Abandonment Anxiety: Overcoming Fear of Love

this episode is pre-recorded as part of a live on-demand continuing education webinar CEUs are still available for this presentation by all CEUs feel free to register CEU Communications Counselor Toolkit I would like to welcome everyone Today at the presentation,

love

me, don't let me address the

fear

of

abandonment

. The purpose of this presentation is really to help us help clients increase their awareness of their history, including beliefs about behavioral responses in situations that trigger their

fear

of

abandonment

, so how do we do it right? To discover what fear of abandonment is and how we can identify it in a clinical setting, we will then explore the concept of schemas or core beliefs, and these are things that are formed in early childhood and you already know if The kinds of pre-memory of the What we talk about in early childhood are generally very dichotomous children, young children do not have the ability to look at the gray area, so these schemes as if they go unnoticed, can lead to some very extreme belief patterns that lead us into common traps. to think and react and relationships if your schemes are based on all or nothing, either you

love

me or you are going to leave me, hence the name of the book, then your reactions are more extreme and more all or nothing, which increases

anxiety

, because then a person will always experience some degree of rejection, so we want to talk more towards the middle and help people appreciate and love themselves, while not approving of other people's behavior, but that they can still love others people, just because someone doesn't approve of your behavior doesn't necessarily mean they're going to abandon you, so we'll talk about that and then learn our skills needed to help people accept their behavior. past as part of their history, maybe they have a lot of issues about abandonment and you know some people do that, and it's really painful, it gets to the core, especially if the abandonment issues happen in early childhood when kids do what they do. , and we are going to talk about it and help people learn how to integrate it into their present and we will teach the skills necessary to recognize that their past not being in the present does not have to have a negative effect, so if they abandoned it as Kids, you have to deal with it, but if you continue to expect all the important people in your life to abandon you, I note that I use the word used, because we are still at those extremes, then you are going to let the past negatively affect you in the present. , that is why we will talk about how to moderate belief systems.

Impacting this recovery, whether it is addiction or mental health issues, is a basic human need; In general, we are not destined to be hermits in the middle of the forest; There are introverts and my husband is an introvert, he has very good friends, he needs quiet time every day, he doesn't need to be around people, but he is good, but I mean we are a human band, he is not someone who just goes away , you know, moves to the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, I am an extrovert and tend to have many acquaintances and many friends, and I run out of energy in relationships with others.

For people, just because someone doesn't have 150 acquaintances doesn't necessarily mean they don't need connections, so we want to recognize that connection is a basic human need when babies are born, they sit on their mother's chest when we hold each other, Whether it's mother and child or friends or whatever, a chemical called oxytocin is released and it's our bonding agent, we are programmed, we are wired to connect and oxytocin is a very rewarding chemical, so we want to recognize that if the People are so afraid of abandonment that they push everyone away and how they lose the quality of life of babies and children, their survival depends on the relationship with the primary caregiver, so if the mother or father was not happy when the mother or the parent the young child is not rejected, it was pretty helpless, think of a child growing up in a family plagued by addiction and mental health issues and the primary caregiver(s) are not emotionally available at all, they are physically there but very drugged or depressed or so psychotic that they cannot meet the child's needs, who communicates this to the child, the child feels abandoned, the child feels a sense of abandonment, people's beliefs about other people and relationships are formed in largely based on their interaction with their caregivers, so if this child was mom I'm hungry and nothing happened or worse child was mom I'm scared and nothing happened or they just took a pacifier and said, stay quiet, then they He says he was told that his beliefs, his feelings, his desires and needs were not important, which is why they are rejected.

Healthy relationships act as a buffer against stress, even if they have had all these negative experiences in early childhood, you may know until they walk into your office that it doesn't mean you have to continue and how much they can benefit from relationships. healthy. , with many clients I work with, who have big problems letting go? healthy relationship, so we're going to talk about how you can make it easier, because you're not going to say that your past can't affect your future, and we're going to wave a magic wand and make them willing to trust people even as soon as they trust them. signs that what happened in the past was largely not their fault, or maybe not even their fault, they will still have trouble not accepting responsibility and having everyone leave.

