Conquering Abandonment Fears: Expert Tips

Foreign like to welcome everybody to this presentation of Love Me, Don't Leave Me Addressing fears of abandonment. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes, and this is based in part on the book Guess what? Love Me, Don't Leave Me by Michelle Skeen. In this presentation, we're going to help clients increase awareness of their story, including beliefs about and behavioral reactions to situations that that trigger their fears of abandonment. We develop schema and our prior experiences help us anticipate what may be happening right now, what may be happening in the future. And our schema what happened in the past may be similar to what's happening in the present, but not the same. So our expectations may not be exactly accurate and we'll talk about how to handle that. We're going to learn about fear of abandonment, explore the concept of schemas and core beliefs, examine common traps in thinking, reacting, and relationships, and learn necessary skills to help people accept their past as part of their story. It's a chapter, it's been written. You can't unwrite it. So what happens in this character arc now and help people acknowledge that their past does not have to continue to negatively impact them in the present. Connection is a basic human need. We have a hormone for that, that's oxytocin. We are designed as living organisms, as humans, to be connected in some way. As infants and children, our survival was dependent on the relationship with a primary caregiver. Whoever it was that was supposed to swaddle us when we were scared, change our diapies, give us food when we were hung hungry, keep us clothed and, and warm. We couldn't do that on our own. We couldn't even get out of our own crib. So we were dependent on that particular human being or human beings. But generally, there's one person that takes on a primary role. People's beliefs about the about other people in relationships was formed largely based on their interactions with their caregivers. It's what some people call their love map. But if you learn to expect people to be inconsistent when you were an infant, when you were a toddler, then you're probably going to see how they're being inconsistent, and you're going to notice those characteristics in people more as you grow up. Healthy relationships serve as a buffer against stress. They help you feel safe and empowered. Addressing beliefs that formed as the result of these relationships will help people create a new understanding of the events. Was that person rejecting you because you were unlovable? Or was that person rejecting you because they didn't have the skills and tools to know how to love another person because they didn't love themselves, because fill in the blank. There's a lot of reasons we don't know. I can't answer that question for any person. We want to help people better understand themselves and their reactions. Why do I keep pining over this person even though I know that they're bad for me? Why do I freak out every time this happens and expect that I'm going to be abandoned? We're going to talk about why that might be and we want to help people make more conscious, healthy decisions in their current relationships in childhood. As I said, survival depends on your caregivers. And fear of abandonment is a natural survival response. Meeting biological needs and safety are key triggers for anxiety at any age. And when you go back and look at Maslow's hierarchy, what are the bottom two levels? Biological needs and safety. If we don't have those needs met, we're not going to care a whole lot about forming nurturing relationships and self esteem. When people are focused on survival, they cannot focus elsewhere or effectively learn new skills to cope. So if you have this child that is constantly in fight or flight, they are unable to, to access or effectively access that prefrontal cortex, the executive functioning, where they would be able to learn these new skills. So you have this child that is growing up chronologically, but they're not developing the skills that their peers might be and they're not seeing things the way their peers might because they're constantly in, in fight, orf, flight. And that leaves them in a deficit position. It also leaves them feeling unsafe and powerless. If they're freaked out all the time and they can't figure out how to feel safe and empowered, they aren't able to learn the skills to feel safe and empowered. They're going to continue to feel unsafe and disempowered. So they're just like, you know, little stress balls. As such, every stressful situation becomes a crisis in the insecurely attached child and ultimately in the insecurely attached adult. They are already stressed out. They're, they already have their pressure cooker to the max and anything else that comes their way is just overwhelming. Or anything that triggers prior stressful experiences, prior abandonment experiences, just amps up the volume or the, the heat on that pressure cooker. The abandonment experience is really characterized by what we now talk about as adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. If the caregiver is neglectful, abusive or rejecting, then the child is going to feel insecure, the child is going to feel abandoned. If the caregiver is away for long periods. Maybe it's because of work or they're in the military or, you know, I'm not saying that those people can't have healthy relationships, but the child needs to understand and ideally needs to have some sort of connection with that caregiver even though they are far away. Even if it's just notes that and, and cards that that parent left for the child. Jail. Some people end up going to jail and the child doesn't understand where the caregiver went. It's just like, mom left me or dad left me. They may be away for long periods by choice. They just walk out and to go to the store one day and never come back or they die. And it happens. But this is a traumatic experience for children. If their primary caregiver suddenly disappears, it's just like, oh my gosh, what happened? I can't trust anybody to stay around if this person's going to leave. The person or caregiver who's inconsistently or unpredictably physically or emotionally present, and this is the result in most cases of the caregiver either struggling with mental illness or addiction or someone else in that nuclear family suffering from mental illness or addiction. So the caregiver is completely distracted or completely drained or unable to, to consistently and predictably meet that child's needs and be present for them because of their own stuff. And sometimes the caregiver just doesn't know how to be present because nobody was ever present for them. So they're ill equipped to deal with the child. They're like, well, what do I do with it now? It can happen as a result of trauma