Attachment Disorder And Therapy

[DharmaGirl]

I'll bow out of this thread and leave it to those who are more in tune with these ideas.

I learn a lot from you, Hashi, and I hope you would comment in the future. Sometimes when we are invested in something and it isn't working for us, it's hard to see. I would want you to bring that to my attention.

 

[DharmaGirl]

I will naturally have more patience and willingness to hold other's hands in their process and pace of healing.

I also developed compassion out of slippery reality. I'm a nurse and worked in ER and ER observation. I was considered a mushy nurse because I tended to patient's emotional distress as well as the physical. Medical people love to separate the two, but they are all the same. We are not just physical bodies.

 

[Valentino]

It seems like the best way to learn compassion is by direct personal experience of suffering of your own or with others.

Without that direct link, I'm not really sure if people can genuinely be compassionate. It ends up coming out more as sympathy and trying to be nice and say or do the right thing (but not really knowing).

Because there just isn't the capacity to stay conscious and loving in the face of un-explainable tragedy or grief, your own or someone else's.

Sometimes I wonder if all the focus on protecting children and other people from life struggles and suffering, might actually be indirectly creating people who simply can not be genuinely compassionate, and end up overly self centered. The millennial generation does seem to fit the 'ME first' attitude.

 

[Sally sue]

Wow! What a lot of emotions came up through this thread!! Do you see that? Not only the original post, but all throughout...attachment is such a powerful and scary thing, at least for me. I'm constantly questioning my T about whether this or that will cause her to stop working with me. I think what I'm actually doing is trying to anticipate her leaving me, so I can quick leave her first, twisted huh? It's just that when one has been abandoned before, emotionally or physically, the pain is sooo bad, that you don't want to feel it again, leaving us guarded :(

And as far as I understand, mindfulness is just about totally being in the NOW....which actually is really hard to do unless you can distract yourself with one of your senses. Example, I was really stressed from parental negative comments and as I was driving home with negative thoughts swirling, I grabbed my poofy scarf, tied it securely around my neck and then rubbed it and pulled on it, and you know what? I felt a lot better in a couple minutes, because I was focused completely on the feeling of the scarf. :) sounds weird, huh?

I hope that helps!
Sally sue

 

[DharmaGirl]

sounds weird, huh?

No, sounds great! I pick a color, then look for it in the environment. If I'm walking, I will try to name the trees and flowers. Sometimes I just need to dissociate, though, since I am far from being healed.

anticipate her leaving me, so I can quick leave her first, twisted huh?

No, that's what we do. I thought I would never stop crying when the billing office told me I could no longer see my T. My T says that it is a huge trigger for people who don't have severe PTSD, so it is so much worse for those that do.

 

[Sally sue]

Oh dharmagirl that just breaks my heart! Did it work out so you could continue seeing your T?

 

[DharmaGirl]

Yes, he went above and beyond to make sure I could still see him. He said he would do it pro bono if he had to. They are going to make a sliding scale for me. I really think he is the most caring person I've ever met.

 

[Sally sue]

Oh, I'm so glad :) we are so vulnerable when we are in this place, and "trust" is something I've never had a wealth of :wtf:

 

[DharmaGirl]

Me neither, I think he is the first person I've really trusted. I still don't totally trust him, because I'm not all the way healed yet, but I trust him for the most part.

 

[DharmaGirl]

But now I see the toughness was simply the result of enduring and surviving lots of mind games, psychological manipulation, shame and guilt.

I also thought I was tough. And as you said, it was the result of abuse.

. But now that I see how my abilities were developed through decades of surviving cult-like mental environment, I will naturally have more patience and willingness to hold other's hands in their process and pace of healing.

Yes, I agree. If I can sit at look at someone in the eyes for several hours, I can be patient with others and their process. All of our processes are so different, yet the same.