The beliefs of responsibility that have arisen because of these relationships, the previous dysfunctional relationships, which can help people create a new understanding of the events, were that the mother, father or caregiver really rejected you if you were abandoned emotionally and physically because of you or because mom or dad could only do what they needed to be a caregiver at the right time, they did the best they could with the tools they had, but it wasn't enough to cover their needs. Talk about alternative explanations for why the parent's caregivers may have behaved this way if you have a toddler who was already an adult but was adopted by a toddler or abandoned by his or her caregivers, but the toddler was probably very confused. because one the moment their caregiver was there, the next moment they were in the system, so they tried to figure out what they did wrong, why the person doesn't love me anymore, it has to be me because, kid, I really can't see straight. .

If you know that mom can't function as a mother right now or that dad is having problems, we want to help people better understand themselves in their reactions. I know how, you know how good you know, I'll take my ball and go home, no problem, what does that mean? At some point in every relationship, in every healthy relationship, you know, sometimes people have to distance themselves from each other because it's becoming abnormal, but for the most part, people in relationships will find drawbacks, they will find disagreements, but in healthy relationships can solve them in relationships with people who fear abandonment, there will be two extremes, there will be complete compliance and you should please not do it. leave me, or leave me completely, and whatever I care about, the last thing we want to do is make people more aware of what they are doing, so that they can make healthy decisions in their current relationships, so that if they feel the need to comply or disengage, is a healthy normative response in the moment, or whether responding from their past experiences, the experience of abandonment in child survival depends on the caregivers that 'a four-year-old child left alone for five days It's not going to go so well.' Well you know maybe they can get food but if it runs out you know there's only so much a child can do, a baby can't even eat their own food so survival depends on their caregivers and whether their caregivers needs are not met, there are high levels of

anxiety

and I will often refer to caregivers who are emotionally unavailable or emotionally absent, as well as physically unavailable or absent because some parents and I have been the scene of co-occurring disorders. for over two decades and some parents are so overwhelmed and so paralyzed by life itself that they can't do anything else, it's okay to just breathe, but if you have a child and their needs are neglected, is it natural? survival response when their food source disappears what happens starts to panic so it's normal for us to look at this and say it's natural when a child thinks about the first time you take them to preschool or preschool or whatever be and you leave the child even if he is well tied, what do you do?

They cry because they are afraid that mom or dad will not return and they are afraid of this new situation that is changing, children who are well attached will know how to adapt and then be happy to see mom or dad when they return, but the thing is that the initial response that meets biological needs and safety are the most important factors for anxiety at any age, that's why we talk about housing, we talk about safety. , we think of Maslow's hierarchy if someone does not meet the child's needs, or if the person does not meet her needs, she may have high levels of anxiety, and I add to the concept of security not only physical security, but also emotional security. security, people must feel safe in their own heads and must be free from emotional abuse if they focus on survival, people cannot focus on anything else, so if their physical needs are not met, guess what you know if you choose someone who is. who suffers, who is hungry and who is homeless, they are going to work on self-esteem, they are going to work on relational skills, they are focused on survival;

They need to have their basic needs met, they need to have a certain sense of security if they are physically in a dangerous situation; They're not going to focus on how I can improve if they're worried about someone coming in and physically hurting them; It's also hard to focus on how I can improve when everywhere you see someone telling us you're not okay, you're stupid, you're lazy, now you're awake, bad, you were the worst decision I've ever made. in my life made them unable to focus on personal growth when all they get are these verbal hits all the time people need acceptance when they don't have it, similar to the opposite of acceptance is again the abandonment of two types of extremes , we take it back to the middle, every stressful situation now becomes a crisis in a securely attached child.

You can go back to Bowlby's work on security and all that, great reading, but for the short version of this presentation remember that securely attached children feel anxious when their parents leave, but then they can adjust and are happy to leave. seeing parents return in securely attached children, they feel very anxious when their parents leave and are afraid that mom or dad won't come back, and if mom or dad does come back, it's very wet or very rejected. this c Hild who is securely attached, is only one in a hundred who, once something happens, thinks they might be abandoned, you see this pattern again in adults who are still struggling with these abandonment issues, the schema they have formed and I get a little head of mine, the scheme that they form says that if you allow this person to come into your place, or if this person does not agree with you, or if this person criticizes you, they reject you and they will leave, so we want you to know We should take advantage of this knowledge and try to make infancy or early childhood minds a little more useful if the caregivers have been absent for a long time due to their work due to the military if they were in prison if they simply chose to be away or If they have died, the children may now face abandonment issues, if the parents are absent through the fault of one of them, due to work or military service or even prison, and the other parent can help the child work, there is much less drama if you will, In general, there are far fewer problems with abandonment issues, if it is also the father, than salary if it turns out that the father is the one who left.

