welcome to emotional feelings continued

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looking within: thoughts & thinking
looking within: am i an abuser or abusive?
looking within: are you the one who abandons others?
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coping mechanisms
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communication continued
temperment & personality
family dysfunction

abandoned continued

abandonment continued....
 
to go back to abandonment at the emotional feelings site - click here

S.W.I.R.L. is an acronym which stands for the 5 stages of abandonment: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage, & Lifting - introduced in JOURNEY FROM ABANDONMENT.

1: SHATTERING - Your relationship is breaking apart. Your hopes & dreams are Shattered. You're devastated, bewildered. You Succumb to despair & panic. You feel hopeless & have Suicidal feelings. You feel Symbiotically attached to your lost love, mortally wounded, as if you'll die without them. You're in Severe pain, Shock, Sorrow. You've been Severed from your primary attachment. You're cut off from your emotional life-line.

2: WITHDRAWL - painful Withdrawal from your lost love. The more time goes on, the more all of the needs your partner was meeting begin to impinge into your every Waking moment. You're in Writhing pain from being torn apart. You yearn, ache & Wait for them to return. Love-withdrawal is just like Heroin withdrawal - each involves the body's opiate system & the same physical symptoms of intense craving. During Withdrawal, you're feeling the Wrenching pain of love-loss & separation - the Wasting, Weight loss, Wakefulness, Wishful thinking & Waiting for them to return. You crave a love-fix to put you out of the WITHDRAWAL symptoms.

3: INTERNALIZING - you Internalize the rejection & cause Injury to your self esteem. This is the most critical stage of the cycle when your wound becomes susceptible to Infection & can create permanent scarring. You're Isolated, riddled with Insecurity, self- Indictment & self-doubt. You're preoccupied with 'If only regrets' - If only you'd been more attentive, more sensitive, less demanding, etc. You beat yourself up with regrets over the relationship & Idealize your abandoner at the expense of your own self Image.

4: Rage - the turning point in the grief process when you begin to fight back. You attempt to Reverse the rejection by Refusing to accept all of the blame for the failed relationship & feel surges of Rage against your abandoner. You Rail against the pain & isolation you've been in. Agitated depression & spurts of anger displaced on your friends & family are common during this turbulent time, as are Revenge & Retaliation fantasies toward your abandoner.

5: LIFTING - your anger helped to externalize your pain. Gradually, as your energy spurts outward, it Lifts you back into Life. You begin to Let go. Life distracts you & gradually Lifts you out the grief cycle. You feel the emergence of strength, wiser for the painful Lessons you've Learned. And if you're engaged in the process of recovery, you get ready to love again.

A word of caution: When you Lift, it's important to take your feelings with you. Otherwise you Lose CONNECTION with yourself once again, creating an internal barrier to others.

You S.W.I.R.L. thru the stages over & over within an hour, a day, a month, sometimes a period of years - cycles within cycles - until you emerge out the end of the funnel-shaped cloud, a changed person, better able to find love than before.

HELP is available. Each stage of the SWIRL process is explored in depth in JOURNEY FROM ABANDONMENT TO HEALING & workbook exercises are provided for each stage in JOURNEY FROM HEARTBREAK TO CONNECTION.

visit this website & read the author's message....it's very meaningful.

experience your feelings with all of your senses
experience your emotions with all of your senses
write it all down, it's wonderful therapy...

an important personal note: I have to thank the above author for her forethought & presence of mind in writing her descriptions of her pain & agony. This pain & agonizing she writes about is so indescribable that when I find by chance a very close description, I must stop, feel my own old pain, scabbed over, crusty, partly healed - but still fresh in my memory.
 
I remember feeling such intense pain that my inhalations were extremely long, drawn out, like swallowing a blazing fire down your throat, a sharp squeezing sound emerging into the quiet room, and chopped sobbing exhalations, continually over and over again as my body tensely stretched over the bed sheets. Contorted arms, legs, neck, jaw... all stretched out against the grain, the wrong way & stuck in those painful positions. Distorted facial expressions cast upon my face, unable to close my eyes, such terror filling them they gaped, wide, wildly searching for the "whys" in my terror filled experience of loss.
 
There isn't a single description that says, "lost love" adequately. Some come close, but how can you describe losing a part of you? How do you describe breathing life into your dead body? It's impossible for anyone to touch your hurt, pain, your amputated love. Someone just took something priceless from you. It was stolen. You were robbed of what you could not lose.
 
I so honor your pain. It's my faith in the Lord that is holding me still, embossed feelings in my heart of loss, healing over, but beneath the scab, the wound will always be raw. There is no relief for stolen love.
 
kathleen

experience your feelings with all of your senses
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abandonment

the result of divorce or infidelity

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When I was 20, my father told me he was leaving my mother.

 

He had the bad judgment to announce this fact to me just before we walked down the aisle on my wedding day.

 

(He belongs on the self-absorbed page.)

abandonment, through divorce or infidelity?

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Not long after, my father divorced my mother, he married another woman & moved away.

 

This dissolution of my original biological family happened very quickly. I was busy with my own life & career & thought there'd still be time to have a relationship with my father, if only a changed one, in the years ahead.

 

We always think there'll be time to sort things out, but sometimes there isn't.

 

I saw my father only 1 more time. It was on a day when he'd had so much to drink that I worried for his safety in driving. Later he wrote to tell me of his deep dissatisfaction with our relationship & that I clearly wasn't accepting him & his new wife. I'd tried in every way possible to tell him & show him just the opposite.

 

I wanted him in my life under any circumstances.

 

I heard from him just 1 more time, after my son was born. Somehow, he'd heard he had a grandson & he sent a gift. He told me in the note not to try contacting him, but at 26, I was certain this new correspondence meant a fresh start.

 

My letter to him came back marked, "Addressee unknown." And that was the end of the story. 

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For years I didn't think about him

& then I thought about him all the time. I had such a deep heaviness because he deserted me.

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I wanted to walk with him in the woods, arm in arm & feel his strength & wisdom as I got old. I wanted my children to know him, to laugh & cry with him. I missed him so deeply.

As my spiritual life grew, I was able to begin to see how I'd compensated for my loss of a father as protector by wanting my husband to play that role, or other friends or work colleagues.

Still, I didn't know what to do with the emptiness. Just as I'd think I had it handled, the tears would again well up in my eyes & I'd feel that deep searing pain in my heart.

 

Our deepest pain doesn't go away, but it can be healed. We know intellectually the circumstances or fears that kept others from responding to us in the way we needed. It's more difficult to see our own fears that hold past pain in front of our eyes, preventing us from a truly new beginning.

 

Simon told me that he'd been raised in an orphanage & when he finally hit the street at 18, he got in with the wrong crowd.

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He wanted to make some easy money quickly to feel that he was important & land at the top of the heap because he was smart.

 

One bad debt led to an even deeper debt & he found himself living a series of complicated lies to avoid jail or worse.  

 

This was 20 years ago & yet today he finds himself in a similar situation, never being able to shake the poverty that follows him & remaining unable to be clear & honest with himself about his needs & genuine intentions.

 

Every healing modality in the pages of today's magazines recognizes the need to do something positive with the feelings that belittle us & slide us away from genuine belief in ourselves.

 

While we know that loving ourselves in different, more spiritually intimate ways is the path to healing, we still find it difficult to forgive others & ourselves.

 

The many new age philosophies & techniques give us hope for a while & then we find ourselves back in the same morass.

 

My experience, both personally & professionally as an intuitive healer & spiritual mentor, is that love takes many shapes in our lives to help us live authentically.

 

Love as Wisdom is necessary for us to be able to apply it in new ways to finally find resolution to old blocks. Like climbing a rope, we must keep putting one hand over the other, which means finding new ways to treat our pain with loving-kindness so that we may slowly learn to live in the center of a new, more meaningful story.

 

But we must also wrap our feet around the rope as we climb upward, in order to keep from sliding backwards. This grip with our foot represents the means we have to apply wisdom as a salve to old heartaches.

 

I call this wisdom process finding the blessing in the challenge.

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We never think to look for the jewel in the dung heap.  Instead we take the remains of old painful experiences & continue to return to them with each new violation.  
I began to use internal dialoguing, spirit-to-spirit, to try to heal my pain & to help my clients.  
 
With my father, I chose a time when I was alone in the house. I lit a candle & sat down with the lights dimmed. I put his picture in the chair across from me. I let the full scale of emotions well up & spill out of my mouth.  
 
I didn't try to curtail my what's really making you angry? or grief. I didn't tell myself my feelings weren't true or that I shouldn't feel this way. I did feel this way & I needed to grieve this deep loss.  
 

I let him know how angry I was, how much he had hurt me & that his leaving the Earth without ever needing to find me to set things right had left me feeling irrevocably scarred.

 

Then I put my hand over my heart, which gradually allowed me to move inside to a quieter & truer space.

 

Slowly I felt calmer & could find a small feeling of loving for myself from my true spirit self. From this new center, I asked my father to tell me what was in his heart.

 

His real self, his spirit said, I think you're beautiful & I was always so proud of you, I just never said so. I thought you knew it. I saw no one, not you, your brother, or your mother over the edge of my own pain.

 

Can you forgive me? Like a terrible blister bursting, I sobbed, "Yes, Yes, oh Yes!"

 

I'd found the blessing of self-acceptance thru his words, honoring me, letting me know that he'd loved me after all.

 

I've been deeply touched by the way people handle pain & loss as well as unsteadiness, fear & resistance.  

 

We judge others actions, being unwilling to consider that our perception is what keeps us in pain, no matter the circumstances of the situation. There's no such thing as right & wrong in our memories. We all feel we're right & justified in our actions & attitudes.

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Still the pain continues because we've not found the blessing that may not feel good, but does well by connecting us to a more loving & forgiving place in our own heart. Our soul space lets us see a part of our authentic nature that's been growing all along, even under the pain & confusion of all the years we've suffered.

 

Stan was a powerful example of old pain, but also an example of the inability & the fear that prevents us from finding the jewel in the old experience. He was an extremely successful internist who lived with his wife on a magnificent farm. His wife raised prize Golden Retrievers to show.

 

But he was dirt miserable. He felt his marriage was a joke; he worked insane hours because he felt some satisfaction in his work & he was afraid to find what he loved.

 

He knew that cutting back on the work meant less money in the short term. He wanted the opulent lifestyle & he also hated his impotence in being unable to take the steps necessary to find why he couldn't feel love & heal it.

 

He commented one afternoon how a patient's young wife, in appreciation for his saving her husband's life, had kissed him on the cheek.

 

He got very quiet & his voice almost disappeared from the other end of the phone as he continued, I wanted so much to feel that love, I just couldn't. He was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor.

 

Our journey is to find an inner steadiness so that we can apply our new wisdom, the blessings from the challenges, to bringing love into our families, our friendships & our careers.

 

This steadier authentic part is our Divine Presence. We usually don't stop to reflect on this understanding, that we have something quite as grand as Divine Presence with us, in us, guiding us, as our essential self.

 

Yet, with time & practice we begin to inquire into the nature of God & the way our life came into being & where we go when we leave this life. We have a deep & lasting need to find The Creator in some way.

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Without a Creator-presence in our lives, something that we trust that holds the reigns of our life & those we love, we easily run away with our own importance.

 

We're meant to ask the questions that we feel we need to understand to feel secure & in control. But life shows us that we can manage to be happy even without the control we think we need.

 

Finally thru the maze of life's sharp turns from joy into grief, from loss into happiness, we need to find what we can believe in that's ours to manage & ours to develop.

 

As we finally come to see that we can control the state of our happiness by our ways of looking at circumstances, we're shocked. We assume happiness comes from outside of us & that well always be at the mercy of other people & the randomness of actions.

 

I've cried as I've sat with a person whose vibrant life slowly ebbed away & I've celebrated with a person's first important step toward self-acceptance.

