means giving yourself the ability to cede control to only those things you can control. It means exercising, and breathing, and sitting solidly in your ability to manage, even when things feel unmanageable. It means staying busy and making your corner of the world good, even when things are really hard. Waiting well means feeling the fear and doing it anyways.

Here are some tips for everyone in a waiting process, whether that be selling a home, trying to conceive a child, getting married, getting divorced, wondering about recent test results, etc.

1. Distract. Focusing on the silence and unknown can lead to some panicky thoughts.

2. De-fang your negative thoughts by asking yourself this: "Will this problem matter in five years time? Will I be in a different or better place then?"

3. Remind yourself of the 'burnt toast' theory. Sometimes, when you are stuck waiting, the universe or God or your higher power is protecting you from another outcome. The time you spend waiting on a new piece of toast could have protected you from a car accident, a terrorist attack, a bad relationship, etc. Waiting can be a good thing. Things fall apart, so better things can come together.

4. Determine that you will be okay, no matter the outcome. We don't control much in this lifetime, and learning to be okay with what you do have control over will relieve you of much stress and tension.

5. Give yourself a select amount of worrying time. Truly. Set a timer and have a worry time each day, and when the worries come up any other time, remind yourself that you can worry during your worrying time.

6. Find ways to activate your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) that work for you. Meditation is great, but it isn't for everybody. The PNS responds well to humming, chanting, singing, swaying, listening to music, gentle movement, being in water (like a bath) or deep breathing.

Know that I am rooting for you. I hope you find this blog interesting and helpful for you and your journey.