I've Got Abandonment Issues

Abandon: to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert; to give up; discontinue; withdraw from; withdraw protection or support 

When it comes to abandonment, we are very much driven by a fear of the unknown. We don’t know if the people we are connecting to may one day withdraw their protection or support. They may “forsake” us, and not just a little, but utterly. The more we become connected, the greater the risk, because we have more at stake should the person choose to walk away.

In an effort to alleviate this terrible sense of “not knowing,” we’ll often do a variety of things. We will over-control, seek constant reassurance, or be on high alert for anything that looks like withdrawal. Worst case scenario, as soon as we start to feel close, we’ll push away and sabotage the relationship.

This fear of abandonment is extremely common in those of us who have experienced a trauma, been abused, or just suffered life. We have experienced very real and tangible abandonment – the loss of protection by those who were supposed to care for us. Unfortunately, we then begin living as if this is going to be the case with everyone we come across. I certainly had for a long time the false belief that, “People always leave.” As a result, guess what – people around me often didn’t stick around for long, because I would pretty much act in a way that ensured they wouldn’t want to! That’s a hard thing to acknowledge, but we have to be straight about the role we play today that leads us to recreate the experience of being abandoned over and over again.

Earlier, I only gave you the first part of the definition of abandonment. Here’s the rest:

To give up the control of; to yield (oneself) without restraint or moderation.

When I read this, I thought, “Hmm, maybe I need to abandon myself to abandonment!” If I give up trying to control for abandonment, then I will actually begin taking steps towards real connection. I could abandon the confined space I create for relating to others when I shift my focus and energy away from trying to prevent their withdrawal and enter into an open, free space where I am present to the fact that they are here with me right now, in this moment. Instead of maneuvering to try to get some guarantee that they will always be here no matter what, I can appreciate the person for being here right now.

Point is, the fear of abandonment keeps us so focused on the future “what ifs” that we miss out on what is happening right now. Another, and more tragic, outcome is that we behave so poorly as a result of our fear, that we pretty much guarantee that things will fall apart.

One last thought. We will never be able to get away from taking risks in relationships. We can, however, learn to take calculated risks. This means we have to get out of the nasty habit of connecting to others who are so high risk that we’re pretty much setting ourselves up for failure. Today, I want to encourage you to practice giving up trying to control for the future and to remain in the present moment. Also, give some thought to the types of risks you are taking – are they measured (even if still daring) or just playing with fire?

REFLECTION

- Who abandoned you and how did they abandon you?

- What have you come to believe about people and relationships as a result?

- What do you do to protect yourself from being abandoned?

- How can you shift your focus from trying to control future outcomes to what is happening right now?

- How do you know if you are taking a calculated risk or not?

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Loneliness - Part 1

When I was twelve years old, I went to one of the many slumber parties that would sprinkle my childhood days. I was super excited to be going to this particular slumber party, though, because my best friend was the hostess. She lived next door (so there was the added comfort that I could just go home if things went wrong), and we had spent lots of time together playing in the wide open fields behind our houses. I was at ease about going to the party knowing that there was at least one person there who I could have fun with.

This definitely wasn’t always the case. After the abuse, I remember days when it felt like all of the color had been drained out the world. I would watch my peers play with their dolls and even beginning to gossip about which boy they thought was the cutest in the class. In those moments, I felt like a complete outsider. I wanted to scream at them, “How can you be so silly! Don’t you know really bad things happen in this world!?” I felt alone and like I just didn’t belong with these girls. This feeling has stayed with me through the years, even as the topics have gone from cute boys to, well, cute men.

Abuse changes how we see the world. It strips away our innocence and we grow up well before we should. It’s as though I was walking along a similar path with these other girls and then we reached a fork in the road. I continued on my journey that included the experience of abuse and they continued on theirs – minus abuse. My path was a bit thornier, bleaker but there were sometimes clearings where I could see the other path and the sun and laughter that was there. I’d try to soak up as much of it as I could – if even from a distance – but could never seem to break away from the path I was on.

This experience – of being forced to see the world too soon and, as a result, feeling like we just don’t belong – is one that stays with us for a long time. It is one of our stories – “I don’t belong.” As adults, we often find it hard to relate to others who haven’t shared our same path. We long for the look of recognition and ability to think deeply about things that matter and are turned off by relationships and conversations that remain shallow.

The trouble is that we are constantly out to prove that we don’t belong. So, regardless of the situation, we stand on the outside and judge, evaluate the situation rather than engage and bring an attitude of openness. We need to understand that the story of “I don’t belong” is greatly impacting how connected we are to others. We also need to accept and appreciate that not everyone is our cup of tea! You may find it harder to connect with others, but you only exacerbate the problem when you continue to have the attitude that you are somehow an outsider, flawed, damaged, or never fit in.