 

But for all the memorable, life-shifting times with friends & clients, I'm continually reminded that the ordinary day-to-day hurts are what mount up inside. Unresolved emotional pain grows into a mountain, blocking our energy.

 

Unresolved emotional pain  is uncomfortable & a serious liability as it creates serious physical trauma. Taking the time to clean up those old sufferings does a great deal to help us find renewed energy & self-acceptance. Empowerment is, a spiritual choice to be happy.

 

To heal the traumas that bedevil you, take a quiet evening & gift yourself the ceremony of a lifetime, Finding the Blessing in the Challenge.

 

You may do this experience a number of times or just one time may be enough. Be prepared to find forgiveness, replenishment & renewal.

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Here are some things you can do to prepare:

 

Create a setting where you'll be alone & not disturbed.

 

Use candles, music or incense to help create the sacred feeling that you want.

 

Put a picture or the belongings of the person you wish to dialogue with in front of you. It makes no difference if the person is alive or passed on.

 

When your mind asks you, "How can you know if the person is really saying healing things to you?" tell your mind to move thru this ceremony as if it were true.

 

Thru our intention we easily call the energy of others spirits to us. You'll be talking to the person you need to share healing with. The experience itself will convince you if you give it a chance.

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a parent or a loved one that you depend upon as a child doesn't have to abandon you physically to cause damage, they can abandon you emotionally as well....

who would've thought ?.....

the chilling truth

about the consequences of infidelity

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Infidelity
The Lessons Children Learn by Jennifer Harley Chalmers, Ph.D.

When a parent has an affair, what lessons are being taught to the children? What rules of life are being learned?

Julie was a happy-go-lucky 8 year old. She was at the top of her 3rd grade class, loved playing with her friends, riding her bike & drawing. Her parents loved her & she loved them.  

One day after school mom introduced Julie to 2 girls who were close to Julie's age. Mom said that she was taking care of them for a friend named Josh. Julie enjoyed playing w/the girls & looked forward to them coming again.
 

In fact, they'd come over quite often w/their dad. But it was only when Julie's dad was out of town. Sometimes Josh stayed late, long after Julie had gone to sleep.

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One day dad came home from his trip. As he was hugging Julie he asked, "How's my princess? What did you do while I was away?"

Julie started telling him about the new puppy that "Uncle Josh" brought to the house. Dad knew that mom had been helping someone with child care, but when he heard it was "Uncle Josh" he became a little suspicious.

"How often do you see Uncle Josh?" he asked. With a smile Julie said, "Oh, he comes over every day to help mom when you're gone." Mom looked at Julie with a stern face. But Julie didn't understand why she was becoming upset.

Her dad started asking her mom questions & their voices became louder & louder. Julie was sent to her room.

As Julie listened outside, her door she heard her mom say, "Josh is just a friend. Aren't I allowed to have friends? Why do you have to be so jealous?

Don't you trust me?" Julie finally heard her mom say that she'd never see Josh again if that was what her dad really wanted.

After a couple days, mom & dad started talking to each other & mom & dad seemed happy again. They all returned to their routine of life & Julie started to forget about that horrible night.

But the next time dad went on a trip; mom didn't keep her promise.

She told Julie that the babysitter would be taking care of her that night. But mom wouldn't tell Julie where she was going. As mom left the house she saw Josh help mom into his car. "Why is mom seeing Josh when she promised never to see him again?” Julie asked herself.

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When dad returned, mom lied to him. When he asked her if she'd seen Josh while he was gone she said, "No." But dad pursued the subject & continued to ask her what she did.

Finally she said, "I can't take this invasion of privacy" & that her life was "none of his business." She got up, started to pack her suitcase & gave Julie a kiss with the promise to see her tomorrow.

She left that night leaving Julie feeling abandoned by her mother.

Julie didn't understand what had happened. She thought it was her fault, maybe she'd done something to make mom leave & cause this terrible punishment. She cried inconsolably. Dad tried to soothe Julie but nothing helped. She cried herself to sleep.

The next morning Julie went to school but didn't say a word. Her teacher asked what was wrong, but Julie wouldn't respond. Her eyes just filled with tears.

When Julie saw her mom she cried & pleaded for her to come home. Julie promised to clean her room every day & wash & dry the dishes. But nothing worked. Mom didn't come home.

After a month mom changed her mind. Julie was so excited when she heard the good news. But her happiness turned to despair when she was told that her mom had forced her dad to move away so she could come home.

 

Julie had come to trust & depend on her dad in the last month & appreciated him more than she ever had in the past. Now she was about to lose a parent she loved & trusted all over again.

 

These experiences were only the beginning for Julie. In the months to come mom & dad would unknowingly teach Julie more lessons about life.

Children learn from their parents. Parents are the most influential guides in a child's life. Many will see their mannerisms & phrases being used by their child. Parents are more than models for mannerisms & phrases, they're models for crucial aspects of life:

  • A work ethic
  • Intimate relationships
  • Friendships
  • Domestic skills
  • Communication
  • Problem-solving skills

Lessons about life are being taught when a parent has an affair, lessons that they usually don't want their child to learn.

The first lesson a child learns is, " How to deal with emotional pain."

 

Children whose parents are experiencing marital conflict feel many emotions:

& Many other excruciating feelings....

 

When a child's losing the security base of a strong marriage they're bombarded w/pain. How's a child supposed to soothe their pain & the feeling of helplessness?

 

 

How does a child gain control in an uncontrollable situation? Out of the need to defend against these uncomfortable feelings comes a new rule about life.

 

"If a problem arises it's better to deny that there's a problem than to face it & feel the pain."

 

Julie came to believe this rule. She'd think,

 

"This is how married people lived. Nothing was wrong about this situation. There really isn't a problem here. Just look the other way."

 

A child can defend themselves from the bombardment of emotional pain thru the defenses of denial & justification.

 

But this new rule didn't help teach Julie how to solve crucial problems that would face her later in life. Instead of facing & solving those problems, she'd deny their very existence & look the other way as it would grow & eventually overwhelm her.

Julie was also being taught a 2nd lesson,

 

"How to lie."

 

In order to maintain a secret 2nd life, wayward spouses need to keep up the deceit. After Julie started living with her mom, she was asked not to talk to dad about Josh. She was further instructed to tell dad that she hadn't seen him.

 

Mom explained that it's better that dad just doesn't know "because we don't want to make him upset." Julie remembered how upset dad was when he found out about Josh. She didn't want him to get angry with mom.

 

So with this newly learned habit of lying for mom, came a 2nd rule about life, "Lying is allowed if it spares another from pain or spares yourself from punishment."

Another rule from this lesson on deceit is that, "Lying is allowed when it protects your privacy. Everyone has a right to privacy in their life, even if it involves hurting people behind their back."

 

Julie was told over & over that it wasnt dad's business to know what mom does. This was meant to justify the fact that mom was lying to dad. Although Julie's mom was a very honest & open person before the affair, mom became quite an expert at deceit & privacy.

 

Julie was watching her model every step of the way.

 

A 3rd crucial lesson is, "How to be thoughtless, doing what you please - regardless of how it affects other people." Julie would learn how to take advantage of her friends & family when there was something in it for her.

 

She'd learn how to disregard others' suffering because she had a right to enjoy life to the fullest.

 

All wayward spouses hurt the people they care about the most. 

 

Wayward spouses rationalize that they had to look out for themselves, which is why they developed the relationship outside of their marriage in the first place.

 

Their actions seem to benefit themselves in the short term, but it has disastrous effects on members of their family.

 

Marital discord is hard enough on children. It undermines the basic security needed for them to learn & grow. But to add infidelity to a troubled marriage turns a problem into a disaster.

 

Parents who have an affair are teaching their children very important rules that are likely to be followed for the rest of their lives.

 

It ultimately not only undermines their marital relationships but it also seriously hurts their own chances for success in most other areas of life.

Parents have a responsibility to teach their children the importance of:

But even after the mistake of an affair, it's possible to make a conscious choice to change the disastrous consequences. I've counseled many parents who could see what they were teaching their children by having an affair.

 

It motivated them to end the affair & explain to their children how wrong they'd been.

 

Although it was extremely difficult & very humbling, they weren't only able to save their marriage, but also able to correct the lessons they'd taught their children.

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emotional abandonment

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Emotional Abandonment: When Your Spouse Shuts You Out  By Dr. Dave Currie, w/Glen Hoos

 

It's a complaint I hear regularly from people looking for help for their marriages:

  • "I feel distant from my spouse."
  • "I try to get my husband to open up, but instead he just shuts down."
  • "My wife just doesn't seem interested in me anymore. I feel like we're a million miles apart."
  • "I don't know if I love him anymore."

What we're talking about here is emotional abandonment. Instead of physically leaving the relationship, your spouse simply checks out emotionally. They stop investing in the marriage, leaving their mate feeling detached & unwanted. To the outside world the situation can still look rosy, but in reality the relationship is dying a slow, quiet death.

How does a marriage reach this point? Sometimes it's a slow slide into complacency & other times it's a little more sudden.

Realize that if it's a sudden abandonment, there likely is some precipitating event or incident between the 2 of you that needs to be resolved.

On the other hand, if the deterioration has been more gradual, there are probably a lot of little things that have gone unresolved & are taking their toll on the relationship.

Here are some of the specific, primary causes of emotional distance between mates:

Unforgiveness
Emotional abandonment is unforgiveness taken to its extreme conclusion. When we feel that our spouse has hurt us & we refuse to forgive them, we look for ways to protect ourselves from being hurt again in the future.

Closing off our heart from the other person is an easy way to do this, but it has deadly consequences. Unforgiveness always leads to isolation.

Overcoming unforgiveness requires a willingness to humble ourselves & seek forgiveness when we've hurt our spouse & it also requires that we be willing to graciously extend forgiveness when our spouse has hurt us.

This forgiveness step is based on a desire to re-unite.

Callous Treatment
When I'm careless in how I treat my spouse, it gets old really quickly. Whether it's discourteousness, unkindness, or something worse, it creates hurt that may start out small, but can grow into deep wounds as it festers over time.

To avoid this, each partner needs to look at their own behavior regularly & consider whether they're treating their spouse well.

A mate, above all people, needs to be treated with gentleness & respect. Remember, your spouse is God's gift to you & they deserve to be treated as something precious.

Lack of Effort
Sometimes the problem is a little less obvious than unforgiveness or harsh treatment. It's easy, especially for men, to just assume that the relationship is going along just fine & so we don't put in as much effort as we once did.

We start to take our spouse for granted, leading them to think that they're not important in our lives. When the marriage slips from being one of the top priorities in the heart of one or both spouses, the other person feels abandoned. This causes them to feel unwanted & then to withdraw into their own world.

Lack of Time
Many of us simply try to pack too much into a day. Ruled by the urgent, we fail to make time for the truly important things like:

  • romancing
  • talking about issues
  • developing a friendship w/our spouse

We stay constantly busy, erasing quality "couple times" from our schedules. A marriage relationship can't thrive if our contact w/one another is limited to a quick bite of supper or a brief chat before bed. A good marriage requires weekly face-to-face time - both talk & fun.

Fear of Talking Thru Issues

Emotional detachment doesn't just happen out of the blue; there's always something behind it. If one or both of the spouses has an inability or fear of talking thru the issues in their relationship, then this kind of disconnect will be the likely result.  

Usually both know there's something wrong, but they're hesitant to bring it up because they fear their spouse's reaction. Or perhaps they feel like they've been thru this before & it hasn't helped, so why bother?

In these cases, there needs to be a clear second look at what it means to resolve conflict in a marriage - how to have a "good fight," as it were, that really bring things to resolution. Without these skills & a real courage to step up & deal with problems, the emotional detachment will just continue to grow.