The person may have some outstanding issues with adult figures in their life that you need to deal with, but you may not know it. I'm not saying that every child of a soldier or service member is going to have issues with abandonment, but that's not true, but if experiences like time apart are not handled in a way that the child feels safe , then it can have consequences that extend to the present if caregivers were constantly or unpredictably present physically or emotionally in early childhood, so think about a parent who has a severe addiction to severe depression or is simply sick. equipped to take care of a child when I worked at the treatment center in Florida, I was 14, 15, 16 years old of young women who came and had babies and you know what a 14 year old girl also gave birth and the rise of a child , so it's not that they don'tnecessarily try, you know, they don't have great role models, they parent in most cases, so they don't have anything to work with, they don't know how to parent, they never learned, so it's not always that I don't Do it.

I don't want to pathologize or make parents look like bad people, because I believe that people do the best they can with the tools they have at a given time. Sometimes it happens that they don't choose the sucking parents, but I really don't think that they anyway choose from my soapbox in a later childhood than the child. They reach secondary primary school age if they fit into a poor family or feel like the black sheep, they simply do not have the same belief that other people think, they do not seem to have the same importance as their family, they may feel unacceptable, especially if the family is not, it is wrong to believe it and that is why it invalidates them again. their psychological safety if they are constantly told that their ideas are stupid, that they are wrong, that they have the wrong point of view, and that they cannot feel very isolated that something could happen to break the relationship with the nurse, whether it be abuse or meet another trauma and the introduction of a new caregiver who is less emotionally or physically safe can also lead to abandonment if the child feels that the biological caregiver has chosen a new spouse instead of him or her, if you know what I mean , because if this new person comes along and is less secure, has been emotionally, physically, and sexually abused in some way, that doesn't matter.

The child will feel like they have no voice, but they will feel like the biological caregiver doesn't care and has brought this other person in in any way that leads to feelings of rejection and abandonment, so what are the fight or flight responses when There is a threat we retreat to fight or flight or freeze but we will talk about it when there is a threat our anxiety increases and we say in the past in these situations: if I fought, I made it, then we fought in the past, and if the answer is no, The answer is quite simple, so anger towards someone who is unavailable when you get angry and feel like somewhere you can't find some kind of acceptance, that may be the predominant reaction. , sadness when someone leaves a feeling of helplessness, this person only makes me feel ashamed or angry because I feel needy or pushes someone away fears related to rejection and isolation, no one will ever love me, loss of control or the unknown, everyone always Leaves as I use these extreme words and anxiety of failure.

I can't maintain a relationship, no one wants to be with me because I'm not good enough, so the questions for clients in these situations, what causes these fears as a child, does someone have these fears about a relationship, start to arise. When the relationship begins to fail, the question is what are you afraid of in this situation if you stay together? What are you afraid of if this person leaves? What are you afraid of and how likely is it that this person will leave based on everything? What's happening now, let's get objective evidence here and another tool you can use is the cognitive processing therapy challenging questions worksheet.

If you google, CPT Challenging Questions Worksheet or Cognitive Processing Therapy really helps people get past logic to walk on some of their knowledge. and identify some who know your inappropriate distortions, and then after you figure out what the fear is, we'll say what caused it as a child in the past when you felt that way, what caused it, and how it was reasonable or helpful, since you know in the past, when you felt that way and you had an angry response, what was the result and how was it helpful in a way that you know? Did you get anyone to pay attention to you? let's console you, then you have identified the function of the current behavior, and then many times we want to say what causes these fears, is it the same sympathy or similar things, but we can say that these reactions are now useless, because as independent, you know, people adults who can take care of ourselves, we can put food on the table, we can go to work, we can function independently, as long as he is a child we would not be able to meet him.

Once again I want to say that we have to live in isolation and say ok I don't need anyone, that's not what I'm saying, it's the overwhelming fear of abandonment that makes people push others away or hold on as if they know everything what clings to uh are. these answers are useful in the present you don't know what else you have to cling to people like there is no tomorrow temperament based on their temperament children need different types and amounts of interaction with the caregiver some children are very open and easily overstimulated , you I know my son was like this when he was born well to this day when he's awake he's like the Energizer bunny on meth.