that ruptures the relationship with the primary caregiver. If the caregiver is, does something that greatly offends or traumatizes the child, maybe they send the child off to boarding school or something. That can feel like abandonment. You don't even want me around. If there's introduction of a new, less emotionally or physically safe caregiver, even if it's not replacing the primary caregiver, if the primary caregiver is bringing in a dangerous person, then the child may feel abandoned, may feel like their needs were not made the priority, and finally, rejection and conditions of worth. When people grow up in households where the caregivers are always telling them they're stupid, they're not enough, they're this or they're that, where there's conditions, I will love you if you do this, I will love you if you succeed, then that creates a fear of Abandonment, because there's always that. If it's not I love you, it's I will love you. If as a result, people are in fight orf flight, it's stressful. If you are fearful of abandonment, they may express anger towards someone who is unavailable, whether it's emotionally or physically. If they text somebody and they don't get a text back right away, they may start becoming very, very angry. They may feel sad or helpless when someone goes away, they may feel shame or self anger about feeling needy. They don't want to feel that way. They want to feel safe and empowered, but they don't know how. And they see other people feeling safe and empowered. Remember those other people were able to develop a lot of skills that they weren't. So they may feel shame because they are needy. They may feel shame because their caregiver told them, you are too needy, you are too clingy, just go away. And they may experience fear of rejection or isolation. When in any relationship, whether it's work or friends or intimate relationships, they may experience fear of loss of control or the unknown or failure. If I fail, then I'm not lovable. If I'm not in control, I might disappear. If I'm not in control, then bad things might happen to me. And a lot of times people who have insecure, attachment and fears of abandonment were in a lot of situations in which they were not in control, in which they felt powerless and, and unsafe. So it's important to help them recognize how these schema formed and what they're doing in the present that is different and what skills and tools and resources they might have now. Questions for clients thinking about fears of abandonment. What caused these fears as a child and how are they reasonable or helpful? If a child gets angry because their parent is not available, you know, how is that in the child's mind reasonable or helpful? I remember there was one time, and my heart still breaks for this. My husband and I were out back and we were watching the car and my son was watching us through the window. And he was, gosh, probably two and a half at this point. And he was watching us through the window, do our thing and whatever. And we got in the car to move it around back to the, back to the driveway. And he thought we were leaving him and he just, he turned bright red and started crying and screaming. And I, I rushed in there and I'm like, what's wrong, honey? He's like, mommy, don't leave me. I'm like, honey, I would never leave you. But he was Terrified because he saw mommy and daddy driving away and he didn't know where we were going, that we were just going to the other side of the house. So from a kid's perspective, that complete meltdown made total sense. If mommy and daddy went away, who was going to feed him and do all those things? How does it, how do these beliefs, how did those reactions when you were a child make sense to help you survive? What causes these fears now and how are they unhelpful? And it's important to recognize that now for most clients that we're working with, they're older adolescents or adults and we can help them recognize. You may not want this person to go away, or you may want this person to be available right now, but do you need them to be? Are you unsafe? Are you powerless in this particular situation? And how is it unhelpful to get enraged every time they don't respond to your text or whatever in a short period of time? Based on their temperament, children need different types and amounts of caregiver interaction. You have the child that is wide open and easily overstimulated. That was my son. He was wide open when he was awake and then when he'd fall asleep, he slept hard and long. And as he got older we learned that he had ADHD and he was easily overstimulated. So we had to accommodate that. We had to recognize that he was going to get agitated or overwhelmed in environments that we weren't or his sister weren't. And that was one part of being responsive to him and accepting instead of abandoning and saying, well, just straighten up and fly right. We had to recognize that he was neuro atypical. Then you've got the Energizer bunny. And this is the child that was like my daughter, who she was steady, she wasn't wide open, but she never slept except for at night. Of course she didn't take those long two and a half hour afternoon naps that I so cherished with my son. But it was important to recognize and respond and be present for her then the introvert, the introverted child, this is, people have these temperaments even as children is going to be overwhelmed and over stimulated by certain situations and will need time to themselves to play by themselves. Whereas the extroverted child may feel rejected and if their caregiver isn't interested in what they're doing with doing a lot of the time. So it's really important to look at each person and each child individually and say, what is it that you need in order to Feel loved in order to feel accepted. If abandonment fears are triggered in early childhood, it can be addressed. We can reprogram these schemas. Abandonment anxiety is not a lifelong curse. Based on their needs and caregivers reactions, children form schemas or belief patterns about the world and others. For children under about the age of seven, they think dichotomously. You're either there or you're gone. That you are. If I can't see you, then you've disappeared. The way I perceive it is the way that it is. And I can't take other people's perspectives. For children under seven, it's not that they don't want to take other people's perspectives, it's just not wired into them. They can be led through examples and start to learn. But up until age seven, they are very egocentric. Children can only focus on one aspect at a time. What's going on right now and if I feel afraid right now, that's all I'm focusing on. If you are rejecting me right now, that's all I'm focusing on. And children cannot think abstractly at this age or consider other possible explanations for why caregiver flew off the handle and