  • Living in Denial
    A lot of times, when things have started to go a bit sideways in the relationship, we don't want to admit that it's happening. Often the person truly
    needing to make some significant changes is most content to deny the existence of any real issues.

We kind of live in denial, as if it's not really happening, or it's not that bad, or things will get better in time. But living in denial doesn't fix things; it only causes the marriage to deteriorate to the point where the couple just doesn't feel close anymore.

Working Thru Emotional Distance

The first step to dealing with emotional abandonment is to identify the root cause & to begin to deal with it. Don't settle for living in isolation. Ask God for more in your marriage & then trust Him as you faithfully try to make changes. Here are some suggestions for re-establishing a loving connection with your spouse:

  • Agree to Talk
    At some point you have to agree to talk about the problems that exist between you. If you're going to resolve issues, there needs to be a mutual commitment to listen to the other person's concerns & to work towards improving the situation.  Don't corner your spouse w/an unexpected lecture, but set a time & agree to start to work thru your issues.
  • Be Prepared
    Before you have the talk, take the time separately to think thru the unresolved issues that you'll be discussing. What are your concerns in the relationship?

In what areas do you feel you need to improve? What are your expectations of your spouse? To put your thoughts down on paper may be best, but either way, be prepared to be open & honest with each other about the real issues between you. Be sure to take the time to really listen to what your spouse is saying. Give each other uninterrupted time to share your view on things.

Don't allow things to get out of hand. Be committed to talk thru things sensibly. Take breaks to cool it if necessary but agree to continue. Ask each other the tough questions & talk thru the difficult issues that have been eating away at your relationship. Regardless of which partner initiated the wrong, you both need to work at resolving the problem.

  • Begin to Meet Unmet Needs
    Often a person pulls back from the relationship because, in their mind, their needs aren't being met. A healthy marriage demands that both partners actively work to discern the needs of their spouse & work to meet those needs.

Seek to understand your spouse's needs & ask yourself how you can start to better express love by meeting these needs. Make your spouse & sorting things out your new priority.

  • Deal With Your Own Stuff
    If I'm feeling
    abandoned by my spouse, I need to ask myself a tough question: What have I done to drive my spouse away? Now it may not be only your responsibility.

Nevertheless, you have to find out what you're responsible for & take ownership for your actions. Really listen to your spouse. Of course, there are things that your mate needs to deal with & they may be withdrawing from you for selfish reasons, but that can't stop you from taking the steps that you know you need to take. Both parties must be prepared to make apologies & extend forgiveness as part of your recovery from the emotional detachment.

  • Intentionally Re-engage
    If you're to re-establish your emotional connection, it won't happen by accident & it won't happen overnight. You need to agree to make your relationship a priority & spend some quality time together. Plan a few dates & put each other in your schedules. It's time to re-enter one another's lives again.
  • Act Kindly 
    This may not be a revolutionary new idea, but it can have that kind of an effect on your marriage. You must act
    kindly toward your spouse. Small gestures of warmth, acts of kindness & efforts to rekindle the romance between you will go a long way toward renewing your bond with one another.

Do this from the heart with real committment to make the necessary changes.

  • Love Unconditionally
    Somebody has to break out of the negative cycle of eye for an eye, poor treatment for poor treatment. You need to step out of the insult-for-insult cycle & respond differently. You can't control your spouse's behavior, but you can control your own.

Regardless of how your spouse responds, you must choose to treat them with love. This isn't easy to do when your partner isn't reciprocating, but it's what you vowed to do when you promised to love each other "for better or for worse." And nothing breaks down emotional barriers like unconditional love.

  • Allow God to Work
    I'm going to challenge you to ask God to change you. God wants your best & He'll always be ready to take full responsibility for any life that's totally surrendered to Him. That also includes re-engaging with your spouse & getting attached in love again. God wants that & He will guide you in that, if you'll allow Him to.

We've all got issues to work thru in our relationships. Whether your problems stem from bitterness, unforgiveness, dishonesty, lack of kindness, unfaithfulness, or something else, God offers you His power to enable you to live in a way that honors Him. There's no doubt in my mind that God wants your marriage to work & that you desire to have warmth & a close connection with your spouse. That's His design. Let's go after it.

~ Dr. Dave Currie is the National Director of FamilyLife Canada. He and his wife Donalyn live in Abbotsford, BC, and are regular speakers at FamilyLife Marriage Conferences. Dave is also the host of Marriage Uncensored, a television program airing on NOW TV. 

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abandoned by a father....

can forgiveness be the answer to your pain?

 

 

Forgiveness Can Soothe Abandoned Son's Pain

August 10, 1998

 

I was born to unmarried parents.

My father left my mom & I shortly thereafter.

 

My mom married 8 years later & my step-father adopted me, legally changing my name to his.

 

I've never seen my father nor has he ever attempted any communication w/me. It seems obvious that he wishes to forget he's my father. I want to meet him, even if it's only once.

 

His refusal to have anything to do with me hangs over me like a dark cloud. I'm not seeking any money from him, but I'd like to know if he has any legal responsibilities toward me. If I meet him &

he does have legal responsibilities toward me, then I'd have the option to pursue him or abandon him after our meeting.

 

Perhaps then the clouds would start to dissipate. Can you help me find my father?

 

 

Father abandonment is never an easy thing for a child to overcome. Rather than merely a temporary set back, we're now coming to understand just how long lasting the pain can be of being rejected by one's own father.

 

Even when the child has never known the father. Luckily, this child seems to have a mom & a step-dad who care about him.

 

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be enough. So he lives continually yearning for his father's return, hoping that by meeting his dad someday he can take a certain measure of control over the situation; hoping that after meeting his dad he can finally reject him, rather than the other way around. How sad. This letter makes me want to cry.

 

But I'm a psychologist. I'm supposed to be dispassionate about these things. I was asked for advice. So here it is.

 

Concerning your question as to any legal responsibilities your father may have toward you, the answer is probably none.

 

You state that your step-dad legally adopted you when you were 8 years old. For a legal adoption to occur, the biological parents' (in this case your biological father's) parental rights must first be terminated. W/the termination of those parental rights also comes the termination of any legal parental responsibilities toward the child.

 

Consequently, when your step-father adopted you, your biological father's responsibilities toward you ended.

 

Before you begin searching for your father, I suggest you read a book by former Chicago Bears' linebacker & NFL Hall of Famer Michael Singletary. The book is called Daddy's Home At Last (Zondervan Press, 1998).

 

As he recalls in this book, upon winning the Super Bowl rather than feeling ecstatic, he went home with an empty feeling. He eventually came to realize that what was blocking him from being experiencing happiness, was unresolved anger at his father for having abandoned him when he was a child.

 

Even more importantly, he discovered that it was only after he was able to forgive his father that he was truly able to enjoy life & fully commit himself to being a father to his own children.

 

As Mike Singletary discovered, sometimes forgiveness is the only way of letting go of the pain of rejection.

 

So my best advice to you is this: try to forgive your father. Yes, he was irresponsible. Yes, he should have stuck around. Yes, he should have called. But he didn't. Who knows why. There's not much you can do about it anyway.

 

Instead of harboring painful feelings of rejection, understand that your father was a fallible human being, just like the rest of us. Learn to forgive him for his humanness & your dark clouds may finally lift.

 

That is my wish for you.

 

I have one more wish. I wish that each & every unmarried man on the prowl for sexual conquests would put a copy of this letter in his wallet, right there next to the condom. Then the next time he feels like pulling out that condom, he first reads this letter.

 

Maybe that would make a few of them realize that casual sex can result in an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And an out-of-wedlock pregnancy can lead to a situation like yours. Maybe that would mean fewer kids desperately trying to make those dark clouds go away.

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fear of abandonment
can support negative coping methods

Quench Your Real Thirst ?

College binge drinking, getting drunk. Can it become a substitute for close, satisfying relationships with others? By Judy Clark

 

One summer in Colorado, a friend & I met some runaways from New Mexico. They dropped out of high school & wandered around dancing & holding out a cup for money.

 

At first glance, you might think they were wasting their whole lives. But after I spent a couple hours with Gabriel, Sean, Matt & Peter, I realized they were living out something most people long for.

 

These guys had little money, no shelter, dirty torn clothes & barely enough food to stay alive. My friend & I invited them to dinner. We sat in a diner & watched the 4 of them devour hamburgers, burritos & shakes & listened to their stories.

 

I realized they were a community. They looked out for each other.

 

If one got something, he shared it. One guy only ate half his food because he wanted to share the rest w/a buddy who wasn't w/us. They talked about watching each others' backs. They were parents to each other. They really loved each other.

 

They talked about being afraid, missing their moms, feeling abandoned, being hungry. They were living in a way that I'd never choose, but they had something that many clean, educated, "acceptable" people don't. They had each other. They had real relationships. They were connected 

Unleash your real emotions, telling the person, whether friend or enemy, what you feel. Don't hold back.

 

Put your hand over your heart, the center of your chest & quiet down. Find a loving space inside.

 

Ask the other persons true self, soul self, what they need to say from their heart.

 

Repeat out loud what you hear or merely write it down in a notebook that you have available. You can dialogue w/the other person but keep it at a heart level. Stop if you feel yourself climbing back into pain & begin the entire experience again.

 

Healing is both an art & a science. It's all about loving ourselves enough that we can find beauty where we've seen only misery & failure in the past. Healing is the experience of our living & not just getting out of physical or emotional pain.

 

Healing is the process of becoming whole, with the cracks & imperfections of our lives marking our courage, endurance, originality & grace, rather than only our failure & suffering.

 

Healing is feeling something precious in your heart that allows you to feel more love for yourself & to act with greater wisdom w/those you love.

 

Meredith Young-Sowers is a spiritual teacher, intuitive healer & the director of The Stillpoint Institute & School of Advanced Energy Healing in NH. For more information, please visit www.wisdombowls.com & www.stillpoint.org, or call 1-800-847-4014.

****Trying to leave no stone unturned****

An important point

 

Dialoguing: Communicating with the body or inner-child helps to reveal the root-cause contributing to illness or internal-conflict. This technique opens lines of communication between the mental, emotional, physical & spiritual body's.

 

Establishing better reception of messages sent from each of these bodies. Client's often experience less internal-conflict, which generates a greater sense of well-being & self-trust.

 

The Fear of Abandonment  read the entire article by clicking the link above... does this sound like you?

 

Melody was only 13 when her parents divorced & her father married the woman with whom he'd had an affair.

 

Then when Melody was 16, her dad divorced his 2nd wife. Up to that point, she had seen her dad regularly.

 

After his 2nd divorce, he cut off all contact w/her. (Abandoned her) By then, Melody had accepted Christ & her faith pulled her thru those dark times.

 

At age 28, Melody feared another man she loved dearly might abandon her.

 

Her husband, Cliff, was diligent & hard working, & he was devoted to their marriage. But he was quiet & often not emotionally available to her. Melody remembered her dad's emotional distance & it frightened her.

 

She tried not to worry, but she couldn't fight off the anxiety she felt about her husband. Even though he'd given her no reason to doubt him, she was suspicious of his activities, often quizzing him when he came home.

 

She couldn't escape the fear that her husband would abandon her just as her father had.

 

Have you ever thought, "I don't know why I feel that way, but I do?"

 

Community: Divorced & Separated

 

Left behind

When children experience their parents divorce & watch one parent leave the home, deep-seated fears of abandonment by the remaining parent often surface.

Who'll care, feed, soothe or love me if I no longer have parents, kids fearfully wonder?

This chronic fear can have a devastating effect on a child's development. The love & care of both parents is essential for the healthy development of a child who'll likely need extra reassurance after a divorce that they're still loved by both parents & will be cared for by both, even though one parent may not live w/the rest of the family anymore.

A child may not immediately express a fear of abandonment after a divorce, but parents can learn to identify behaviors that are a child's way of expressing his or her fears.

