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Abandonment issues
I have noticed I can't maintain relationship with women. This year, I said I wanted to make long lasting relationship but I lost two friends. It hard because for some reasons these girl triggered my inner child. They hurt me but as much as I want to blame them, I see part of this is my doing. I really want great and long lasting relationships but I don't know why I am easily triggered. If someone is blunt with me, I feel that they don't care enough about the way I feel. I often feel left out which makes me feel jealous. So far, I know I have abandonment issues. But how can I begin to heal my inner child. I have been writing about it and talking it out. I am aware of that the neglect I experience growing up has a major part in this. I know it's a process but can you give me practical way to heal theses wounds? I been to therapy for other issues but I am just now realizing this is my main issue. I need some encouragement as well.
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Hi there!
You've already done the hardest part, which is identifying the issue. So give yourself a pat on the back for that. I recommend that now that you have a sense of what your main problem is, you revisit therapy for further healing.
Best,
Nor
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This I have personal experience with and will share thoughts and what i learned. My ex husband had abandonment issues. But he also had mental illness. I am not saying you are like this because of mental illness. I sense you do not have any.
While my ex also had abandonment issues, his stemmed from overhearing a Dr. in the hosp. telling his Dad that his Mom might not pull through and could die. In his child mind, he felt Mom was planning to abandon all of them. Even when she recovered, he still carried that with him. As he grew older and began dating, that issue was still there in his mind, believing now that all females he'd meet, he would eventually lose and become abandoned by them. What i did not know until we went together on friends recommendation to see a therapist, that what he had been doing his entire life, even with me, is that every time a woman fell for him and wanted to stay, his subconscious heard that distorted thought that all women would eventually leave him, so his SM would cause him to treat them in very poorly in an attempt to drive them away so that he could self fulfill his prophesy that all women would leave. I stayed much longer, 30 yrs of marriage and was verbally abused the whole time. His issue was a scenerio made up in his mind, one of mental illness while yours is due to your treatment of neglect and maybe more, as a child. Children come with coping mechanisms to make it thru childhood until they become adults at which time they can get help for themselves. So that is when the majority of buried issues from childhood arise, once we hit adulthood.
However there is distorted thinking going on. Again, I am not pointing fingers at you. You are no different from all humans because a great majority ALL have distorted thoughts at some point through out their life, no matter how good or bad their childhood. It is however fairly infrequent, not occurring on a daily basis like 24/7 or close to it. There are those who have gotten into the habit of doing this all the time. I did not realize until the end of our marriage when an retired counselor friend urged him to go for therapy and insisted he find one trained in CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. It could be your therapist does not use that method or even believe in it. However its been around for decades now. I read some books authored by Dr David D. Burms who also once upon a time in his practice as a psychologist did not believe in it either when colleagues told him about it. In desperation for one of his most unresponsive longest patients, he finally tried this method and she became cured. He tried it again and again and always had great results, seeing depression, anxieties and distorted thinking all go away for almost all his patients. Only a few actually did not respond and required medicine. Medicine masks the issues, doesn't heal them. Once medicine stops, the issues are still there. I sense you also want to be rid of this issue as you can see how it is affecting your life. You are making that connection and understanding it. A mentally ill person would not see the correlation and do everything to take the focus off of them, blaming every one else, saying they are the ones with issues, not their self.
I will share the website of this Dr. for you later.
First, my thoughts on how the inner child fits in here. Remember, these are my own personal thoughts and I am no professional but in life, I have found this to be true for me. I believe our inner child is tied closely to our subconscious mind (SM) as well as all our emotions are tied to our SM. My story: I talked to myself as a kid and I answered myself sometimea. It was as if my question was being answered by another person. It was as if I felt this was part of me but didn't understand my SM's role in my life until much later. However, I did acknowledge at times the existance of this part of me. It wasn't until I met my 2nd husband that he taught me what he'd learned in psychology plus his own studies that things began to make sense. At one point, he told me the name he had for his SM, like a separate person. Then he asked me what the name of my sub was. I had only gotten halfway thru saying "I don't have any clue at all" when an indignant voice rang out so clear in my head I was shocked, "My name is Teresa" (not the real name) Our sub controls things we don't have to think about, like taking our next breath, blinking our eyes but also our emotions. Think of a movie that scared you or made you angry or cry. You know with your logical mind that its just a made up story with actors but our SM feels the emotions just as if it were real. I also learned some things from books he gave me to read, that the SM pays close attention to our thoughts. So if one has distorted thinking and it is centered mostly on thoughts of fear and doom situations, the SM will assume incorrectly, (like a child might) that what takes up most your thoughts is what you want the most, your SM will do everything in its power to talk your awake/logical mind into following through on actions that have a greater chance of making your thoughts come true. It can work for the good or for the bad depending on the thoughts. Like a child, my SM doesn't always have the reasoning and understanding of an adult level, more like a child half the time. I see this as being my inner child and SM all wrapped up in one. I will state that I started as a child having severe social anxiety, maybe why I preferred talking to Teresa rather than others outside my family. But I was cured by asking God (as a teen) to help me and he gave me step by step things I must do to become better. Big surprise later in life, when I came across the book "When Panic Attacks" where he covers 8 different issues. The recipe for overcoming anxiety, was exactly the same thing I heard from God so many decades ago. I was so surprised. No wonder I was cured so easily.
So all I can think is that either your Dr. is not trained in CBT or doesn't beleive in it, or if your Dr. is trained in that, they are not a very good Dr. and You should be seeking out a different therapist. with the right one, you WILL get over these issues in your life. I know it very strongly. Why? Because of the website I will be giving you.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Reading everything you can on that website won't heal you but will give you hope, knowing you can be cured. Checking out his books at your library or if not there, buying them will give you more hope. Please watch the video of how Dr Burns got started, and the tests they did with CBT. Find and read peoples testimonials, some who suffered life long and were finally healed in their 50's wishing they'd heard of this sooner.
God Bless and I hope to hear an update from you one day in the future that you have been healed.
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