got angry with them over something that normally doesn't bother them. Maybe caregiver had a bad day at work and didn't manage their patience level very well. There are a lot of reasons beside the child, the child's behaviors. And it's also important to emphasize with people from the beginning of abandonment work your caregiver and other people in your life and may not like your behaviors. It doesn't mean you are unlovable. You are lovable. Your behaviors, they may be lovable, they may not be. But it's important to separate the two of them. A broad way of perceiving things based on memories, feelings and thoughts is basically the definition of schema. Schema that trigger abandonment fears center around acceptability. Am I acceptable or am I going to be rejected? Are you acceptable or are you going to be rejected? Are you going to accept me or reject me? Lovability and isolation, competence and failure and adaptability or the ability to tolerate a loss of control. So when we talk about schemas and other people, children who have and people who have been abandoned who fear abandonment often expect others to be rejecting, distant, cold, inconsistent, because that's what they've experienced. So when they go into a room, what are they expecting to have happen? And we've all had experiences where we've had expectations, we've gone to the doctor and had to get a shot and we expected it to hurt. So we were just waiting for it and we were looking for it. And as soon as that needle came out, we started getting all tensed up, which probably made it hurt. The same thing is true with people. We notice in many ways what we expect to see are others going to be isolating or absent. And a lot of times people with abandonment fears have very unhealthy boundaries. They're either too rigid and they keep everybody out or they're too weak and they want to be around people all the time. They feel like if the person goes away, they're never going to come back. So that's that early abandonment fear. They expect others to be critical of them and unpredictable in terms of the relationship to self, of their self to others. They have beliefs about themselves as am I acceptable? A lot of times with abandonment anxiety, the answer to that is no, I don't believe that I am lovable. And it's important for us again to reinforce you are lovable. Your behaviors may not be. And I have a whole video on on that where I talk about the semantics of separating the two and telling somebody, hey, you are lovable. And having them say it 50 times in the mirror, that ain't going to make them believe it. So it's important to work with them to help them understand what makes a person lovable and how am I like or unlike that person, but hopefully like that person. And lovability, again as a person is different from behaviors. What makes your child lovable? What makes your dog lovable? Do you love them even when they chew up your favorite shoes? The dog, not the child. Do you love a child even when they break your favorite vase? Well, yeah. Do you love a child even when they act out and have a meltdown in the middle of the store? Well, yeah, I love them. Really don't like that behavior. And it's important to help them start examining how they perceive lovability of others and recognize that, hey, I look at other people as lovable despite their behaviors. Why can't I see that in myself? They look at themselves in terms of am I lovable? Am I acceptable? Am I lovable? Am I consistent? Because a lot of times they've been told that they're inconsistent and they may not understand how to interact with people and they may interact inconsistently. And what aspects of this situation am I the person able to control? What aspects of relationships can I control in terms of attachment styles? We're just going to review these really quick. The avoidant Attachment style often happens when there's a rejecting or harsh caregiver. The child depends less on the caregiver for security, shows little response. When the caregiver leaves or returns and learns not to depend on the caregiver for comfort, connection or security. That caregiver is pretty much useless in the child's eyes. It's like, yeah, you may feed me, you may not, but you don't meet my needs. And so I feel unsafe and I feel unsafe around you. The anxious attachment style. The caregiver is inconsistent in their warmth and indifference. One day they may be all sugar and spice and everything nice, and the next day, you know, I'm not going to get off my mobile phone and playing whatever game I am in order to pay attention to you. This means that child ends up feeling extremely fearful of being alone because I don't know if anybody's going to be there for me. They're constantly vigilant about potential abandonment. They crave closeness in relationships, but are also terrified of losing people. So I. I want to be close to somebody, but I'm afraid that they're going to hurt me. So it's, do I want it? Do I not? I don't know what to do. They're stuck in this limbo world, and they may exhibit behaviors that are clingy or overly dependent on others for reassurance. A lot of people who are anxiously attached, when they get that re reassurance, it's like the breath of life. It's like, okay, I'm safe for a second. I can breathe. And when they start feeling like they're not getting that re reassurance, when they start re experiencing those childhood memories, that inner child that is so afraid that didn't have anybody to depend on, then they start feeling anxious. And some people will even hold their breath, literally, because they're so stressed out. And when they get that reassurance, it's like, okay, I can breathe. And the ambivalent comes. Ambivalence comes from an inconsistent or chaotic caregiver. The child is anxious and afraid to try and explore. The ambivalent attachment style is a little bit different than anxious. The anxious caregiver is maybe there or they may not. The ambivalent attachment is formed by a caregiver who is loving one moment and critical and rejecting the next. So you have this whole Jekyll Hyde dynamic, and the kid's just like, I don't know. So the child is afraid to explore, is clingy and demanding and upset. When the caregiver leaves but also inconsolable when they return. I'm afraid when they leave, I want them to come back, but I don't know if I'm going to get Jekyll or Hyde. So how do we create secure attachment? We want to have an emotionally available caregiver that the child seeks for comfort. The child says, hey, I'm cold or I'm afraid. The child is upset when the caregiver leaves. Especially in new situations, we see that we have an inkling that they may be securely attached. Especially if when the caregiver returns, they settle down or they settle down after a while. I remember when my son started preschool, I took him the first day and handed him off to his teacher and she