I'm just going to talk and talk to myself and he needed a lot of structure and would get stimulated easily, but We were able to help him figure out how to deal with it, instead of getting angry at him that he seems to be acting out, we were able to help him channel and figure out that when he needs a break , the introvert may not need as much attention with the caregiver, they need a comforting word here and there, but they may not need the attention that an extrovert does. They tend to need more interaction with parents, family and other people because they draw energy and think while talking and think while talking to other people, so they feel much more isolated when they are isolated, so we want that to be underestimated and temperament of the person and how they may or may not have had their needs met, how they may have been told they were wrong and invalid when they were younger and you can hear that some of these are kind of going into Linda's hands in the DBT environment um, but What we want to see is what you need right now.

How can we create an environment that accepts and welcomes him now based on his needs and the responses of his caregivers? Children form schemas or fundamental beliefs about the world and others, so if they express their opinion and it is dismissed or ridiculed, then they will form it. I think it's never safe to share my opinions because I'm always wrong, now we're talking about kids here but a lot of times think for yourself there, I think most of us have at least all or nothing dichotomous thoughts that come up. They appear from time to time and you know that we can catch them, but if this dichotomy is not controlled, the person begins to feel very lost and very abandoned because it is all or nothing, important points about children under 7 from 8 to 12 children they develop alternative cognitive cognitive skills, they start to think abstractly, they start to see the gray area and alternative explanations, but even You Know during that period, so zero to 12 children struggle to imagine all the possibilities, so everything What happens before, we want to encourage you to look at the schemas formed and challenge you to examine whether they are currently correct and useful.

Kids think dichotomously when they're so young, it's all or nothing, it's good or bad, it's not some kind of thing. , that's what I mean, I even think about remembering the grades that we consider satisfactory or unsatisfactory. When we were in elementary school and I don't remember high school, it was a dichotomous grading scale, you either did it or you didn't have kids. ui no matter what happens says what about me this happened like moms in a bad mood what did I do if you know mom is good that stupid guy was rejected I stupid kids are very self centered so you take everything or nothing combined with everything about me, and You can You see the perfect storm has been created, children can only focus on one aspect at a time when I work with adult clients, and you know they have interacted with their boss, while he was walking down the hall and was in a bad mood, and just I knew he had done something, so we talked about it, and I know how you know he had an angry look on his face.

What else would have happened to them at that moment, and many times we can brainstorm about a call they just received or where they just left a meeting that didn't go so well, or who knows what else in these times . when we have our cell phones and PDAs and everything. There are so many things that can trigger a mood besides who they pass in the hallway, kids can't think about the other things that can cause that mood other than seeing someone unhappy. and it's like I'm sorry. We want to encourage each other as adults, we want to encourage them to say correctly what the other possibilities are, and even as children I try to encourage my children to look for alternative reasons why someone behaves in a certain way that children don't think about. abstractly and consider the possible options, even with children, you know that you can be a grasshopper if you are in a situation and maybe in a store and someone is not being nice to you, then you can talk about it later.

Do it with the kids and tell them you know it was pretty unpleasant, discuss what you think might have caused it, and brainstorm three ideas. My favorite number is three. I don't know why, but think of some ideas for alternative explanations for why the person may have had something unpleasant. If children learn to do this when they are younger it is much easier to change, since adults' schemas are a broad way. of seeing things based on memories, feelings and thoughts, it's basically our idea of ​​how something is going to look like we have schematics especially when you go to church you have a schedule about what's going to happen when you go to your mother's house you have a schedule of how mothers are going to act and what is going to happen we form this is our Instead, if I have to analyze each situation, I say a brain shortcut: I remember I was here before, it would probably be like XYZ, but sometimes things change , and one of the things that we see in addiction is like caregivers who have recovered and can actually make it and start a new way of life and sobriety and all the things that former family members or family members still hope that They have old behaviors, the schema that when Jane comes in, this is what will happen because they remember how she behaved and acted in her addictive self, so we want to help people identify their schemas and check that sometimes they are still accurate, sometimes not so much the schemes that provoke fear of abandonment around the acceptability of the cell.

This person is going to love me, and that's one of the reasons we do a lot of self-confidence to reduce the fear of abandonment, because we want to appeal to people's need for external validation, to want them to say I'm everything. and a bag of chips and I would love to play with you but if you don't want to play it's okay with the ability to love if they are told they don't love if they see that they don't love then they fear isolation in the present. They may fear that they are not loved, so they will try to do everything they can, or they will also build a 5m thick wall around themselves so that no one can harm them.