A child expresses fear of abandonment in different ways, depending on his or her age. "Children from 6 months to 3 years of age may be unable to be consoled they may cry or scream & nothing comforts or distracts them.

Older children may use primitive psychological defense mechanisms, such as clamming up, withdrawing & fantasizing about the parents "getting back together."

A child's fear of abandonment often remains until age 3 1/2 & then becomes less intense. Parents may not be able to immediately reassure a child that they'll never be abandoned again, but they can listen to their child's fears & provide honest answers that are appropriate for the age of the child.

Be honest with children, they can see thru subterfuge. Simply say, "Daddy's gone & he's not coming back." You don't have to get into a lot of details or explain further because kids will grasp it in their own way.

It's also important to reassure kids that the child was in no way the cause of or responsible for the divorce.

All children harbor a fear of abandonment. The fear only becomes manifest if a parent actually leaves, such as after a divorce. Unfortunately, some parents prey upon a child's fear of abandonment following or thru a divorce.

 

Whether intentional or not, parents may misuse those fears to control children by making statements such as, "If you misbehave, I'll leave." or "If you go to live w/ your other parent, I will not love you." (Which by the way is abusive behavior on the parent's part)

The impact of the fear of abandonment can be devastating & can last a lifetime. Often people never completely get over such fears & they may even bring them into adult relationships by transferring a childlike dependence onto his or her spouse, creating dysfunction in the relationship.

By paying close attention to their child's verbal & nonverbal communications, parents & especially noncustodial parents, can help allay their child's fears of abandonment following a divorce.

Below are a few suggestions that parents can use to reassure children that even though a parent has left the home, that parent hasn't left the child's life.  

  • When talking to children about divorce, keep it simple.
  • Don't intellectualize what's going on or give a long lecture.

The basic idea is to communicate that you & your spouse love your child.

 

They must be told that even though you have decided not to live together, you both still love your child unconditionally.

 

Christian parents can remind children that just as God never leaves us or changes his love toward us, they'll never abandon their child or quit loving him/her.

 

If your child says, "I miss you," say, "I miss you, too," but don't allow the child to leverage that affection against you. Children may try asserting control by making comments, such as:

·                                  

·                                 "If I can't see you as much, I don't want to see you at all."

 

Parents, not children, are the ones who set & enforce appropriate boundaries & ground rules. Noncustodial parents often try to do or buy things to win a child's affection.

 

Don't, instead, be in the present & listen to your child. Don't try to compete w/what the other parent has to give.

Attorney Howard Raab discusses the ways a divorce can affect a child even beyond the fear of abandonment in his article, "The effect of divorce on children" for Divorce Source.com.

Lesia Oesterreich, family life extension specialist in the Human Development & Family Studies Dept. of Iowa State University, writes about divorce from a childs perspective in her article, "Divorce matters: A childs view" for the National Network for Child Care.

Source: http://www.faithlinks.org/viewarticle.asp?ID=520

That's what we all want. We want real life. We don't want to be like the hamster who runs thru the Habitrail & spins on his wheel all day, alone & never getting anywhere. We want to relate. We want to connect. We want to be part of a community that takes care of each other.

 

My friend Rebecca recently graduated from Vanderbilt University. As she faced entering the "real world," she said to me, "I just want to be Amish."

 

Her comment had nothing to do with the religion & everything to do with the community. They have neighbors & families. They help each other build barns. They come to the rescue when someone is in danger.

 

Life is simple & slow & you can handle whatever is around the corner because you know you're not alone. Sounds nice, doesn't it? I think we're hungry for relationships that are lasting, full of trust & fun.

 

Many of us grew up in homes where our dads worked too late at the office to get another promotion so they could buy the Rolex or Beemer. Moms had college degrees & families wanted the additional income so moms worked.

 

Our parents lived under the same roof but that was about it.

 

Relationships crumbled & divorce rates skyrocketed. Whether it's Party of Five, Friends, Seinfeld, Mad About You or Cheers reruns, we love to watch people who appear to be connected. We desperately want that ourselves.

 

We want & need good relationships, but quite frankly, they're painful & risky. So, what do we do? Who can make me feel good? Who can I run to? Who can help me escape from a world of unconnectedness, if only for a little while?

 

If you're like many college students, you cuddle up with a keg or caress a bottle of J.D. The booze makes you feel good & relaxed. It's accessible & always there when you need it. It doesn't care what you look like. It makes you feel funny, attractive & accepted.

 

This relationship works for a while, but then you wake up. It's a one-night stand. It's not a relationship. People are hard to bond to but it's easy to bond with the bottle. It eases the discomfort that sometimes happens when bonding with others. It probably comes as no surprise to you that we go looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

Author & psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud writes,

 

"We all need love during the first few years of life. If we don't receive this love, we hunger for it the rest of our lives."

 

This hunger for love is so powerful that when we don't find it in relationships w/other people, we look for it in other places, such as in:

  • Food
  • In work
  • In sexual activity
  • Or in spending money. . .
  • Drinking too much
  • Working too much

Shelly, a student at the University of Alabama, said, "I can spend every night in the bars hanging out with my friends when we're drunk, but when I see them the next day on campus, we don't have anything to say to each other."

 

Shelly has relationships, but she describes them as superficial at best. Her real need to be connected to people isn't being met.

  

Ben, on the other hand, goes out drinking with his friends & the alcohol loosens them up to talk about what really matters to them. Their friendships seem deeper. But Ben says, "I need to learn how to be real without the crutch of alcohol." Dr. Cloud goes on to say,

 

"People are usually addicted to a specific substance, such as: Alcohol - CocaineSpeedWorkGambling - Destructive relationships - Religiosity - Achievement & Materialism."

 

These substances & activities never satisfy, because they don't deal with the real problem.

 

We don't really need alcohol, street drugs, or sex. We can live very well without these things. However, we really do need relationships & we can't live very well without it." (emphasis mine)

 

When I ask students why they drink, most respond, "It's fun."

 

On the surface, that's an acceptable answer. Beyond the fun have you ever wondered why you drink in the first place? Maybe it's a temporary escape from stress, the uncertainty about the future or pressure in social situations.

 

When you have good relationships, you don't need to find security in something else, whether it's alcohol, sex or food. When you have good relationships, you're less likely to try to fill the void with something else.

 

When you have good relationships, some of the deepest needs are being met. Dr. Cloud continues,

 

"Bonding is one of the most basic & foundational ideas in life & the universe. It's a basic human need. God created us with a hunger for relationship, for relationship with him & with our fellow people.

 

At our very core we are relational beings. Without a solid, bonded relationships, the human soul will become mired in psychological & emotional problems. The soul can't prosper without being connected to others."

 

How do we learn to have bonded relationships? That's another article or book. Begin w/being honest with yourself. Could it be that the reason you drink, or eat too much, or too little, or abuse sex, or drive yourself to perfection is because you really need relationships?

 

If so, there are plenty of good books on building relationships with people (including the ones by Dr. Cloud). But there's one key relationship that offers a genuine foundation for healthy relationships with people. Dr. Cloud talks about our need to be connected in a significant way to both people & God.

 

French philosopher & physicist Blaise Pascal says, "that within the heart of every man is a God shaped void that can't be filled by created things."

 

Can we have a relationship with the God who created us? Can we be connected to God? I'm not talking about a God who gives you a list of do's & don'ts. Or a big policeman in the sky ready to bust you at the slightest infraction. I'm talking about a relationship w/God that's based on love & truth & freedom & inner peace.

 

Just as drinking or overeating has consequences, so does rebelling against or ignoring God. You may not even notice the consequences but eventually they'll catch up w/you. God says the consequences are eternal separation from Him.

 

You're in college now, hopefully having fun, preparing for your future. It's hard to think in terms of eternity...but you never know.

 

My friend Steve, a 20-year-old guy, may not be alive by the time you read this. He's dying because he got HIV from infected blood. He has no choice but to deal w/eternity now.

 

God has made a way for us to know Him here on earth & forever. He did this by sending Jesus to earth, to walk in our shoes, & live perfectly. But that's not all. We deserved punishment for our sins, but Jesus willingly sacrificed Himself on the cross on our behalf.

 

All we have to do to know God is put our trust in the fact that Jesus paid for the junk in our lives that separated us from a perfect God. You can accept that & place your faith in Him or you can choose to reject him. That's your decision.

 

When I prayed to God, I told Him that I wanted to know Him & placed my trust in Jesus' death for me. I began a relationship w/Him. I was now connected to the God of the universe. When our relationship is tight, my life is different. I don't need to run around trying to find the next thing to satisfy me, whether it's money, drinking, or overachieving.

When I blow Him off, I wander around trying to find that missing ingredient.

I don't know what you're dealing with. I don't know how the symptoms manifest in your life. Maybe it's excessive drinking, sex or drugs. Or being compulsive about exercise. Or killing yourself to get straight A's so you can feel good about yourself.

These are all substitutes for our genuine need for connectedness with people & God. We all have that void w/in us that can only be filled by a relationship with God.

Maybe you'd like to start a relationship with God right now. All you've to do is just tell Him.  

He knows the desire of your heart & is much more concerned with that than He is with your words. You might want to say something like this: 

"God, I want to know you. I want to be connected to you. I've tried other things to fill my need for you & they haven't worked. Forgive me that I didn't come to you first. Thank you that you love me & want me to know you. I accept that you made this relationship possible thru Jesus' death. I trust you. Amen."

 

You'll find a relationship with God fulfilling & satisfying. When you're connected with God you have the foundation to build meaningful, lasting & significant relationships. Quench your real thirst.

 

Negative thoughts & fears

Perhaps you have a deep & constant fear of being abandoned 

Allowing such a fear to enter your body & your mind, keeping it playing over in an endless loop will no doubt attract many experiences of being or feeling abandoned.

 

As long as you have this fear, you'll continue to experience the "act of being abandoned" in many forms until this pattern is recognized, healed & released by you."

A Matter of My Opinion ....

Kathleen Howe

 

I find that after researching feelings of abandonment or the fear of abandonment, I can instantly identify with those that consider themselves, "abandoned."

 

I've pondered the percentages of baby boomers who might feel the same way. The reason being, it appears that as baby boomers, our mothers & fathers were totally inept in the concept of "giving us unconditional love."

 

Whether or not it was the fault of their own parenting isn't a factor, because I'm not wasting my energy on blaming them for it. The fact just remains, the parental factor of the baby boomer generation who were inadequately prepared for parenting especially in the matters of emotional well being; often left us, the baby boomer generation, feeling abandoned by anyone who was supposed to have loved us.

 

The baby boomer generation now in the throes of a well deserved "recovery period," after being set up for a lifetime of failure within our intimate relationships, are surviving, but still discovering open wounds surrounding our battered souls. 

 

Baby boomers, representing the startling percentages of divorced families in the US are finding themselves suddenly vulnerable again, as they were once, as children. A conglomerate of once miserable lives emerging into a new population of wounded & scarred individuals searching & struggling to develop or re-establish the identity they longed to form as teens, but were too disadvantaged to find.  

 

Surviving the false belief systems of our parents, whom we long to embrace, we find ourselves still pushed back away - often pushed back to maintain a distance of safety from "feelings & emotions," as they still haven't recognized the fact that we can't deny them. We're beginning to realize ourselves that theirs was a world of illusion, living for the sake of appearances, hardly a realistic concept to hold onto for security's sake.

We're now breaking free of the beliefs that were forced upon us:

  • "Children were to be seen & not heard."
  • "You shouldn't feel that way." (take that word, "shouldn't" right out of your vocabulary!)
  • "You have no reason to cry."
  • "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about."
  • "If you tell the truth, you won't be in trouble." 

to find that being human, we do have reasons to cry, to feel & be heard. We have needs that all humans have. We survived our parents demeaning us with their usual taunt, "If you tell the truth, you won't get in trouble," but shortly thereafter our owning up, would lean us over bended knee to extend the ultimate humiliation of pants down & soundly spanked; teaching us the pain of ultimate betrayal.