met him and she held his hand and she was just great. And he cried and you know, after they went down into the room, I went and I cried and the next day I brought him there. Not a new situation anymore. He knew it was going to be okay. He knew I was going to come back. I handed him off to his teacher, she took his hand and he looks at me and he goes, bye bye mommy. Well, they went downstairs, he was perfectly happy and again I went behind a wall and I cried. So. But it showed that he was securely attached and he felt safe in this environment with this teacher. When a child has a an emotionally available and responsive caregiver, they learn to trust that other people will be responsive. They learn to be self reliant and try things. But if they fail, they know they can return to home base. It's like, all right, I tried that, didn't go so well. Let me go back to where it's safe, where I'm loved, where I'm accepted. They're able to adapt to a variety of situations, deal with stress and have accurate expectations of others. I've used this mnemonic in other videos but it's important here too. In order to create secure attachment, the caregiver needs to be consistent in their responses and emotional and physical presence. Not hot and cold or here and gone. The same thing is, well, let me do caregiver first. They need to be attentive, proactively. I want to spend time with you because I enjoy it and reactively. You're having a bad day, come tell mommy about it. Want to be responsive, to share, enjoy with the child, provide redirection when necessary or assist in learning social and emotional management skills. They need to be empathizing with the child's point of view. What we as 20, 40, 50 year olds see as no big deal. A 6, 7, 13 year old may feel like the is the end of the world. So we want to empathize with them, recognizing they don't have the experiences we have to base their reaction off of. We have to understand that their reaction is based on their learning their schema up until now. And we want to be supportive as the child learns and endures new challenges. We can use scaffolding, which is a technique to help children learn new tools. We can provide encouragement when they're getting ready to do something difficult. And we can provide consolation when the child tries something difficult and it doesn't work out so well. Cares is also important for self. The individual needs to learn how to be consistent in responses and their presence, their mindfulness of their own needs. Attentive, proactively and reactively to their needs. You know, what do I need to improve today? And oh crap, I'm not feeling well. What do I need to do to improve the next moment? Responsive to their own needs, not just ignoring it. Empathizing instead of criticizing how they feel or what they're thinking. And supportive of themselves. Compassionate with themselves. So this is important. They didn't learn how to do this as a child. They didn't have a secure attachment with a caregiver to teach them how to do this for themselves. And it's hard to do this for other people if you're not able to do it for yourself. And it's hard to communicate with other people what your needs are if you don't know. Core Abandonment beliefs Abandonment. All people leave. Mistrust people will hurt, reject, take advantage of me, or just not be there when I need them. Emotional deprivation. I don't get the love I need and nobody understands me or even cares about me. Defectiveness. If people knew me, they would reject me. Failure. I don't measure up and I'm not able to succeed. And it's important to notice in all of these, the all or nothing language in these schemas. It's also important to recognize that these core beliefs are based on past experiences with other people in the past. You may still have a relationship with your caregiver who was inconsistent and abandoning. Rejecting whatever word you want to use. Okay, they may not have changed, but you have changed. And it's important to help people explore what their beliefs are about. Abandonment. The ability to trust others. The ability to get their emotional needs met, their acceptability as a person and their effectiveness. Unhelpful abandonment reactions. Fight with people. When I feel like I'm getting ready to be Abandoned. I'm going to fight. So I may become aggressive, hostile, blaming or criticizing. Sound like dysregulation to you? Does to me. Dominance or trying to control others? Recognition seeking to get attention, validation or approval. You don't want to leave me because I'm awesome. See I have all these awards. I have all this. So I do these things and that makes me acceptable be because of what I've done, not who I am. They may manipulate and exploit others through seduction, lying or justifying in order to prevent abandonment. They may make excuses for others inappropriate behavior or engage in clinging and chasing or the flight part is I don't care if you leave. They may withdraw physical or physically or emotionally from the relationship and or may engage in addictive behaviors. They may just they get upset. They feel like they're getting to be getting ready to be abandoned so they start drinking and or using or doing whatever so they are numb. Distraction is another way if that. People may deal with fears of abandonment instead of addressing the underlying fears. They just constantly stay busy. They constantly stay distracted. I ask you to consider with clinicians that are watching this, how do these reactions resemble what we typically label as borderline personality, as antisocial, narcissistic or even codependency? We see a lot of stuff that a lot of unhelpful behavioral reactions in adults that are often formed as a means to survive as children. So I would again ask you to consider are BPD borderline personality and codependency behavioral manifestations of abandonment trauma? How much less pathologizing would it be if we could say I understand where this came from. Let's talk about this questions for clients about core beliefs and the rest of this presentation. I'm going to talk about questions that we can engage clients with to try to help them process some of their beliefs. All people leave or they they're going to abandon me. Well, why do you think they're going to abandon me? Abandon you? Because all people always leave. All right. Well we can address the cognitive distortion of extreme language. We can also address the cognitive distortion of emotion based reasoning. What facts do you have in this context at this time that that person is going to leave? Yeah, we've got facts about what other people did, but do we really want to hold this person hostage for their mistakes? What does it look like when you're in a relationship with somebody who's a available who doesn't abandon you? What does it look like to be available to yourself and not abandoning of yourself