Gloria
Diamond Member
I don't know where to begin except that I have been in therapy for years and have all the sexual abuse issues and physical abuse pretty much under control. However, I don't drink, smoke, gamble, and I am considered high functioning despite my very traumatic childhood and the messy relationships later in my life.
Now I want to share the book by Susan Anderson The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. I also am working with my therapist on her other book. The Twelve Steps of the Black Swan. As a child, I loved the story of the Ugly Duckling who grew up to be the beautiful swan.
Abandonment issues are rooted in our most primal instinct - to be protected by a family or a clan. It's a very powerful instinct in us and genetically we are programmed very strongly to do anything so that we will not be alone. For the cavemen, to be alone meant dying.
This is what I've learned from this book so far. The book explains why we not only stay with abusive people, we idolize them and refuse to see them for who they are. Why do we choose certain people? Ahhh! We marry alcoholics and needy people? Why? They are less likely to leave us! In every other area of my life, parenting, career, school, money I managed to not only survive to excelled in these areas. But yet, I have been married many times. Everyone is always so curious and I know there are a lot of reasons but after this book, I can remember the feeling of terror that I had when a man asked me to marry him and even if I didn't want to, I would agree because losing a friend or a person in my life was unbearablly painful to me.
The book also talks about the stages - shattering, self reproach, anger, withdrawal and I see people on this forum that are cycling through these stages. I recently lost a friend that I had a high opinion of and now I look what I was thinking. But I didn't eat. That's my first reaction to losing a friend or a loved one. I don't eat for days. The self reproach just increases as there is less nutrition to my brain. My inititial feeling that is that it's my fault and that I am unlovable/unlikable. Then way down the road, reality sets in and I'll remember how my ex-husband cheated on me or beat me or verbally abused me and think to myself "Why?????" But I'm not the only one. There is a battered woman syndrome and it is tied to fear of abandonment.
When I was 18 months old, my mother was diagnosed with MS and went into the hospital for months. I stopped eating and got pneumonia and almost died. I think that's the start of the abandonment cycle for me. But then later, my father (who had already put siblings into orphanages so the threat was real) would threaten to put me in an orphanage (and co-incidentally tried to drown me) Yet, I had such self-reproach for allowing him to sexually abuse me. How could a child be brave enough to say "I don't need my parents". They were my lifeline. I would do anything so I woiuld not get sent to the orphanage.
I just want to share these incredible books with people on this forum. I think we all have some abandonment trauma. Okay, they know how to treat battle trauma and other traumas. I realize that the only times that I was hospitalized was recently when I dated a man who didn't talk to me about it first but would suddenly out of the blue break up with me. He a bonified abandoner and he knew how to trigger me. He abandoned his son when he was an infant. The strange thing is that there are two things that make me like people - that they are good parents and that they are loyal. Those are the two most important qualities in my friends yet I dated this man for years and couldn't leave him and although everyone hated him and he did terrible things, I defended him. Then just like it has happened before, I finally got free from the web I was entangled in and for the love of me, I couldn't figure out what I saw in him??
I know I'm not the only one that reacts really strongly to rejection on this forum because I've seen some really over the top reactions to rejection. In two weeks when my T gets back from vacation, we are starting on the Black Swan book. I've been working with my therapist to like myself but I've given up on it and then I found this book. Now, how am I supposed to think that I am a good person when my parents didn't want me and had me sleep in the basement and called me terrible names and used my body for whatever they needed.
Why do some people on this forum refuse to stop seeing their dysfunctional families. It's fear of being alone. But I read last night, it's when you are abandoned and alone that you can see yourself as separate and real for the first time. I was only going to write about this in my journal but I see the abandonment issue being overlooked because of sexual abuse or something when it is a core issue and I want others to realize that it one of our most inate needs and to help people understand why they have stayed/or are staying in bad relationships.
Now I want to share the book by Susan Anderson The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. I also am working with my therapist on her other book. The Twelve Steps of the Black Swan. As a child, I loved the story of the Ugly Duckling who grew up to be the beautiful swan.
Abandonment issues are rooted in our most primal instinct - to be protected by a family or a clan. It's a very powerful instinct in us and genetically we are programmed very strongly to do anything so that we will not be alone. For the cavemen, to be alone meant dying.
This is what I've learned from this book so far. The book explains why we not only stay with abusive people, we idolize them and refuse to see them for who they are. Why do we choose certain people? Ahhh! We marry alcoholics and needy people? Why? They are less likely to leave us! In every other area of my life, parenting, career, school, money I managed to not only survive to excelled in these areas. But yet, I have been married many times. Everyone is always so curious and I know there are a lot of reasons but after this book, I can remember the feeling of terror that I had when a man asked me to marry him and even if I didn't want to, I would agree because losing a friend or a person in my life was unbearablly painful to me.
The book also talks about the stages - shattering, self reproach, anger, withdrawal and I see people on this forum that are cycling through these stages. I recently lost a friend that I had a high opinion of and now I look what I was thinking. But I didn't eat. That's my first reaction to losing a friend or a loved one. I don't eat for days. The self reproach just increases as there is less nutrition to my brain. My inititial feeling that is that it's my fault and that I am unlovable/unlikable. Then way down the road, reality sets in and I'll remember how my ex-husband cheated on me or beat me or verbally abused me and think to myself "Why?????" But I'm not the only one. There is a battered woman syndrome and it is tied to fear of abandonment.
When I was 18 months old, my mother was diagnosed with MS and went into the hospital for months. I stopped eating and got pneumonia and almost died. I think that's the start of the abandonment cycle for me. But then later, my father (who had already put siblings into orphanages so the threat was real) would threaten to put me in an orphanage (and co-incidentally tried to drown me) Yet, I had such self-reproach for allowing him to sexually abuse me. How could a child be brave enough to say "I don't need my parents". They were my lifeline. I would do anything so I woiuld not get sent to the orphanage.
I just want to share these incredible books with people on this forum. I think we all have some abandonment trauma. Okay, they know how to treat battle trauma and other traumas. I realize that the only times that I was hospitalized was recently when I dated a man who didn't talk to me about it first but would suddenly out of the blue break up with me. He a bonified abandoner and he knew how to trigger me. He abandoned his son when he was an infant. The strange thing is that there are two things that make me like people - that they are good parents and that they are loyal. Those are the two most important qualities in my friends yet I dated this man for years and couldn't leave him and although everyone hated him and he did terrible things, I defended him. Then just like it has happened before, I finally got free from the web I was entangled in and for the love of me, I couldn't figure out what I saw in him??
I know I'm not the only one that reacts really strongly to rejection on this forum because I've seen some really over the top reactions to rejection. In two weeks when my T gets back from vacation, we are starting on the Black Swan book. I've been working with my therapist to like myself but I've given up on it and then I found this book. Now, how am I supposed to think that I am a good person when my parents didn't want me and had me sleep in the basement and called me terrible names and used my body for whatever they needed.
Why do some people on this forum refuse to stop seeing their dysfunctional families. It's fear of being alone. But I read last night, it's when you are abandoned and alone that you can see yourself as separate and real for the first time. I was only going to write about this in my journal but I see the abandonment issue being overlooked because of sexual abuse or something when it is a core issue and I want others to realize that it one of our most inate needs and to help people understand why they have stayed/or are staying in bad relationships.