REFLECTION

• How has loneliness been a part of your life?
• What thoughts or self-talk do you have that make you feel lonely (e.g. nobody likes me, no one understands me)?
• How do you isolate yourself from others?
• What do you do when you are feeling lonely?
• Have you ever felt like you belong? List some people, groups, or communities to which you belong?

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

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Trauma Is Not A Competition!

"...a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the 'size' of human suffering is absolutely relative." ~Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

In working with people who have experienced some sort of trauma, whether it be sexual or physical abuse, divorce, or loss of a relationship, it is very common to hear minimizing statements such as, "It only happened once," or "I know others have suffered worse things."

There is a very real psychological purpose behind minimization - it prevents the person from being overwhelmed by the experience and thoughts and feelings that come along as a result.

However, as one reaches the place where simply suppressing or managing the effects of the trauma is no longer satisfying, these minimizations need to drop away.

As I've told clients, trauma is not a competition! You don't get fewer points for being abused once as opposed to many times. As Frankl states, suffering, be it great or little, has a way of filling our minds and hearts to capacity .. taking over our thoughts and guiding our behavior.

So, rather than trying to escape the impact of the abuse by minimization, take the time to fully acknowledge the extent to which you've been changed or hurt and to what extent that experience is interfering with your life, relationships, and ability to live a life that you love right now in the present.

In doing so, you will be able to deal with the areas of your life that have been impacted rather than remaining stuck, hurt, angry because you continue to believe that your hurt wasn't "great" enough to be justified, to warrant reflection, or to deserve your full attention.

What have you been minimizing and ignoring that you'd instead like to acknowledge and heal?

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

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Undoing the Lessons of Abuse

There’s a time in all of our lives when we have no concept of life, time, or pain. Tragedy is oversleeping on Saturday morning and missing your favorite cartoon. You don’t understand the frown you see on all of the big people’s faces…you wonder what could be so bad that they yell, cry, and fight. There’s also a time in all of our lives when we become the thing we couldn’t understand…we find ourselves lying in bed with the covers over our head, afraid to come out and face what’s on the outside…inside…there. We've all had that one thing that causes us to retreat to our beds…to shut out the world…to shut out life. For me…that one thing was my grandfather.

I remember the day my grandfather came to live with us. He appeared out of the blue, this short, wrinkled thing that reminded me of the old guy on Fraggle Rock…so how bad could he be, right? He always wore this fuzzy brown and orange cardigan. He spent most of his time watching Channel 13, which was the public announcement channel in our small town in Oklahoma. All day long, the screen would alter between solid blues, greens, and reds, with bold large print announcing the Bingo Meeting at the Local Union #202, the Pancake Breakfast at St. Mary’s Catholic Church…stuff like that. We didn’t talk much. I can only imagine the things he had seen and done during his long life – but he took all of those stories to the grave and left a far more interesting one behind.

Most of our interactions consisted of me taking him his nightly bowl of cereal and holding the screen door with the springy hinge open so he could go out onto the front porch. At the tender age of 10, I felt immensely proud and extremely grown up for helping out. After holding the door open one day, my grandfather took me by the wrist and sat me down with him on the swing.

By now, you’ve probably guessed what happened that day (and would continue to happen) – my story isn’t nearly as rare as it should be.
 

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Last week, I shared some reflections on how I was shaped by my childhood beginnings. Today, as I thought more about this, I realized that this moment in my life – when my grandfather began abusing me – was also a beginning.

Every person who has been abused or experienced a trauma remembers that first moment when the ground shifted and life became, well, different. To be sure, there were a ton of lessons learned, but the two that shaped me the most were that being vulnerable only leads to trouble and that I had to handle things on my own.

Undoing the lessons learned from this beginning has not been easy, and they still try to rear their ugly heads from time to time. Even so, I have made my way to the other side and found myself at yet another beginning! Today, I use all of the lessons I had to learn to counteract the effects of the abuse to coach others who have experienced trauma or abuse through the process.

To those who have been abused or suffered a trauma, I just want you to know that you’re not alone. It is possible to put to rest the lessons learned and to “reshape” who you are.

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Discover the 3 Stages of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

The road to recovery is much easier when you know what stage you're in and what to do next. Find out exactly where you are in your healing journey and what kind of support you need right now. 

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It’s Nothing But A Neuron…

Have you ever walked by a pie shop and, upon smelling a fresh backed pumpkin pie, been transported back in time to a fond memory of Thanksgiving? Or maybe caught a glimpse of a stranger with certain features and found yourself thinking about that girl or guy from way back when? How about a significant other who one day playfully wrestles with you, and all of a sudden you find yourself lashing out at him without really understanding why? What exactly is occurring neurologically and what are the implications for the recovery from the trauma of past abuse?