who in your past left you or was Unavailable emotionally, What did they do to make you feel rejected or abandoned? And I have feel italicized, emboldened. Because sometimes they did things that were overtly rejecting and abandoning, and there's no doubt about that. Other times they may have done things that the person interpreted as rejecting and abandoning based on their past experiences before that. And so you can see how this pattern can continue in relationships. If there's an initial rejection abandonment experience, maybe it's the primary caregiver, maybe it's somebody else along the way that shapes the schema, the beliefs and expectations. So in future relationships, you see this similar thing starting to happen. You start to expect, well, this is. I feel afraid that this is going to happen. But we need to look at facts and context. Who in your present is unavailable emotionally or rejecting? What do they do to make you feel rejected and abandoned? And again, they may be doing things that are overtly rejecting. I know that that happens, but they may not be. So we want to look at that and evaluate the facts for and against our feeling that we are unsafe and that we are going to be abandoned. What are the alternate explanations in this context? In this time? Is this due when. When you've got people in your present who are rejecting and abandoning and you have a history of these relationships, is this due to connecting with unhealthy people? Because that is what you know. You keep getting into relationships with people who remind you in some ways of your father or your mother or your somebody. Is this due because you're projecting fears and expectations onto people, they're doing things and you're interpreting them with, to have malicious intent? Or is this due to connecting with unhealthy people, trying to get it right this time? If I get in this relationship, yeah, I know it's somebody who needs to be rescued. Kind of like somebody else in my past needed to be rescued. Maybe I can get it right this time and I can feel validated. I can feel like I succeeded. I can feel safe. Who in your past has been available to you emotionally? And it's interesting because we focus on what makes us fearful and we often forget what was there to buffer that, even if it was just a little bit of buffering. Who in your present is available to you emotionally? What do you do in your current relationships that causes people to leave? When people have abandonment anxiety, I'm sorry, I see it over and over again. The person who is anxiously or ambivalent, ambivalently or avoidantly attached is going to often do things that pushes other people away because they don't understand. So if you push people away, how do you do that? What are the alternatives? Instead of cutting them off the first time something goes wrong, or whatever it is you do to push them away, what could you do instead? If you cling and they say that you're too demanding and too clingy, what behaviors do you do that are clingy? And what alternate behaviors could you engage in and set instead? And it's important to understand clinging is the way of saying, I feel unsafe. I need you to be here. I need your support. I feel insecure. Pushing away says, I don't feel like you're safe. You need to go away. So how can people deal with those thoughts and beliefs that they may have in the moment? Mistrust people will hurt, reject, take advantage of me, or just not be there. Okay, that could be true. Everybody has lives, especially as adults. It's hard to be as present for somebody as you were, maybe when you were in high school together. But what does it look like when someone is trustworthy and safe? If you could step back and create somebody who was trustworthy and safe, what it would it look like? Who have you known who has had some of those characteristics, even if not all of them? In what ways are you trustworthy and safe to yourself and or to others? Who in your past was untrustworthy or un unsafe? What did they do that taught you that people were untrustworthy and dangerous? These are lessons that you learned and you can't unlearn them, but you can recognize whether it's still a threat in the present or whether as a older, wiser, bigger, stronger person, you are able to keep yourself safe and recognize untrustworthiness and set those boundaries and maintain those boundaries. If they did things in the past that were untrustworthy or you thought were untrustworthy or safe? What are alternate explanations in that context at that time that didn't have to do with you may or may not have them again? How do you see this issue repeating itself in your current relationships? Are you connecting with unhealthy people because it's what you know? Projecting fears and expectations onto healthy people because that's all you've known? Or are you in some way trying to get it right? Who in your past has been trustworthy and safe? Who in your present is available and trustworthy? What do you do to yourself that is unsafe or dishonest? We do to ourselves what we've been taught by others. If other people were dishonest with us, then we often learn to be dishonest with ourselves. So it's important to help people unlearn those lessons, not only to figure out how to stop expecting it from others and but also to stop doing it to themselves. To help them recognize unsafe people who are actually unsafe in this context at this time, emotionally, physically, whatever, and learn how to set boundaries and say, all right, I may like you, but your behaviors not safe for me. We see this a lot in addiction recovery. People often have to change people, places, and things. They may like the people genuinely like the people they used with, but if those people are still using, they're not safe. And so they have to set those boundaries and say, I love you as a person. And for me to feel safe, I can't be around that. How does your distrust of others impact your current relationships? And what could you do differently to start evaluating your beliefs, your distrust of others? Again, sometimes it's going to be spot on. Your spidey senses are going to be going, ah, that person not safe. Okay, that's legit. However, just like when the smoke alarm goes off, it doesn't always mean that there's a fire. So it's important to help people start figuring out, how can I step back and figure out whether I'm reacting to my past or what's going on in this context at this time, in terms of emotional desperation? Desperation, I don't get the love I need. Nobody understands me, cares about me, or even tries to meet my needs. Again, we have to say, what does it look like when someone understands you and meets your needs? A person may not know that, and they can't get those needs met unless they can communicate that to others. If they expect other people to read their minds and say, you know what I need? Then