Think about Erikson, he never thought that some of these theorists from the past would continue to appear even in current practice, but they do so when they were children in that period of industry versus inferiority stages of psychosocial development. Erik Erikson leaves and they feel like a failure all the time. time or they are never good enough parents never recognize their positive achievements so they may question their own competence and feel like a failure and if they feel like a failure they may feel like they may believe that no one wants to be around them so they will leave them, if I fail, they will leave and may focus anxiety around adaptability, some people cannot tolerate any loss of control;

They're just holding on to the relationship with everything that's going on and it's starting to fail, they're going to go crazy, so we want to see what it means when you're not in control, what it means when you trust. that this person will do the next thing if you also do the right thing, as well as the schemes that cause abandonment, fear can also walk in the midst of others if someone is distant, cold, rejects or cannot handle the person's needs. , then the person feels it may not be acceptable. If they are in relationships with people like this, then we have to see if it is you who is not acceptable or if there is something else going on with that person that may cause them to not be able to deal with someone else's things.

Now the person may feel isolated from others. absent when people don't keep their promises; They may feel that no one ever has their ability, if other people are always critical then the person questions their own competence and if others are often unpredictable, when people are anxious about abandonment it comes from situations where other people do not. They were predictable, or if they were, they were unpredictably absent and have a relationship between me and others. I am aware of your ability to relate to others if you are afraid of rejection, if you are afraid that if you start to love, you will be rejected, and then you will be rejected. be isolated forever if you are afraid of the unknown and just want to be consistent more than anything and once consistency starts to faila little because as we grow things change and people with problems don't like things to change, not because they don't. predictable and it's not consistent, so it can be difficult if a person starts changing what they're doing, I see that a lot, I'm not saying it's necessarily a matter of abandonment, but if the authorities intervene, you know, because they can retire after 20 years to be able to start a new career and that can cause a lot of schedule changes, they are no longer law enforcement and the spouse sometimes has a cult adaptation just like the retired officer, but controllability if the person holds on to relationships and everything in their lives with white knuckles because they are so afraid that if they let go of control they will disappear or disintegrate, and if something seems like it is not under their control, it will be a catastrophe, such attachmentStyles ensures that if there is a caretaker Emotionally available, the child will seek comfort from the caregiver and guess who will be there, and most of the time he will satisfy the need for comfort with the right kind of comfort, so he is afraid of cold and hunger.

The child's discomfort continues when the caregiver leaves, especially in new home situations, but the child gets over it, he is not a child who sits there and cries for eight hours, and then the child is happy when the caregiver returns in With this type of attachment, the child learns to trust others, respond to their needs and affirm them. A child must learn to be independent and try new things, but if he fails, he knows that he can come home, he can go out and do well. that wasn't that polite and the caregiver will be there to say, "Okay, let's see what to do next," but you don't learn to adapt to different situations because if you're faced with something that's a little scary, the caregivers They train them.

And do you have this? It's scary. I have it, but you can do it. The child learns to deal with stress because the caregivers are there to train it or process it later with them because the caregiver is not always physically there, but if you have children. You know, sometimes they come home from school, and they have had a very bad day, and you take them aside and you know what is happening, let's talk about it, so that this way the child learns to deal with stress. and the child learns to have accurate expectations of others in the situation of secure attachment and emotionally available.

Remember that children are self-centered, so if mom is upset, the child says: What did I do? o My God, I hope mom doesn't leave in a safe situation. Sometimes the parent has to say something like mom had a really bad day at work today nothing to do with you I need to take a time out that helps the child understand that you know what it's not just about me and I can understand that a Sometimes moms get upset about something Besides me, I can understand that if mom said that it doesn't mean she's going to leave, obviously this is the ideal situation.

Avoidant attachment styles. The rejecting or harsh caregiver. The person depends less on the caregiver for his safety because every time they say. mom mom I had a nightmare can I go to bed with you? they find themselves returning to your own bed and the caregiver turns away is not oh, I'm sorry you had a nightmare, let me walk you back to your room when the child is separated from the caregiver there is little response when the caregiver leaves or returns because children like what that person wears for me the child learns not to depend on a caregiver for comfort, connection or security now imagine a four year old or a six year old who thinks I can't count on my caretakers for your comfort, connection or safety, that must be a scary place to be and I can see why you would develop some pretty strong defense mechanisms, the ambivalent relationship with the cave keeper is inconsistent or can bow, can't speak, the caregiver is inconsistent or chaotic, this is actually true in many homes where there is at least one parent who is struggling with some type of addiction or mental health issue, so the parent may or may not be available, you don't know What the good days will be, you don't know what the bad days will be, so the child may be anxious and afraid to try new things or explore because things seem to be going well right now.