According to Daniel Siegel in The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are(1999, Guilford Press), “understanding how trauma affects the developing brain can yield insights into the subsequent impairments of memory processing and the ability to cope with stress.” Before exploring the impairments and coping he refers to, let’s take a quick look at how memories are created and recalled in the first place.

There is a saying -- neurons that fire together, wire together. When we have an experience, neuronal pathways are created in the brain by neurons firing and connecting to create a neural net. When we smell the pumpkin pie, what is actually happening is that a particular neuronal pathway is ignited. This neural net has now been modified in that it holds the initial memory of Thanksgiving with family and now the time walking by the store and experiencing the same smell. Thus, the neuronal pathway is expanded and reinforced by the reactivation.

Now, consider the implication if, instead of the warm smell of pumpkin pie, the experience is trauma or fear. As Siegel points out, with “chronic occurrence, these states can become more readily activated (retrieved) in the future, such that they become characteristic traits of the individual. In this way, our lives can become shaped by reactivations of implicit memory, which lack a sense that something is being recalled. We simply enter these engrained states and experience them as the reality of our present experience.”

This is what Siegel means by “impairments of memory processing.” You respond to your significant other in the moment with fear and anger thinking that what he is doing is the problem, when, instead, a neuronal pathway has been triggered and the implicit memory of your abuser restraining you is activated. This is what you are responding to in reality. The same thing occurs in response to stressors. If our experience starts to make us feel trapped or scared, we may respond in the same way we did when needing to survive the abuse rather than in a way that actually addresses the present day stressor.

So then, are we always to be held hostage by these firing neurons? Absolutely not! “Each day is literally the opportunity to create a new episode of learning, in which recent experience will become integrated with the past and woven into the anticipated future” (Siegel). Neurons can be re-wired!

Perhaps the first step is to simply absorb the fact that many of our present day responses, thoughts, emotions are nothing but a neuronal pathway lighting up! Recognition of this creates space for the individual to consider the possibility that what they think or feel is going on may not be what is, in fact, really happening.

Secondly, as Siegel states, when one is able to inhibit the engrained state and respond to a situation, trigger, or stressor in a new way, that neuronal pathway will be adapted. The more frequently this occurs, the more modified the neuronal pathway becomes, and the behavior, thought, or emotion that is produced is also modified.

Finally, from my experience coaching women who have been sexually abused or raped, the ability to actually respond in a new way comes as a result of, first, identifying simply what is actually happening without adding any emotion or interpretation. Next, by looking for all of the possible explanations (not just the ones that reinforce the ideas we already have), one can then respond in a considered manner based on these reflections rather than on the initial gut (neuronal) instinct. Hence, a new response occurs and the neuronal pathway is modified.

While the brain is a very complex system and much of the neuropsychological research has produced mostly conjectures and theories at the present time, for anyone in recovery and/or striving toward lives that are thriving, understanding how abuse impacts brain development and memory can only support you in your journey.

Whenever I am coaching someone around issues of trauma - regardless of whether it be sexual abuse, physical abuse, or divorce, using techniques to retrain the brain is ways a part of what I do! If you'd like to explore Trauma Recovery coaching as a way to overcome the patterns of thoughts and behaviors that often develop as a result of abuse, just schedule a call!

How it all began...

I didn't set out to be a Trauma Recovery & Relationship coach. I thought I'd end up as a high school English teacher! but, in 2007, I developed a workshop, Beyond Surviving, for those who have been sexually abused. After seeing the impact the workshop had on the recovery of some amazing people, I was inspired to take on this work full-time.

I decided to go back to school, and, in fact, completed my Masters in Counseling Psychology in April 2011. While in school, I decided that I wasn't interested so much in traditional therapy and much preferred the techniques used in coaching. It was important to finish the masters even so, because I felt that, with this training in human behavior and cognitive development, I could provide a distinct perspective and approach for my clients while using coaching as opposed to therapeutic models.

In addition to working towards my degree, I found a mentor and set to work building Rachel Grant Coaching. I'm focusing on trauma recovery and/or relationships - they seem to go hand in hand. You can check out my website for more information and to sign up for a free discovery session! 

One of my main goals is to support people in leading powerful lives! With passion and insight, I guide my clients in identifying and then stripping away the patterns of thought and behavior that have been keeping them from recovering from past trauma, making changes in their lives or relationships, or achieving their goals.

It's amazing work, and I love that I get to use my time, energy, and resources in this way!