they're setting themselves up to feel rejected and abandoned and uncared for. We have to communicate. People don't know these things. Yes. When the person was an infant, their caregiver had to try to figure out, all right, the kid's crying, what do they need? Are they hungry? Are they cold? Are they wet? What's going on? But then the caregiver would often, through process of elimination, figure it out and meet the child's needs. And they developed an understanding. Most parents can tell the difference, for example, between a sleepy cry and a hungry cry. There are actually five distinct cries that most children have. You start to learn to understand your child, and that's what that secure, attentive, consistent relationship looks like. Who in the past failed to meet your needs emotionally, and how can you deal with that? Now, if your caregiver didn't meet your needs emotionally, or somebody in a relationship that abandoned you didn't meet your needs, how can you deal with that? Now, if you're still holding on to that anger and expecting them to never meet your needs, if you're still holding on to that anger and expecting others to follow in the same path, how's that working for you? And how can you deal with it now? How can you better get your emotional needs met? And here's a hint. Communicate. Who in your past has understood you? Who in your present understands or at least tries to understand and care about you? And I have an entire series on temperament and relationships. It's important to recognize that not all of us are comfortable with feeling words. So. And not all of us react the same way to things. It doesn't mean they don't care about you. It just means their reaction is different. A thinker reacts differently than a feeler. It's just the way it is. So we need to be able to recognize when somebody does something for us because they care about us, even if it's not communicated using our love language that they're trying. And what can you do to start getting your needs met by both yourself? And. And others mentioned this already. Stop mind reading. Stop assuming you know what they're thinking and stop expecting them to know what you're thinking. That's just insanity. Be mindful of what your needs are. If you don't know what they are, then ain't nobody else going to know what they are. And you're not going to be able to communicate them. You're also not going to be able to act on them and learn how to set boundaries where you feel safe, you feel loved, you feel respected. You're able to keep the dangerous people out, but you're also able to let the healthy people in. Defectiveness. Okay, well, we all feel defective at sometimes. We want to remember that it's not us who's defective, it may be our abilities that are defective. So how will you know when you are acceptable as a human being? What does that look like? Do you know any acceptable human beings? And most people say, yeah, I know a lot of acceptable human beings. All right, let's talk about what makes them acceptable and then let's talk about how you're similar to and different from that. Who in your past made you feel defective? And are there alternate explanations? How can you silence those old tapes where you hear that caregiver telling you that you're useless or you're stupid? All right, well that's not helpful. And that was abusive. You have that tape, you have that programming. You don't need to keep plucking it into the vcr. For those of you who remember what a VCR is, how can you turn off that tape and replace it with some something else? How can you stand up to that voice and say, you know what? I don't deserve to be treated like that. Who in your past has been accepting and supportive? Who in your present is accepting and supportive? Would you reject someone for doing the same things that you did? And I've worked in addictions and co occurring disorders for a long time. I've worked with people that are coming out of prison. I've worked with people who are recently out of the military and have seen combat. I've worked with people who are, you know, just your average person and have made some choices that were not the healthiest or maybe the legalist. But do you reject the person because they did those things? I mean, yeah, if they continue to do it, you mean, May need to set boundaries and say, I love you as a person, but you're not safe to be around. And most people, I think, and I've never had anybody say no, you know, I, I reject all people. They all suck. We may like our dogs more some days, but it's important to look at what makes somebody acceptable. What makes somebody acceptable if they're your child, if they're doing stuff that you really don't like, their behaviors may be unacceptable. But are they unacceptable? And how can you start accepting yourself again? You don't have to accept all your behaviors, but how can you start accepting yourself as worthy of love? Failure? I don't measure up, I can't succeed. All right, well, those are pretty vague concepts. What does success look like to you? What does succeeding or measuring up look like to you? How will you know when you have measured up or been a success? It's important to define those concepts in your past. Who made you or what made you feel like a failure? And again, separating wasn't you that failed. It was something you did that failed. You're not a failure. Your attempt at doing this was a failure. Separate the person from the event. What are alternate explanations or ways of viewing it? Yeah, I learned how not to do it, or at least I tried. There's a lot of different quotes out there about handling failure, what may have caused it. Let's do a root cause. Okay, so you did something and whatever you did, failed. All right, why poor goal setting? Did you have well, lots and lots of videos on the channel on goals. So I'm not going to go deep into that right now. Lack of motivation. Those are two biggies that can keep people from succeeding at things that they want to do. What have you succeeded at? Remember, we focus on the negative, and we tend to dismiss or minimize the positive. What are you good at in the present? What does success means in success mean in terms of your relationship with other people? What does it look like to have a successful relationship? And. And again, I keep saying look like because I want specific observable behaviors and experiences, if you will, that we can look at and go, yeah, when I'm with this person, I feel safe. I engage with this person on a regular basis. I can openly talk with this person and feel validated. And I know feelings aren't all that observable, but these are things we need to kind of start getting out so the person can start defining and evaluating relationships and going, is this a success or not so much. Who are three successful people? You know, maybe celebrities or maybe people you know in person. And