I don't want to get to the top it will be an applecart, it will just sit here and take it, a child may be clinging and demanding trying to provoke a response, remembering that negative attention is better than no attention and the child gets upset when the caretaker leaves but also inconsolable when the caregiver returns because you know he was upset he was afraid you left but you came back and that's good but I don't know when you're going to leave again and if you're going to come back So, it's this constant anxiety about abandonment, fundamental beliefs about abandonment that all people leave, so we want to challenge that by identifying exceptions, mistrust, people will hurt, reject, take advantage of me or simply not be there when I need them.

You know, that's true sometimes because people have their own thing, so when this happens, let's see if it's happening all the time and/or also see what else could be going on with that person that caused you to hurt them, reject them , take advantage or not be there when you need it, emotional deprivation. I never get the love I need. No one understands me, cares about me, or even tries to meet my needs. How dramatic and extreme that is. One of the things we can do as doctors is tell if you are getting the love you need.

Would you see what would be different? What do you need and you don't get it? Because once we identify it, we can create a plan to get it, but many times other people don't understand it or can't. to interpret what you need, so let's help, let's try to figure out how to make this happen, no one understands me, okay, let's talk about why that might be and you know, let's look at some people who have sometimes managed to understand customers with abandonment. Beliefs that no one understands me translate into me not giving a friend a chance and cutting them off as soon as they get confused and because they associate confusion with rejection, so we could talk about communication skills, we could work on what people don't do.

I don't understand how to communicate it better and where to find people who have similar interests. No one even tries to meet my needs. You know, here I would really look for exceptions, but I would also challenge the person and say: when are they found? your needs, what do you do to take care of yourself? Because many times clients with abandonment beliefs are so scared and afraid of being abandoned that they do not take care of themselves or simply live and become paralyzed by going back to fighting, fleeing or freezing, they are living in a state of paralysis.

I want to be loved, but if I love, I will get hurt and I don't know what to do, they don't even love themselves, so we want to start talking about it. If you had your best friend, you know, create this best friend persona, what would he say to you? What would he or she do right now? Let's try to help you understand yourself. Mindfulness exercises are really good here because a lot of times these clients don't understand themselves, they have so much anxiety, they have so much fear, and they don't know where it's coming from because a lot of it has been going on for so long.

Defectivity, if people knew me, they would reject me, don't you know? Everyone is going to like you. Why do you need everyone to like you? Why is it important for everyone to like you? You haven't failed, you haven't tried and we talked about what it means to step out of your comfort zone and you're not going to be perfect at everything, you're not going to be Michael Phelps, you're not going to be the president of the United States, that's not it. It means you're a failure, that definitely doesn't mean you're a failure, so what are you good at, what are you able to do, and what have you been successful at?

Go back and review things like you're graduating. in high school not everyone does that, you know, you raised a family, not everyone does that, so we want to challenge the all-or-nothing languages, we want to look for exceptions, and we want to look for ways you can give yourself validation. you don't fear abandonment you don't need other people to tell you that you're fine because guess what you're saying to yourself I'm fine and before I continue with useless reactions I want to point out that if you tell people to tell themselves: you know what I'm fine, that sounds great, but if you don't believe it, if it's not backed by evidence, it's actually probably going to slow your growth because you're sitting there saying to yourself, I'm fine, and in the back of your head it's like, you know you don't, so we need to quiet that inner critical voice by giving the person objective evidence of why it's okay, why it's good enough and that's a slow process.

The process won't happen overnight, but it encourages people to figure out why they believe what they believe and then you can work from there, okay, unhelpful reactions, fight with someone, you don't want to leave me, because then the person can engage in a kind of dominant attitude. posture behavior aggression hostility blaming and criticizing trying to tear the other person down to say you know what I don't care and you should be grateful that I'm in your life recognition seeking to get attention validation or approval so that if they feel something is going wrong in a relationship they may start trying to do something to get recognition and prove that they are worthy of a relationship for what they do versus who they are manipulation and exploitation said lying justifying I did this because you made me so sometimes everyone from time to time do things who are not the nicest people who fear abandonment have a hard time saying you know where I was wrong and are more likely to go you made me do it I wouldn't have done it if you had X Y & Z people again who are worried that If a relationship is going to fall apart, they may also make excuses for other people's inappropriate behavior.