The unforgettable lessons learned as children from our parents' actions were tied into the false beliefs we've carried on as adults. Whereas when we were children, we lived in fairy tales. We memorized limmericks, fairy tales and nursery rhymes that promised us prince charming, happily ever after & fairy godmothers. Our fantasies consisted of skipping down the yellow brick road of life, to grow up, get married, have children without a single problem or worry.

 

Our parents perpetuating the unreality of these myths, by imposing their "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyles upon us. Everything was always fine. Everything was always good. Everything worth anything was about being happy. Everyone was comfortable. Everyone was alive. We were isolated from negativities in life. We weren't ever exposed to the realities of death, the poor, prejudice, intolerance or hatreds. Everything was always fine, dear.

 

"What's that? You hate Janie? Why no you don't dear! We don't hate people. We like everyone. We don't ever hate. That is just not nice!"

When our parents began to experience the waves of turmoil over the changing times, the new generation, the Vietnam war & the new acceptance of "doing your own thing," they found themselves unprepared for the hardships.

 

No one ever prepared them for relationship disturbances. Everyone had always had their roles, it was set in stone. Womens' equality rocked their glass bottom boats. A woman leaving her children to go to work was unheard of.

 

An entire generation of young adults reached out for the only escapes they'd seen their parents turn to, often "the bottle." After all, who didn't remember that the world stopped around 4 o'clock in the afternoon for happy hour? It was permitted, socially accepted self medication by almost everyone.

 

Drunks were accepted, although often frowned upon should they become disorderly, they were always protected. Men beating their wives was permitted, because the wife had stepped over her tightly formed boundaries, causing the attack herself. And the children of these parents always knew that something was wrong, but could never put their finger on it, because for appearances sake, parents never fought in front of their children.

 

Children, being kept isolated from adult social functions, never knew the extent of their parents escapism. When the bottle became an inescapable "need," often times, the responsibilities parents once held in such high regard & automatically programmed to perform, often fell to the wayside.

 

In many a home, the daddy's little girl, was suddenly put aside, no longer welcome in her daddy's lap, causing an overwhelming sadness, emptiness & depression. Open affection, giggling & tickling & the telling of grand secrets was forever banned in their kingdoms, as the baby boomer generation began to truly feel the grips of their parents' dysfunctional marriages.

I was one of those little girls, banned from daddy's lap, suddenly, mysteriously, only to think that an evil curse had been cast over our household. Should my mother bite into a red shiny apple, she might drift off into a dead sleep, only to be awakened by her prince charming, who had obviously - left the castle.

 

The open portal of unresolved feelings of shame, guilt & rejection combined with painful hurts & repressed feelings & emotions from our parents' steadfast rules already explained above, (children should be seen & not heard, you have no right to feel like that, you should be grateful for all that you have, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about...) began to roil & turn deep within our beings. Our stomachs hurt. We got headaches. We began to isolate ourselves, not wanting to play outside with our friends anymore, especially now that we weren't wanted, or loved, or acknowledged at all by our preoccupied parents. They didn't have the time or inclination to even tell us how we should feel anymore.

Then the sixties hit us, when divorce became suddenly acceptable. As if a great tsunami enveloped the shoreline of the Americas, couple after couple, neighbor after neighbor, wives & husbands across the entire spans of the United States became "divorced," causing the undoing of the American Family that we once appeared to have.

 

Fathers moved out to live with another woman. Mothers who had always stayed home with the children, had to get jobs. Some mothers, too overwhelmed with their inability to function in the workforce, were led to suicide, alcoholism & mental illnesses.

 

Single families began to struggle, as household incomes were separated into halves. Children were left alone at home to fend for themselves. Resentments, feelings of abandonment & desperate feelings of worthlessness became thrown into the open portal of childrens' inner beings. We didn't know what happened. No one explained anything to us. It was just the way it was, we were forced into accepting that our parents weren't together anymore.

 

We'd always had an inner instinct, intuition of sorts, knowing that our fathers weren't leaving us for another woman, they were simply attempting to fill their own selfish needs

 

Sometimes, if we closed our eyes tight enough at night, we could see our family the way it used to be. We dreamed of our fairy tale lives, knowing that someday, we'd find our prince charming & live happily ever after as promised. If we could only make it thru childhood.

 

With this tsunami, there was no federal or state aid. Are you kidding? Congress was too busy trying to swallow Ted Kennedy's excuses for Chappaquidic, to somehow protect his drunken misadventure of saving himself - to leave the woman to drown in her loneliness. Divorce was good for the economy it seemed.

 

No one came to the rescue of the idealized American family. Suddenly a whole generation of daughters were left fatherless. Sons became angry seeing their mothers crying & despondent, no longer an ally, only an empty shell, robotic & helpless.

 

Oftentimes, fathers didn't show up for visits anymore. It became months & months between visits. Our fathers remarried & had new families often forgetting their first ones. The baby boomers were beginning to realize how easy it was for them to forget us. We were stunned with the incoming waves of abandonment we felt.

 

Our mothers began to date. Then we were left with the dysfunctional remnants of teenage babysitters, who were angry, confused & impatient. It wasn't a pretty sight, but as we grew up, we kept filling our portals of all of our feelings & emotions that we had no right to have. We withheld our tears in fear of being given something horrible to cry about. We were now abandoned by both parents. It was a lonely existence.

 

The baby boomer generation is one of the largest generations in history. After wartime in the US, many young families had been expected to marry & replenish the earth. And when the replenishment became teenagers, we had big issues. Really big unresolved issues that revolved around that huge open portal of hurt & pain within us, now ruled our lives. We acted out. Free love, marijuana & peace flowed throughout the generation. We self medicated thru all of these means. Our developing identities & relationships were forever scarred before they began.

 

Roe vs. Wade was forced into action. How else could government allow this massive generation of irresponsibles continue to procreate freely? Social acceptance of all things once held contemptible, caused an irreconcilable mark on once held sacred family values & morality.

 

Yes, it happened that way. I was there. I was undeniably wrapped up in it. I was an alcoholic teenager who got pregnant. I'd been abandoned by my father. I'd been abandoned by my mother. I'd been abandoned by love. Humans don't work well without it, but strangely still, I didn't know what to do with any of it.... any of those feelings or emotions, I'd never been allowed to feel anything before. None of had been allowed; how extreme, an entire generation of emotional cripples... how extreme.

 

And now as the baby boomer generation comes close to retirement, we've open that huge portal of unresolved feelings & emotions. Some of us later than others, already experiencing multiple marriages, custody fights, parental alienation, alcoholism, drug addictions, oh the list is so long.... we're just realizing that we have been feeling unloved, abandoned & worthless.

 

A comparable example would be the young child, riding his bike in Beaver Cleavers neighborhood, suddenly struck in the street by a semi truck, leaving him or her, disabled, dismembered, emotionally crippled, but the child goes on. After his injuries heal, the child continues to plod on with life.

 

Suddenly realizing after an entire childhood of many disabilities, that there are missing limbs, horrible scars & frightening nightmares of the tragic event. The child is unable to cope with it all. The realization of an unrecognized injury is devastating to say the least.

 

Of course, this couldn't happen physically, but mentally it can. Our emotional dysfunction has been escalating throughout our lifetimes, leaving heartache & unbelievable pain without being recognized for what it truly was.

 

We're all existing in our dysfunctional lives, wondering what the hell happened to us. We were abandoned by our parents' generation, that's what happened. We were living in the land of the lost children, just like the boys & Wendy & Peter Pan. 

 

We lived with our false beliefs, distorted thinking & disadvantaged attitudes for so long that we just existed throughout our lives, coping however we could. It has been a painful existence for many of us. Very painful.

 

But now we know what happened. We're feeling like children again. Learning about truth, emotions, feelings, attitudes, tolerance, diversity, intuition, insights & so much more. There's resistance to change run amuck. Light bulbs are illuminating in the minds of an entire generation. It's an amazing transformation. It's too long in coming, but it's here now & we're embracing it. Long live the days of personal responsibility!

 

And now that we've begun to ground ourselves, recovering from our lifetimes of dysfunction, we have children who are either already grown or halfway grown. They've lived thru our enormous ineptitude as parents. They've survived, but they remain injured. It's our jobs as parents to correct our madness. We must learn to relay the messages we're learning daily.

 

It's up to us to re-shape their minds by introducing our pearls of newfound wisdom. We can't remain silent. We need to set them straight, introduce the seeds of knowledge that can lead them to emotional & physical well being years earlier than we've been afforded. If we fail in this venture, another generation will be affected. We must take on the challenge with open minds, warm hearts, with acceptance & hugging.

 

It's time to settle our differences, end our family feuds & conflicts, turn the world into an a peaceful loving place. We must sing of unconditional love. We must lead by the best examples possible. We must honor our changes as we make them.

 

We're no longer living the fairy tale, we're generating our own positive realities. 

Healing Abandonment Wounds

By Dr. Margaret Paul

I have counseled individuals, couples, families & business partners for the past 35 years & authored 8 published books. Every individual I've worked with has had some abandonment wound to heal & most relationship problems stem from abandonment wounds.

It isn't possible to grow up in our society without some abandonment wounds. The following are some of the ways it can occur:

  • Being torn away from mother at birth & put into a nursery.
  • Being left to cry in a crib or playpen.
  • Being given up for adoption or being left in foster care.
  • Being physically &/or sexually abused.
  • Being emotionally abused - ignored, yelled at, shamed.
  • Being pushed aside at the birth of a new sibling.
  • Having a parent or caregiver who is emotionally unavailable.
  • Being unseen or misunderstood by parents or other caregivers.
  • Being lied to.
  • Being unprotected by a parent or caregiver.
  • Being left alone in a hospital during an illness.
  • Losing a beloved parent or grandparent at a very young age.
  • Divorce.
  • Being teased or left out with siblings or peers.
  • Being ridiculed by a teacher.
  • Being forgotten - not being picked up from school or other places.
  • Being left at a young age to care for oneself, a parent, or other siblings.

When we're deeply wounded at a young age, we can't handle the pain, so we find ways to dissociate from the intense feelings.

Then, later in life, especially when we fall in love, these old wounds can get activated. Our beloved gets angry, withdraws, gives attention to someone else, says mean things, doesn't tell the truth, doesn't stand up for us, comes home late, wanders away in a crowded public place, misunderstands us & so on - & suddenly the pain that has been pushed aside all these years comes roaring to the surface.

We think that we're reacting to the present situation, but what's really happening is that the old, unhealed abandonment wound has been touched off. We might find ourselves suddenly enraged or falling apart with intense tears. Our reaction seems too big for the situation, yet we can't seem to stop the inner pain. We might start to shake violently as the old terror finally erupts.

We want our beloved to take the pain away by stopping his or her behavior. If only he or she wouldn't do the thing that activates these feelings, we'd be fine. Yet until we actually heal these old, deep wounds, we'll not be fine. We'll always be vulnerable to having these wounds activated.

Healing the abandonment wounds doesn't happen overnight, yet it doesn't have to take years either. Step one is to tune into your feelings with a willingness to take responsibility for your pain.

Once you're aware that deep pain has been activated, seek the help of someone who can hold you & nurture you while you go into the abandonment pain. If no one is available, hold a doll, bear or pillow & bring in love to the hurting part of you.

Open to your concept of God or Spirit & allow this source of love & strength to nurture you.

It's often not advisable to seek the help of the person who activated the wound because:

  1. he or she may still be stuck in their own wounded place, the place that touched off your wound
  2. you might become dependent upon your beloved taking care of you & taking the pain away instead of actually healing the pain

Once you're with a safe, nurturing person, or even on the phone with a safe person, hold a doll or bear or even a pillow very tightly & breath into the pain.

