Why Am I Like This?

[Sally sue]

So, it's hard to put this into words, but when people get mad at me or are mean to me and I care/love them, I do everything I can to soothe them (hug them, tell them they were totally right to do whatever to me, little gifts, etc)!

I'm this way with T, my friends, family, etc. I think I'm afraid they will abandon me, but it's stupid really :(.

Yesterday my T called (she had been grumpy the day before in our mtg and had responded to my email by saying it wasn't about me, she was tired and hungry), and thought I should go to a class named "finding safety"...abandonment issues come right up ;(! And then tells me the teacher is/was my case worker when I was in IOP. I adored this woman, but the last time I was in her group she got frustrated with me, I cried like crazy, needed to hug her and then had to fight from running out into the street so I could get hit by a car! So instead I tore out of the parking lot and drove hoping I would crash :(.

I think I understand intellectually that this is MY reaction and I should own it, but this is how I was when I was a child too (yes, abused) and I don't know how to stop it. It's like my body just goes on super-freak out audio pilot!

Any suggestions?

 

[Justmehere]

Sounds like maybe when people get mad, you are scared they will leave you, and you do anything you can to keep them from abandoning you.

It sounds like you may have a preoccupied attachment style from the trauma you went through as a kid, and doing trauma work, maybe somatic work, and learning lots to ground may help you in time have a more secure attachment style. Preoccupied attachment styles often, not always, form in childhood when kids are enduring abuse as a way to survive the abuse. All kids need their caretakers to meet their needs. When caretakers are abusive, and kids do all they can to make the caretaker happy to try to be safe and get needs met.

Has your therapist done any work with you on grounding skills? That might really help decrease your anxiety about abandonment and you may be able to manage the fear better when people get frustrated, and act in the ways you want to act.

Just some thoughts...

I have really struggled very deeply in various ways with fear of abandonment - my heart goes out to you! It's so tough to deal with, but it can get better.

 

[franciemarnie]

I would think you spent your formative years - when your brain was forming and being hard wired -appeasing your abuser(s) in an effort to stem the abuse. It is natural that you are still like this, but awareness is the beginning of change so it's good you are aware.

If someone else did something wrong and then just stood there, I used to apologize. That's called codependent behavior and is common to ACOA too.

 

[Sally sue]

Thank you both for your feedback! It really does help to know others understand :).

Now, I just need to figure out how to bring it up with my T, and try and bring up how intense it is :(.

When I met with her the other day and she was crabby, I couldn't stop crying, and suddenly asked for the crisis number because everything in my head had gone black, and full of SI argh :(.

 

[Sally sue]

Justmehere how did you know about the preoccupied attachment? I looked it up and you're right on :(

 

[new gamma rays]

I don't know much about this, but it seemed to be covered in this site I came across:

(Well google Pete Walker Therapist Codependency because this site is being a bitch and won't let me post a link)

Without help in the moment, the client typically remains lost in the flashback and has no recourse but to once again fruitlessly reenact his own particular array of primitive, self-injuring defenses to what feel like unmanageable feelings. I find that most clients can be guided to see the harmfulness of these previously necessary, but now outmoded, defenses as misfirings of their fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. These misfirings then, cause dysfunctional warding off of feelings in four different ways:

1. fighting or over-asserting one's self with others in narcissistic and entitled ways such as misusing power or promoting excessive self-interest;
2. fleeing obsessive-compulsively into activities such as workaholism, sex and love addiction, or substance abuse (uppers');
3. freezing in numbing, dissociative ways such as sleeping excessively, over-fantasizing, or tuning out with TV or medications ('downers');
4. fawning in self-abandoning and obsequious codependent relating. (The fawn response to trauma is delineated in my earlier article on "Codependency and Trauma" in The East Bay Therapist, Jan/Feb 03).

There is a section on the codependency/fawning response on the side

 

[new gamma rays]

I find myself doing this around my dad whenever I'm in the car with him. I know he is bearing most of the stress in our house and if he turns against me I will feel like I am completely abandoned/ lose my shit. So I notice that I try to bring up anecdotes or interesting facts I learned just to keep him in a good mood, or at least to forge some kind of connection even though I don't think its genuine and I have a lot of anger at my dad.

 

[Justmehere]

Justmehere how did you know about the preoccupied attachment?

My own therapist does somatic and attachment work, and we talk about this and my own abandonment fears a lot. I'm not like really knowledgable or anything, it just comes up in my own life a lot. I can relate. I have gone back and forth between having preoccupied and disorganized attachment styles myself. When I read what what you wrote, I was struck by how much of what you wrote sounds like me when I'm in that preoccupied way of attachment. It made me wonder if that's what is going on for you too.

The good thing about it is that it can change. We can develop what is called "earned secure attachment." It really can get better... Don't lose hope. You are on path to healing.

 

[Sally sue]

Justmehere it's all very interesting and definitely resonates with me! I will try to bring up with T :(. She was crabby, she explained it, but now I'm feeling abandoned and wanting to not like her first before she stops liking me ug argh, oh brother!

 

[Tinyflame]

It's ok @Sally sue , if it helps you make progress, identifying it is a big step. :tup:. And she said it was not anything about you.

I haven't read Pete Walker's, but for me it's peace-making, appeasement (as franciemarnie said), plus I feel the other person must be right. Likely may own self-dislike and 'belief' that I, and the whole thing, is a burden. But your T is there for that reason, to help you work on everything, it will be ok.

 

[Sally sue]

Junebug you're very kind :). I'm feeling like a total failure :(. I'm not really sure why, but it just happens, the ups and downs...I sure wish I could get off this roller coaster ha! Thanks for your support :).