It's like you know I really hate what this person does, but if I don't make excuses for it, if I condemn it, then this person is going to go to counseling. We can talk about the difference between loving a person and loving a person's behavior. You know I love my kids to death, there's no doubt about that, but some of their behavior makes me want to climb a wall. It's very clear to me. separate with them the difference between behavior that I don't like and them because they know, like I said, I love them to pieces and we want to help people start making this differentiation if they don't already and holding on and chasing is the other fight. stalking reaction messaging someone 47 times on Facebook in an hour all these types of behaviors and even online harassment those types of things can be fight reactions in response to feeling like there is a threat of abandonment running away is more like I don't care if you leave for the person to withdraw physically and emotionally and maybe even numb themselves with some kind of addictive behavior or get distracted by something completely different or find a new person just proof that you know what I didn't need you because I have this new person now questions for clients about core beliefs, all people leave, okay, so what does it look like if someone is available to you, if they don't leave you, who in your past left you or was emotionally unavailable?

Now I find a lot of these It's helpful for mental health and addictions clients to ask them to write an autobiography because then we can go back and review it and identify the key people at certain stages of a person's life. What did the person who dumped you do to make you feel rejected? rejected or abandoned in retrospect, you know it was hard to see the difference from what was going on back then because you were a child in hindsight, what are the alternative explanations for why this might have happened? Was it really you or was it more about them? your past has been available to you emotionally most of the time people can point to one or two people who have usually been there, it's not reasonable to expect someone to always be there who in your present is available to you emotionally, you know, maybe may have only been available to you.

They've been in your life for six months or a year but they're available and I say emotionally because you know not everyone can be physically available all the time, we have jobs, kids, all that kind of stuff, but can you pick up the phone and call ? or text them and say, "Hey, you know what I'm really struggling with right now." What do you do in your current relationships that makes people leave? Do you push them away? Yes that's how it is. What are the alternatives to alienate them and cut all ties? I'm just saying, okay, be like this, I clean your hands if you cling, how do you do this, in what way do you perceive yourself as clinging and what are some alternatives to clinging with all desperation, mistrust, people will hurt you, reject you or they will take advantage of me or just not be there when I need them so again what does it look like when someone is or how does it feel when someone is trustworthy and secure who in your past was untrustworthy or insecure what ago, were you taught this and what are they? alternative explanationswho in your past has been trustworthy and secure who in your present is available and trustworthy what are you doing to yourself that is insecure or dishonest that's one of those tough questions are you out there talking about other people other people other people so it's For example, what do you do to yourself?

How do you lie to yourself? or how are you mean and hateful to yourself? How does your distrust of others or even yourself affect your current relationships? Some people distrust their own inner intuition so much that they don't do it. I don't want to make friends with other people, they're like I can't tell who is going to hurt me and who isn't, so yeah, I'm going to clean my hands of everything. What could you do differently? What do you think? what you could do to start building trust and what it looks like to build trust because trust doesn't just appear, it builds gradually emotional deaths deprivation I don't get the love I need, no one understands me so again what does it look like? like when someone understands you and meets your needs but in the past they couldn't meet your emotional needs and how can you deal with it now that you know it could have been mom. have you been an ex husband it could have been you know who knows how you can deal with it now yourself so you can let him rest who in your past understood you who in your present understands you how can you start again to understand yourself better because it is difficult for other people to understand us when we don't even understand ourselves and what can you do to start satisfying your needs?

One of the things to start meeting your own needs is to figure out what your needs are and this. is one of the exercises that I have people do as homework, they keep a record of what they want daily keep a record and then let's talk about the common themes that they were seeing, if people knew me, they would reject me, okay, then how ? Do you know when you are accepted or acceptable to someone who, when you passed, can make you feel defective? Are there alternative explanations and how can you silence those old tapes because that person who says that statement is left as an interlocutor in the gallery that we need?

To silence the heckler, what can you do? Part of this might be responding and saying, you know what I'm not going to hear or I don't have time for this right now. Who has been accepting and supporting? Who is in your life that is accepting? and caring, and how can you begin to accept yourself and be compassionate? So some mindfulness training with a focus on compassion works to help people understand themselves and start to be compassionate towards themselves, understand their vulnerabilities and be more flexible. I'm not up to it, I can't. to be successful, okay, that's a big success, you know what a success means, success means different things to different people, so how about being successful?