what makes them successful? Does success equal happiness? And that's kind of. That's really vague there. Success in relationships, success in work, success in life. How are we defining success? And that is individualized. But if you're not success, if you don't succeed at everything you do, does it mean that you're going to be miserable? And another way to approach it, what do kids need to do to be successful in life? In terms of triggering relationships, you've experienced an abandoner who was unpredictable, unstable, or unavailable. You may have experienced an abuser who is untrustworthy and unsafe. You may have experienced a depriver who was detached and withholding, a devastator who was judgmental, rejecting and critical, or a critic who was critical and narcissistic. So the question for clients, okay, you've experienced these, and the same person can exhibit many of or many or all of these different relationship behaviors. But it's also important for clients to look and say, how do I exhibit these behaviors and relationships? How am I unpredictable, unstable, or unavailable? How am I untrustworthy or detached or judgmental? In what ways are these behaviors present in your current relationships, both from you as well as from the other person? And. And if I'm in a relationship with John and I say, John is unpredictable, untrustworthy, and judgmental. All right, then as a therapist, I'm going to ask, tell me what John does or doesn't do that you perceive as unpredictable, untrustworthy, and Judgmental. So let's figure out exactly what we're talking about and then talk about it with John. In what ways were these behaviors present in your primary caregiver relationships? Behavioral triggers for abandonment and mistrust. If there's a change in somebody's behavior, oh, I know when they change behaviors, that's unpredictable and that means things are going to go to heck in a handbasket. Not getting constant reassurance, well, that may mean that the other person is not communicating with you in your love language or that the other person has a different level of need for reassurance and they don't know you need more. We don't know. But it's important to examine if I'm starting to feel this way, where's it coming from and what can I do to try to address it. If the other person's relationships feel threatening like the people that they work with, or if you're hyper vigilant to rejection and disconnection, all of these can trigger that fight orf flight response, that emotional dysregulation. In terms of clients asking them, how has a ban. How have these behaviors made you feel threatened in the past? What are alternate explanations based on the facts in context, you're in a relationship with John now and his behavior changes. What are alternate explanations for what? Why that might be? Besides, he's fixing to abandon you. Are you expecting or engaging in mind reading? And what would be a helpful reaction to these behaviors now? To this fear now? What's the best way to address it? Triggers for defectiveness and failure include criticism, unexplained time apart, absent or inconsistent reassurance or failure. The relationship fails. So we need to look at did the did you fail or did the relationship fail? Are you a failure? Which you know, I'm going to say no, the relationship failed. And let's look at why that was. How have you felt threatened by defectiveness or failure in the past? What are alternate explanations for why somebody may have criticized you or spent unexplained time apart? Based on the facts in context, are you expecting or engaging in mind reading? And what would be a helpful reaction to these behaviors now? If somebody is critical of you, what's a helpful reaction to cope with that and address it? Envisioning activity. What does a healthy relationship look like? Presence versus abandonment. How much time together? Acceptance versus rejection. What makes me feel one way versus another? Emotional support versus emotional unavailability. What does that look like? Trustworthiness versus untrustworthiness and safe versus harmful. It's important to have people start thinking about what does that healthy relationship look like? How can they start creating that with themselves? How can they be present, accepting, emotionally supportive, trustworthy and safe for themselves? And how can they start creating this relationship with others? And, and I'll give you a hint, part of it has to do with communication, mindfulness questions, encouraging people to start reestablishing a consistent relationship with themselves, regularly checking in, what am I feeling? What's triggering it? Am I safe now? If not, what do I need to do? Is this bringing up something from the past? Probably. How is this situation similar to and different from that past? How am I similar to and different from who I was back then? And how can I silence my inner critic? And finally, what would be a helpful reaction to how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking that helps me move toward my goals and, and toward a positive emotional experience? Core beliefs about self, others and relationships are formed in early life due to children's lack of knowledge, other experiences, and primitive cognitive abilities. These core beliefs are often dichotomous. They're all or nothing. You're good or bad. You're safe or unsafe. You love me or you hate me. Core beliefs can be formed around events or experiences that are outside of conscious memory. Infants start developing their love map and their trust in others. That's the first level of the Ericksonian stages of psychosocial development. Trust, mistrust. And that develops in infancy. Identifying and being mindful of abandonment triggers in the present can help people choose alternate, more helpful ways of responding. Wow, that was a lot to get in into that hour. I appreciate you being here with me. All right, are there any questions? I saw the feed just scrolling away while I was presenting and I wasn't able to look because as you see, I just barely got in under the wire. But. Thank you, Mark, for your support. I really, I do appreciate it. You, you all have no idea how much of a difference every little bit makes. And JC Cat, that's a good observation that the introduction of a new, less physically safe caregiver, we can repeat that process in adulthood and, and bring unsafe people in who are supposed to be partners with us. And basically we're abandoning ourself. We're bringing them in and denying our spidey senses, if you will, and our own needs. So that's a great observation. All right, I'm going to go down here. Is it common to feel resentment, disconnection from your mother in adulthood with inconsistent on and off caregiving? Sure. Even if it was consistent when you were a child, if it becomes inconsistent, your brain's trying to figure out, what do I do with this? What