Open to learning & allow the Inner Child who is in pain to give you information about the original pain that's still stuck in the body. The body holds the memories that you repressed at the time & now the body is releasing these memories.

Many images may come up as you open to learning with your Inner Child.

Be sure you have your spiritual guidance with you, holding you, surrounding you with love & comfort as you open to learning about this deep pain.

In order to truly understand your present reaction, you need to understand what happened to you when you were little. Keep breathing deeply & allowing your Inner Child to inform you, even if you're crying.

Tell the person helping you what your Child is telling you about what happened to you when you were little. It may take awhile, but gradually you'll calm down. At that point, tune into what false beliefs you may have embraced as a child that are affecting you now & what else your Child needs right now to feel loved & safe.

Being there for your wounded child this way will gradually heal the abandonment wounds. Ignoring your feelings, trying to make them go away, or trying to get someone else to take them away will only serve to re-wound you. It's only when you no longer abandon yourself that the old wounds begin to heal.

Eventually, another's behavior that previously triggered your intense reaction will no longer do so. You may feel sad or lonely when a loved one gets angry or withdraws in some way, but as long as you continue to show up for yourself, the intense pain will not be there.

If the pain seems stuck in the body no matter what you do, then you need to seek out a practitioner who knows how to release old pain out of the body thru acupressure or other bodywork.

Once these old wounds are healing, you'll feel a new sense of personal power. Others' behavior can no longer trigger you into these intensely painful feelings.

However, a word of caution:

we may think it's healed, only to discover another level when we move into a more intimate relationship, or more intimacy with a present partner. The closer the relationship, the deeper the wounds get activated.

That's why the primary relationship is the most powerful arena for healing there is & Inner Bonding - the process outlined here - is a most powerful tool!

This article is © Dr. Margaret Paul and has been re-produced here with the author's permission

Abandoning Your Marriage

 

When my mother asked me, "What will you do if marriage isn't what you thought it was? What will you do once you know who this man is & you don't like him?" I remember thinking briefly, about 2 seconds of time actually, then replying...

 

"I'll get a divorce!"

 

I was dead serious. After 8 years of marriage, 2 beautiful daughters & feeling so alone, miserable, sad, lost & unloved, I got that divorce.

 

The truth:

 

Somewhere deep down inside myself, I knew that I was making the biggest mistake of my life when I married my first husband, but I was so hurt, angry & seeking revenge that I married him anyway. At 18 years old I moved 2000 miles away from everyone I knew to live with a man I had only known for 6 months.

 

My idea for what I would do after high school was completely opposite of what my father thought.

 

I brought him the paper work one day after school. I was nervous about facing him. I was actually really afraid. He was drinking, but he always was drinking so I didn't have the luxury of a sober moment, so I gave him the college applications anyway. I explained that I needed him to fill out the paperwork about the financial side of college. I told him that I didn't have a clue as to what to fill in there when his humiliating, intimidating, evil laugh bellowed out to fill the air.... I froze. I took one step back then, froze.

 

He stepped back as well. I was watching him, frozen where I stood, unable to move at all, I watched him very closely. A very small bit of druel seemed to fall from his mouth, as he sucked it back in with that horrible slurpy sound drunks make sometimes. His empty rocks glass in one hand, the applications in his other, and his novel tucked up under his armpit, he swaggered a bit while establishing his ground.

 

He looked empty, used up, old, tired & very miserable. His shirt was half tucked in, half out, his hair always looked greasy, his body was no longer the pencil thin frame he had always enjoyed, now he was lumpy. That's what he was, lumpy. His skin white & lumpy, he was what was left of a father that I no longer knew. Most of all though, he looked like an engineer. That's what he was. That's all he could talk about. He didn't ever come down to the normal level the rest of us lived on. He had become someone else throughout the years, someone that none of us really knew.

 

Then the words he spoke filled the air, stinging, biting words filled with animosity, intimidation, and anger.

 

"Who do you think you are? I won't even look at these stupid applications. Who do you think you are? expecting to go to college." he paused only to steady himself again, then take a deep breath to continue his tirade with a short mocking laugh, "Women don't go to college, understand? Women get married, they have a bunch of kids, that's what they're raised to do! Don't ever speak to me about college again!"

 

He passed by me, throwing the applications into the trash can. Turning only to order me away from him with his closing thought,

 

"Why don't you go meet some guy & do just what I said, now!"

 

As usual, I turned on my heel & ran quickly to my room. Forced to hold back any tears or gasps of humiliated disbelief, my father didn't allow the showing of emotions or feelings, my mother just complied with his wishes to keep him quiet.

 

Falling into the comfort of my quilted bed, my first pillow, the only soft place I knew, I sobbed violently. Choking back the loudest sobs, to keep him from barging into my room, offering to give me something to cry about...I forced myself to stop thinking about every going to college. 

 

the time went on quickly from that point...

 

Soon I had met the man I was to marry. It was a blind date set up by my brother. To this day, he's sorry he did it. But my brother was a caddie at the golf course & the teaching pro was a nice guy to score points with. He introduced us, we both liked onions on our hamburgers, as we ate lunch at the golf course, we discovered that we both had dogs named, "Jason." This was the basis for our relationship & I decided enough commonality to get married.

 

It was a good enough match for me. I set my sights, just 6 months later we walked down the aisle. 6 months later, that's all... just a few weeks & I'd done exactly what my father told me to do... I married the first man that crossed my path & I got pregnant. I married him & moved 2000 miles away to be that good wifey & mother as far away from my father as possible. 

 

Little would I know that the man I married would betray me over & over again.

 

He didn't love me. He only loved himself. And while I'd seen danger signs, flashing warning lights & knew deep in my gut that it was the worst mistake I could ever make, I still married him.

 

Before we got married he had tried to have sex with my girlfriends, succeeding only once. He was addicted to pot. He was a hot headed italian boy, a golfer. Soon after we met, only weeks, I moved into his apartment with him. One day I found out that he had been living with a girl for quite a long time before he met me. She had just moved out to go back to Florida, where he was from. I got pregnant just a few weeks before the wedding. 

 

I knew it would end in divorce from the first day we were married.

 

I can honestly say that I wasn't without fault; for who was I to tempt fate? I knew full well that my only goal was to accommodate my father's wishes. Ever since that day he had refused to help me get to college I had felt my spirit was slowly fading. I had begun to drinking heavily.

 

After the move, the 2000 mile move, away from everyone that I knew, I cried for days. My mother-in-law lived directly upstairs, over our apartment. And while Palm Beach was certainly a beautiful tropical paradise to live in, I was miserable. My husband told me that he didn't want to keep the baby. Actually, he was afraid it might be someone else’s. My brand new husband forced me to have an abortion weeks after arriving in Palm Beach. He became ugly & distant with me. I didn't really like him anymore.

 

I tried to back out of the abortion. My mother had already forced me into an abortion at 16 & it ruined my life. I left the clinic on our first visit there. He dragged me back there & spoke to the doctor, leaving no chance for misinterpretation as to why we were there. The doctor ordered a shot of valium & a few days before my first Thanksgiving away from home, I was forced to kill my baby. 

 

For the first year of my marriage, I was in total hate with my husband for what he did to me.

 

I got a job at Gucci on Worth Avenue! as a secretary. I didn't really have any skills to speak of, but I learned very quickly. I became a telex operator, did general office work & loved being at Gucci. I made some friends. That was nice. For the rest of our first year being married, we spent very little time together. I went out with my friends, drinking, dancing, partying & I just tolerated my husband.

 

Year Two....

We were moving to Burlington, Vermont for the season. I was pregnant with our first child.

 

I was crying, and all there was, everywhere I looked - were trees. Huge towering pine trees, that cast shadows out over the roadway. The moon was full, but there were no sidewalks, no houses, just darkness and trees. I kept walking, crying, sobbing, and knowing that I had asked for this kind of treatment, but it still hurt. It was all my fault. I was so angry and hurt. The police passed by and stopped, backing up after seeing a barefoot pregnant woman crying on the side of the road, they asked me if I needed a ride. I told them what had happened. They knew the lady that my husband was with. She had a drinking problem. Things like this always happened with her....

 

They took me to our hotel. We hadn't even found a house to live in yet.... that situation really hurt me. 

 

Our life continued like this for years. It was always something different, but on the same theme. I was lonely. I was always alone with the kids. He would work, come home, eat and go to sleep. We didn't have a relationship. We had some sex. But it wasn't love making. It was degrading. He hit me again. I kicked him out of the house. It was New Year's Eve. I thought the divorce would take place then, but it didn't.

 

But it did take place. When my girls were about 2 & 4 years old. It was ugly, I didn't know how to take care of myself, never mind supporting two children. It was a very horrible time in my life.

 

Twenty years later, I'd been married 3 more times. I never got it right until now. While recovering from all those years of dysfunction, I have come to some realizations. Those of you getting married, it's for real, it's forever. It's not as easy as, "I'll get a divorce if it doesn't work out."

 

It's just not like that. I was asked to speak to a woman who was experiencing some domestic violence. She had maybe four or five children. Her husband had no job, was depressed and she was fed up with the terrible way he treated her. She was a Mormon woman. I pondered and reflected upon the experiences that I had endured throughout my lifetime. What would I tell this woman?

 

What would I do if I could do it all over again? Suddenly like a lightning bolt of electricity, I knew the answer. I would have stayed married to my first husband. I would have worked things out with him. I would have worked things out with myself first, and then with him. I now understood that my problems with myself, were the most important problems facing me. If I had been able to figure it all out, I would have stayed in that marriage. After seeing what divorce does to children, over the years, I'd seen my own children suffering from it, I would have stayed married.

 

I would have insisted on boundaries. I would have insisted on counseling. He would have gone along with it. He didn't want to get a divorce. I just gave up because I didn't want to face anything back then. I just wanted to escape. I didn't know how to work out problems. I just knew, that I had to tell this woman, this Mormon woman, that she had to stay with her husband, work things out, it was the best thing she could do for herself and her children.

 

The Mormon woman listened to me. She thanked me and I went on my way. She stayed with her husband. Long story short, they worked things out. He straightened up. She ended up with breast cancer and he supported her thru it. The family endured. The family grew stronger and remained intact. It was a good thing to see her husband, smiling at me, shaking my hand, with a smile on his face, something I had never seen before. It was the right thing that I told her. Don't abandon your marriage. Marriage is about working things out. It's about staying together to fix it all. It's about growing up together. It's about admitting you might have some faults too.

 

She went to college to become a nurse. He got a job. They're very happy now or they appear so. She can hold her head up with respect for herself, she has dignity, she has character, she is a good mother. I believe she's doing well, even now, as I just saw her a few weeks ago. It's not easy being married, it's just one day of hard work after another, but it's worth it. If you keep the commitment.

 

I told my older kids this story. I openly admitted to them, if I had it to do all over again, I would have stayed with their father and worked it out with him. I would have done it for them, for me and for the marriage. I admitted the pain and heartache I had caused them in growing up in a divorced family. Then my re-marriages that they had to cope with. Their father remarried and that was a problem with the kids as well. I just told them, when you get married, it's for good, it's forever, so make your choice wisely. It's not even an idea that if it doesn't work out, you'll get a divorce. Divorce isn't an option.

 

The other day my daughter, who lives in Florida called me. She's my oldest daughter, 28, single, struggling; but such a great girl and she asked me if I remembered this couple that she used to be friends with. The girl had started using drugs, they had a couple of very young children, the husband was drinking way too much. Then the girl started having an affair. The whole marriage was a huge mess. It seemed like their only option was to get a divorce.

 

My daughter told the girl what I had told her about doing things differently if I had it to do all over again, and that I would have worked it out. She told her that I had been remarried, had more kids, and about all the horrible experiences that I had gone through. She told the girl about the feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, and so many others that she and her sister had experienced being separated from their father.