Let's clarify it. What is it if you succeed? What would be different? What in your past has made you feel like a failure? What are some alternative ways of looking at it, like a learning experience or something I had to go through to grow or you know, brainstorm alternative explanations for why people fail? They don't have an answer. To this, sometimes I ask them to take a reverse role and say that they pretend to be parents and his son comes home and tried out for the soccer team and he didn't make the team, he failed, what are you doing? ?

We're going to talk about what you've been successful at in the past, what you're good at now, and we really want to pay attention to minimization here because a lot of our clients are not good at identifying their strengths, what it means to be successful in terms of your relationship. With others, do you have to be successful to be loved and have a good relationship? You know, obviously, you will be successful in a relationship if you are, but do you have to be financially successful? powerful everything Regardless of what you define as success in having healthy relationships, who are three successful people you know and what makes them successful in your eyes, does success equal happiness?

You can make a whole group about that and what your kids need to do to be successful. in life you know we want our children to be successful we want our children to be happy so what do I imagine my son's life will be like in 10 to 15 years triggering relationships the abandoner is unpredictable, unstable and is not available abusive relationship is not trustworthy or safe? the dispossessed misses the relationship of deprivation the person is distant or repressed the Devastator is always critical, rejects and criticizes and the critic is critical and narcissistic generally many times people repeat their past to try to do it right the second time, so We want to see if you have a habit of entering into relationships with people who are not safe.

We can also ask them how they exhibit these behaviors, how these behaviors present their current relationships, and how they were present and their relationships with their primary caregiver. the behavior triggers abandonment and distrust if someone starts acting different they change their behavior in some way a person who fears abandonment says oh that's not good if they don't receive constant reassurance that's external validation that can trigger abandonment fears so again we want to work on internal validation and why you feel you need constant reassurance. The other person's relationships feel threatening, so work relationships, that kind of thing, the person who has abandonment issues won't want their partner to be around other people and becomes hypervigilant.

Rejection and disconnection, even if it's just someone saying I had a really bad day. I need 20 minutes to enter the room and close the door. The person with abandonment issues will likely have a high level of anxiety, so we want to ask how these behaviors have manifested. threatened them in the past what are the alternative explanations for why this is happening to this person right now and what would be a useful reaction to these behaviors now for this to be happening what would be a useful reaction instead of assuming that heaven Defectivity and failure are going to fall, so if someone is critical, if you have an unexplained time apart, there is absent or inconsistent security, or if the person tells you that you are a failure, these or fail at something, all of these They could be behavioral triggers, they could be like I failed at something.

It does not comfort me that these relationships are coming to an end. Questions about how this threatened you in the past. Alternative explanations and what would be a useful reaction to this particular situation at this time. Viewing activity. What does a healthy relationship look like? Presence versus abandonment Acceptance versus rejection. emotional support vs emotional unavailability trustworthy vs unreliable and safe vs harmful these are extremes what does a middle ground look like? there will be exceptions you know things are going to happen so what does a healthy relationship look like and how do you deal with exceptions if someone is not always there, how can you create this relationship with yourself, that's the most important one, and then, How can you create this relationship with others?

Mindfulness questions, what am I feeling, what is triggering it, am I safe right now?, and if not, what do I do? What I have to do is bring up something from the past. If so, how is this different? How am I different from when I was six or four years old? How can I silence my inner critic? and finally, what would be a useful reaction that would move me? more towards my goals and towards a positive emotional experience summarize core beliefs about oneself and others are formed in the first years of life due to children's lack of knowledge other experiences and primitive cognitive abilities these core beliefs are often very Dichotomous core beliefs can be formed around events or experiences outside of conscious memory.

Identifying and being aware of triggers for abandonment in the present can help people choose alternative, more helpful ways of responding in the present safely, beloved and beloved, don't leave me, these are two really excellent books, there are Google previews. If you want to check them out to see if it's something you like, but they take what we talked about in this presentation and expand on it much further. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe in your podcast player or on YouTube, you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing to all CEU Communications Slash Counselor Toolkits.

This episode has been brought to you in part by all CEU communications providing 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training for counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006 use the coupon code in the box from Consular Tools to get 20% off your order this month.