happened? Why? Why did things change? So, yeah, that's certainly possible. The resentment is anger at them, which means you're feeling unsafe because of what they're doing. The question is, what needs to happen so you feel safe. It could be that you're an adult and they think that you don't want as much connection, or it could be that they've got stuff going on in their life and they're not able to be as emotionally connected to you. But it's important to examine what changed, if anything changed at all. If they've always been inconsistent, then, yeah. I mean, sure, if you had a chaotic childhood, if you were raised by emotionally immature parents, as some books say, you got gypped, you got cheated out of a healthy relationship, you didn't have Warden June Cleaver. So, yeah, it's natural to feel a little bit angry, because you've got to grieve the fact that you didn't have that storybook childhood and allow yourself to work through the denial, the anger, the bargaining, the depression and the acceptance and say, all right, I was raised by Jekyll and Hyde, not Warden June. But I'm not going to continue to let their mistakes make me miserable, because that was then. Having a big cry can be very cathartic. And whether it's okay to cry in front of kids, you know, it can feel very scary. If you're having a boohoo curled in the fetal position cry and your kids are around, they may be like, ah, what's going on? It's important to let them know you're safe. I'm safe. I'm just having some memories that I'm reacting to right now. And maybe excuse yourself so they don't feel like they've got to comfort you. But again, it depends on the level of your crying. I remember when my kids were little, I don't do well if I see anything that has to do with animals being injured or children being, you know, hurt in some way. And those ASPCA commercials would come on. And whenever they would come on, I would get upset if I would watch them. And. But my daughter was like. She would see them and she would jump up. She's like, okay, let's turn this off right now. Because that's what I would do. I'd see it and I'd be like, okay, I need to turn that off. So she learned that that was a response. But she also learned that I'm a soft touch. So even movies like Bambi I cry at. And she didn't like to see me cry. So she would identify movies as not mommy appropriate. But she knew that I wasn't crying because I felt unsafe or because of something bad. I was crying at the show. And she was aware of that, but she also was aware that, hey, you don't want to feel this way. Let's turn it off. It's definitely important, Jesus, to be mindful when you're in a relationship of those red flags. And I encourage people to write them down. You know, not necessarily like on the refrigerator, but if there's a red flag, write it down, note it in your journal or something. And if you notice that it keeps coming up, then it's going to be important to address. Sometimes there can be an errant red flag here and there, and it's just the, you know, exception. But if you try to address it and it doesn't improve or if it continues to happen, then, yeah, you. It's definitely important to address it because that certainly will cause disruption in the relationship. I'm glad other people get. Get got by those ASPCA commercials. I've been a doing animal rescue and fostering for about 25 years, and my husband sets limits. He's like, we can't have any more animals in the house than we have laps to comfort them. So that kind of keeps me somewhat reined in. Otherwise we'd probably, yeah, that it would be bad. What if you heal through it, but you get into a new relationship and anxiety happens again? That's your brain going, remember, remember, we're not unwriting. We're not taking the chapter out of your head that says, okay, that was unhealthy. That's back there. There's a part of you, whenever you get into relationships and start feeling vulnerable, that will likely be triggered again for a minute. And being able to say this person, different context, different time, we're safe is important because eventually you'll rewire that pathway in a way that you don't think about it much anymore. But, yeah, it's normal when we feel vulnerable to feel a little bit anxious. And if we've been abandoned or hurt before, it's natural to recall what happened in that relationship. But differentiating it from the present is really important. Telling hurtful people that we're not abandoning. Abandoning them can be really hard. And I suggest with people to first start out by trying to communicate to the person how they're being hurtful. They may not realize they're being hurtful. If they refuse to respect your boundaries and they continue to do it, then you may need to be more assertive and say, I love you and, you know, I really like spending time with you or whatever, but your behaviors are hurtful to me and they continue to be. And I can't subject myself to that. And you can find, obviously find your own words, your own script to say that. But that's something that we all have to do at a certain point in time with certain people. If they're unhealthy, set those boundaries so we're not constantly being inundated with danger. Some people, and I won't say it's just women, some people like to argue in public and cause a scene because when you have an audience, you feel more empowered. When you're alone, you feel weaker. And one of the Crisis Deescalation 101, when you're working with people is to take away the audience. Try to get them somewhere where they don't have people that will sort of cheer them on and feed into their fury. So I think a lot of times it may happen that way. Other times it may happen because they did it once and whatever they were getting upset about got their reaction, ended up getting them their way, and so then they continue to do it. When a behavior is reinforced, it's more likely to happen again. I can't say within and with any certainty why any one person does it in any one particular situation. Excuse me. Sometimes it is. Part of that person's social group where they always bring their friends with them is if they're going to have a discussion with you, it's going to be them and their six friends. And again, this can be men or women, but we want to look at what is the function of the behavior. Why is it this person is doing this here but nowhere else? If they are exploding in public and they explode at home too, then we might want to start looking at emotional dysregulation. They, when they get triggered, they may not have the skills to manage that surge of stress hormones. So again, there can be a lot of reasons why that happens. All righty, everybody. Obviously I am starting to cough a little bit, so I am going to say goodbye for today. But I appreciate everybody being here. We will do another live live next Wednesday, so I will see you then.