 

She told the girl about the abusive step father that I had provided her with. Her father's wife had kicked her out of their home when she was still in high school, only 16 years old. It's just been a huge mess. Their family on her father's side are all estranged from each other. She and her own sister were separated in a huge debacle thru their step mother, and remain estranged to this day.

 

She didn't hold much hope that the girl was even listening to her until almost a year later when her phone rang late in the evening. It was the same girl we had just been talking about. The girl relayed to my daughter that she had thought long and hard about their last conversation concerning her marriage. She just wanted to thank my daughter for her encouragement to stay married. She and her husband had worked everything out between them.

 

It hadn't been easy because they both had addiction problems. There was the affair that the wife had when they were close to splitting up that they had to have some marital counseling over. They both went to individual counseling. They got involved in a church. Their kids love going there. They got it all together, and were living happily, gratefully, and their children are doing so well. She wanted to ask my daughter to call me and tell me that after thinking about what I said, she knew it was true. She had to keep the commitment she had made when she got married.

 

When things are really bad, take a time out. Spend some time in some personal reflection. Where is your head at and where is your heart at? What are you feeling? What can you do to improve your own attitude? What can you do to show unconditional love?

 

Now don't get me wrong about domestic violence. I don't believe a woman should ever stay with someone who is abusing them. There is a point that if both husband and wife agree to go to counseling, agree to work things out, that they may be able to get things straight. I've been trapped into staying into a marriage rife with domestic violence.... it's not good. But if there is a willingness on both sides to make things right... get professional help!

 

Don't ever stay in a relationship if your children are in danger either. Things can be worked out over time, even in this type of situation, if everyone is in agreement to get professional help.

 

What I am saying is....

Before things get totally out of control, don't be quick to blame. Take the time to look within. Don't be eager to abandon your marriage. It'll mean more to your children if you can work things out. I know that it seems like the grass will look greener out of the marriage or with someone else, but truly... fix what you have if it's possible!

 

If you have questions about what I'm trying to say here, send me an e-mail!

 

Kathleen

Unresolved Abandonment

Unresolved abandonment - the source of our insecurities, addictions, compulsions & distress.

Unresolved abandonment - the insidious virus invading body mind & soul - the culprit for the anxiety we're forever trying to self-medicate with food, alcohol, shopping, people & a host of other self defeating behaviors.

Unresolved abandonment - the roadblock to reaching our potential - the invisible wound that drains self esteem from within - the hidden trap that keeps us stuck in patterns of self-sabotage.

Unresolved abandonment - the chronic insecurity that becomes the scourge of human relationship.

Unresolved abandonment - the internal barrier to fully connecting to others. Fear short-circuits our attempts to find love - we struggle to find & keep relationships. We become abandoholics.

Unresolved abandonment - the elusive grief so many seek therapy for & can't seem to overcome - an undifferentiated emptiness often misdiagnosed as depression & inappropriately medicated.

Sometimes its stress & agitation are persistent enough to create chemical imbalances that do, in fact, respond to drug therapy.

Unresolved abandonment - simplistic methods like 'positive thinking' or just going to therapy don't deter it.

Programs like Co-dependency, Alanon & Adult Child have attempted to assuage the erosion of energy & self worth caused by unresolved abandonment.

But for all of their positive 'affirmations', they haven't been able to address the system of drainage that lies buried within.

Likewise, Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon & Over-eaters Anonymous, etc. have been extremely effective in dealing with the addictive & co-addictive problems secondary to abandonment, but are unable to go beyond the symptoms & treat the underlying abandonment wound itself.

Self-help books have tended to have a placebo effect. They offer reasonable enough sounding advice, like "Find happiness from within." But these truisms are easier said than done.

Many abandonees feel inadequate when they try to perform them & aren't able to "Just let go" & "Move forward."

Unresolved abandonment - people continue searching for one more tape, one more lecture, one more book that will finally free them.

But all of the self-medicating & soothing words in the world will not eradicate the distress, disturbance & dysfunction caused by unresolved abandonment.

For that you must go beyond insight. You must take action.

Abandonment survivors need more than symptom management & feel-good relief. They need an approach that facilitates not the illusion of change, but real change.

This can only happen when you realize that the magic bullet isn't in any book or program. It's within you. It's you ability to integrate awareness with action.

Why do we carry a torch for so long when someone has broken up with us?

NEW SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH EXPLAINS WHY HEARTBREAK HURTS SO MUCH. Someone who leaves you becomes very powerful to your emotional brain. They become powerful simply by being able to inflict so much pain. Being left is perceived by your mammalian brain as an attack upon your personal being.

It etches an indelible impression in a primitive part of the brain that acts automatically to protect you. It conditions your mammalian brain to react with fear each time you encounter the person whom it perceives as dangerous to your well being. Acting beneath your conscious awareness, it maintains a constant vigil on your abandoner.

You experience this as being temporarily obsessed with the person. Your nerves are set to 'go off' if you should unexpectedly bump into them later on or see them with a new love.

This enduring emotional reactivity is known as 'carrying a torch.' You're confused into thinking that if the pain can last that long & feel so strong, the person must have been very special.

But this isn't so. You can feel this way over anyone, even someone who had nothing special to offer. It's just your mammalian brain efficiently trying to warn you not to make the same mistake again.

http://www.abandonment.net

Watch for your own, "blue light special!"

kathleen

 

Sometimes you feel as though nothing is helping you feel better. You read endless webpages, books & articles & find yourself identifying so perfectly with what is being stated. You can feel the authors fears, grief, sadness & easily compare it to your own.

 

Okay, I hear you. I know exactly what you're thinking & feeling. I'm still there with you sometimes. We wait. We read, we study, we try to implement new actions to encourage changes in our thinking.

 

Yes... I can absolutely acknowledge your feelings of frustration & deeper hurt as you begin to feel that your pain will be endless as well as your suffering.

 

But what no one tells us, perhaps out of simple oversight, is that as you begin to heal, you automatically change your old negative behaviors in such small & subtle ways that it's almost impossible to have them "reach out & touch you" for validation!  - that meaning, someone can look you straight in the eye & say to you, "I can understand how you're feeling. I can understand how painful it is for you. I can feel the frustration you must be feeling. I've been there before & it's very hard, is there anything I can do to help you?"

 

You'll be driving in your car, suddenly realize that you're feeling sad over a song on the radio. Without forethought, you've stopped your thinking, recognized what you're feeling, identified the emotion or feeling & you realize clearly without any hesitation, that you're becoming "aware" of what you're feeling.

 

Excitement begins to roil inside of your being. It's a slowly escalating excitement a cautious excitement, but it's really excitement. Excitement is something we don't usually have the need to feel. You begin to feel as though you're shopping in K-Mart & you hear the announcer say,

 

"Ladies & gentlemen, there's a blue light special happening right now in the lawn & garden department. Look for the lady that's realizing or recognized her personal growth!

 

Excitement is a positive emotion in this sense. It's a continuing realization or recognition of the chain of emotions & feelings being:

You see, it's subtle, very subtle. If you're not practicing concious awareness, you'll miss it. If you're not focusing on what's happening in your present moment, you may miss it. It's a combination of tools that are available for you to practice with that will allow you to finally feel good about something. That's how positive change begins to happen.

 

This positive change is also called:

Recognizing the positive change is considered encouragement. Celebrating the success & accomplishment is positive reinforcement & positive encouragement for more personal growth... keep it flowing!

It feels so good to realize that something good is happening inside or worn down, beaten, bruised & battered selves.  It's so empowering & freeing.

Feel proud of yourself. Recognize that you're deserving of approval & praise. You're making progress, slow but steady progress. This type of progress is actually what you want! You don't want that "quick fix" kind of progress that suddenly disappears with any small disappointment! You want the slow, strengthening flow of long lasting positive change, just like you've recognized recently within yourself!

Ponder these feelings & emotions. Think about each one of them. Separate them, join them & reflect upon their associations with each other. This is what recovery from negative life influences is about. It's slow & steady wins the race! You go, you tortoise, do what you know how to do!!!!

Another form of abandonment...

Dare I speak of it?

 

by Kathleen Howe

 

What will happen to me if I dare to ask these simple & yet very complicated questions?

 

What about the abandonment of the countless parents through the legal systems of the United States of America who are wrongly accused, blamed & labeled an unfit parent by abusive, angry spouses in ungy child custody battles?

 

What about the children who think their parent has abandoned them, when in fact, the parent the court has given custody to, was to blame for the lies, deceit & false representation given to the courts that led to the mental disintegration of the parent left suddenly childless?

 

What about the abandonment of a court system that states that the childless parent must pay child support to the parent with custody, when in fact, the money isn't needed?

 

How can that childless parent pay that adjudged support when in most cases that parent has been left so mentally damaged, that any attempts at holding a job are fruitless?

 

What about the child who feels abandoned by the mentally ill parent believing their entire life thereafter that it's a choice by the parent who is otherwise mentally ill, mentally incapacitated or forced to put distance between them just to survive each moment of each day?

 

And most importantly, where is the truth that has been abandoned in any of these situations? It is swept under a very thick carpet, because the injured parent will never speak of the evil & contempt that caused the parental alienation, separation & cause the child, even after grown to adult age, any more pain, suffering or heartache.

 

Those of you who feel abandoned by a parent, just continue to remember over & over again in your head, the abandonment had nothing to do with you. The abandonment wasn't your fault.

 

Any parent would hate to be separated from their child(ren). It's the evil within man that forces a parent to be separated from their child(ren). It's the evil within our system that allows it to happen. Believe me. It had nothing to do with you. It all has to do with power & control.

 

There's so much that goes unsaid in these situations. There are people who've been forced into situations they never dreamed they'd find themselves in.

 

There are parents who love their children so much that they feel it would be better to have a distance between them than to stay close. The child experiencing hurt, pain & confusion when parents take custody of children thru a custody fight in court is irrepairable sometimes. And the excluded parent who stays close by & involved with the child experiences so much heartache & pain that they can't bear it.

 

I know that it was so difficult to just see my son after relinquishing custody of him to his father & my ex-best friend. I wouldn't be able to stop crying. I'd be triggered into an anxiety attack. I couldn't talk. It was the most painful thing I've ever endured & time hasn't healed any of it.

 

He's grown now. He has so many misconceptions & lies about what happened in his head. I believe he thinks I abandoned him. I never did. I had to move away or his father would have caused him so much more pain. When my son was of age, 16, he told his father that he wanted to come live with me & his father told him, "If you go live with your mother, I will never talk to you or see you again." What choice did that give him?

 

We were so close. The pain of abandonment goes 2 ways. Sometimes the parent who leaves a child in this situation or other situations where the parent feels forced to leave, suffers from:

Socially sometimes they isolate themselves from everyone. It's a very painful & personal situation.

I'm not sure what else I can say to those who feel abandoned by a parent. Keep trying to re-establish a relationship if you know where that parent is after you're grown. Maybe your parent will be able to overcome the extreme hurt & establish a good relationship with you, maybe not. Be prepared either way, but the most important thing I'm trying to say is, "It's not your fault." And, there's probably so much more to your story than you know.... & your parent who's left you is probably devastated as well.

abandoned

by sanity?

 

 

*****important point*******

controversy reaches emotions.....

this is something very important to think about if you've been experiencing an anxiety disorder, depression or extreme stress from unresolved emotions & feelings... it's controversial - send me your opinions!

 

Abandoned by sanity, victimized by ignorance

 

By MARY JO MELONE, Times Columnist  © St. Petersburg Times, published March 17, 2002

 

The question is simple. The question is simple. When will we understand that mental illness is a condition, not a crime?

If we understood it, we'd know that Andrea Yates is 1 of 2 million Americans suffering from schizophrenia. That's nearly 1% of the population.

 

We'd know that schizophrenia is a brain disorder in which a sufferer endures hallucinations & hears voices, loses the ability to express thoughts in an orderly way, descends into deep depression & feels disconnected not just from the world, but his own body.

 

We'd know that the illness can be controlled, but rarely cured.

 

We'd know that in the despair brought on by this suffering, it's far more likely for a schizophrenic to kill himself than anyone else.

 

Yates, the Houston woman who killed her 5 children, once took an overdose of her mother's pills. She later said she "didn't want to die but wanted the misery to go away."

 

On another occasion, her husband caught her w/a knife poised at her own neck. "I had a feeling I'd hurt somebody," she said, " & I thought it better to end my life & prevent it."

 

Embedded in those words is the clear implication that she knew it would be wrong to hurt another person, at least in that moment.

 

But her rationality flickered on & off, like a bulb in a lamp with a loose connection.

 

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, the risk that a schizophrenic will hurt another person increases when he or she's in the grips of psychotic symptoms, seeing hallucinations & hearing voices, as Yates was.

 

The risk also grows when the schizophrenic is off her medication, as Yates was, at a doctor's orders.

 

Then somebody like Andrea Yates is propelled by uncontrollable forces that overwhelm reason & sense. Right after she was arrested last June 20, she told an investigator that her 5 children had to die so that she would be punished for being a bad mother.

 

No sane person would have uttered those words.

 

The guilty verdict was the wrong verdict, but couldn't be helped:

 

Our ignorance gets in the way. We don't understand mental illness, we're afraid of it, & we cling to the idea that a woman like Yates, who saw Satan everywhere, was nevertheless responsible for herself.

 

Andrea Yates had been treated for her illness for 3 years before she killed her children. She was in & out of hospitals. She was on & off anti-psychotic drugs.

 

Sometimes treatment worked. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes she told her husband & her doctors what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

 

Sometimes she threw up a wall of silence. She wouldn't speak, eat, bathe.

 

At other times, she was an avid swimmer, she had friends, she was a proud & enthusiastic homeschooler of her children, she was devoted to her husband. But always she kept secret the terrifying thoughts that had rattled in her head from the birth of her children onward, across the years.

 

This wasn't duplicity at work. It was a doomed attempt to fake her way to normalcy, in the desperate hope that the voices & the images would just go away on their own & she'd be all right again.

 

Having found her sane & guilty, the jury on Friday made the only humane decision possible, to put her in prison for life.

 

This is almost certainly too much to expect, so I'll express this as a wish:

 

We should use this case as a window into the world of the severely mentally ill & learn from it. We should learn that Yates, though a murderer, is a victim of her disease, not a cunning doer of evil. Let's look upon her w/mercy. If this tragic woman isn't worthy of it, nobody is.

Unresolved Abandonment

Unresolved abandonment the source of our insecurities, addictions, compulsions & distress.

Unresolved abandonment: the insidious virus invading body mind & soul, the culprit for the anxiety we're forever trying to self-medicate with:

Unresolved abandonment: the roadblock to reaching our potential, the invisible wound that drains self esteem from within, the hidden trap that keeps us stuck in patterns of self-sabotage.

Unresolved abandonment: the chronic insecurity that becomes the scourge of human relationship.

Unresolved abandonment: the internal barrier to fully connecting to others. Fear short-circuits our attempts to find love, we struggle to find & keep relationships. We become abandoholics.

Unresolved abandonment: the elusive grief so many seek therapy for & can't seem to overcome, an undifferentiated emptiness often misdiagnosed as depression & inappropriately medicated.

Sometimes its stress & agitation are persistent enough to create chemical imbalances that do, in fact, respond to drug therapy.

Unresolved abandonment: simplistic methods like 'positive thinking' or just going to therapy don't deter it. Programs like Co-dependency, Alanon & Adult Child have attempted to assuage the erosion of energy & self worth caused by unresolved abandonment.  

But for all of their positive 'affirmations', they haven't been able to address the system of drainage that lies buried within.

Likewise, Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon & Over-eaters Anonymous, etc. have been extremely effective in dealing w/ the addictive & co-addictive problems secondary to abandonment, but are unable to go beyond the symptoms & treat the underlying abandonment wound itself.

Self-help books have tended to have a placebo effect. They offer reasonable enough sounding advice, like "Find happiness from within." But these truisms are easier said than done. Many abandonees feel inadequate when they try to perform them & aren't able to "Just let go" & "Move forward."

Unresolved abandonment: people continue searching for one more tape, one more lecture, one more book that will finally free them. But all of the self-medicating & soothing words in the world will not eradicate the distress, disturbance & dysfunction caused by unresolved abandonment. For that you must go beyond insight. You must take action.

Abandonment survivors need more than symptom management & feel-good relief. They need an approach that facilitates not the illusion of change, but real change.

This can only happen when you realize that the magic bullet isn't in any book or program. It's within you. It's your ability to integrate awareness with action. AKeRU program & BLACK SWAN's Twelve Lessons of Abandonment Recovery are action-oriented programs which complement each other. Each is designed to help you get to the taproot of abandonment, access its energy & heal from the inside out. Abandonment Recovery resources are available thru the HELP CENTER.

resolving the

fear of abandonment

thru counseling

**** important point****

when we experience unresolved feelings & emotions in our lives, there always lies the possibility of extreme anxiety or nervousness revolving around those powerful overbearing feelings, (in this case: the fear of abandonmentto interrupt the normal flow of your life.

 

if you're experiencing continual & extreme distress over fear of abandonment in your relationships, you may want to consider seeking an evaluation from a mental health professional.

 

Therapy can help the fearful person overcome these difficulties with the "feeling of abandonment."

 

It's very important for those fearing abandonment to deal with the problem, so that he/she can enjoy a healthy social life.

 

(it's important that once you have identified an unresolved emotion or feeling that you begin "to act" upon the resolution of it immediately)

 

When one of the partners in a relationship is plagued by fear of abandonment, the relationship can't achieve its potential. That's because the person who's afraid can't give his/her partner the trust that's critical to a healthy relationship.

 

i.e., if a man is afraid that his wife may leave him, he may bend over backwards to please her. This prevents the 2 of them from learning the crucial art of "negotiation & compromise." At the same time the man gradually loses his individuality.

 

Or, he might try to hold onto his wife too tightly, by monitoring her phone calls, following her & becoming jealous of her friendships w/others.

 

She, may feel so threatened by his paranoia, or so upset at his lack of trust, that she does exactly what he fears & leaves him! At times, a person who fears abandonment will go to a perverse extreme of trying to control his spouse's actions & thoughts thru intimidation, threats or violence.

 

(intimidation, threats & violence should never be a part of any intimate relationship)

 

You deserve credit for understanding enough about yourself to recognize that you're afraid of "negotiation & compromise." At the same time the man gradually loses his individuality.

 

Or, he might try to hold onto his wife too tightly, by monitoring her phone calls, following her & becoming jealous of her friendships with others.

 

She, may feel so threatened by his paranoia, or so upset at his lack of trust, that she does exactly what he fears & leaves him! At times, a person who fears abandonment will go to a perverse extreme of trying to control his spouse's actions & thoughts thru intimidation, threats or violence. 

 

It'll take time & effort for you to understand the "root of your fear" & to learn how to move beyond it. We hope that you have the courage to take the next step of working to eliminate that fear.

 

When unresolved feelings & emotions escalate allowing extreme fears, unresolved feelings & emotions & anxieties to escalate can be a factor in precipitating a mental disorder..... 

 

Borderline Personality Disorder

(This excerpt from Intelihealth's website shows how the fear of abandonment can be a major factor in some mental illnesses. click the link above to read the entire article at intelihealth.com)

 

"These people, (those with escalated fears developed into a disorder) are described as having a deep fear of abandonment."

It's more difficult for them to manage the normal ups & downs of a romantic partnership. Impulsive, self-destructive behavior may be an attempt to ward off rising anxiety related to the fear of being left alone."

if you dream about

abandonment...

 

Abandonment Dreams  To dream that you've been abandoned, suggests that it's time to leave behind past feelings & characteristics that are hindering your own growth.

 

Let go of your old attitudes. A more direct & literal interpretation of this dream is that you have a fear of being deserted, abandoned or even betrayed.

 

Do you feel that people are neglecting your feelings? 

 

Dreaming that you're abandoned may stem from a recent loss or a fear of losing a loved one. The fear of abandonment may manifest itself into your dream & is part of the healing process of dealing w/losing a loved one. 

 

It may also stem from unresolved feelings or problems from childhood.

 

To abandon others in your dream, suggests that you're overwhelmed by the problems & decisions in your life. 

once abandoned?
facing the fear of being

abandoned again....

He's afraid that she'll stop dating him. What's the psychology behind this fear & how can he fix it?

I like the woman I'm dating so much & I fear she'll leave me. What's your answer, please?

You didn't give us too many details to work with!

Most people who're in a good courtship aren't preoccupied with a fear that the other person will leave them. 

Fearing abandonment doesn't mean that there's something seriously wrong with you. If you experienced a loss early in life & haven't yet moved beyond the emotions that resulted from the loss. 

 

i.e., we find that a number of men & women who lose a parent when they're young are afraid that someone else they love will die or leave them.

 

Adults whose parents divorced when they were children may have similar fears. We can't say why some people who experienced these unfortunate circumstances enjoy adult relationships without fearing abandonment & why others are preoccupied with worry.

 

Therapy can help the fearful person overcome this difficulty.

 

Upsetting if even in the more recent past may cause a person to be overly anxious. i.e., if you recently experienced a loss or another traumatic event, you may be overly concerned about your current courtship.

 

If this has happened you have probably not fully mourned your recent loss. The grieving process is universal; people have to move thru the stages of: denial.

 

In the first hours or days after the loss, you may feel shocked, numb & confused. You may not remember what people are saying to you. You may feel dazed & as though you're going thru things like a robot. You may think & act as though the loss hasn't occurred. This is called denial.  

 

anger: As your shock wears off, reality will slowly break thru. You'll begin to realize that the loss has happened. It's normal to feel abandoned & angry. You may feel angry at God, religion, doctors & nurses, the one who died, other loved ones, or even yourself.

 

After you get thru some of the anger & denial, it's normal to try to pretend things are like they used to be. If someone you love has died, you may play memories over & over in your mind. You may also feel the presence of your loved one, think you see him or her, or think you hear his or her voice.

 

You may also find yourself talking to your loved one as though he or she were in the room with you. As you begin to realize that your loved one is gone & you can't bring him or her back, you'll begin to feel the full effect of your loss. These feelings may be scary because they're so strange & so strong. They may make you feel like you're losing control.

 

When you begin to realize the full impact of the loss on your life, you may feel depressed & hopeless. You may also feel guilty. You may find yourself thinking things like "if only" or "why me." You may cry for no apparent reason. This is the most painful stage of healing, but it won't last forever. In normal grief, the depression will begin to lift with time.

 

·                                 bargaining

·                                 depression 

·                                 acceptance before they can move forward emotionally

·                                  

We suggest that you read a book on the grieving process (or click the word "grieving" to go to the grief page) & perform the exercises. If you continue to have trouble, you may need to consult with a professional therapist.

 

It's very important for someone who fears abandonment to deal w/the problem, to enjoy a healthy social life. When one of the partners in a relationship is plagued by a fear of abandonment, the relationship can't achieve its potential.

 

That's because a person who is afraid can't give a partner the trust so critical in a healthy relationship.

 

i.e., if a man is afraid that his wife may leave him, he may bend over backwards to please her. This prevents the 2 of them from learning the crucial art of negotiation & compromise & at the same time the man gradually loses his individuality.

 

Or, the man might try to hold on to his wife too tightly, by monitoring her phone calls, following her & becoming or appearing jealous (but may really be insecure & fearful) of her friendships with others.

 

She may begin to feel so threatened by his paranoia, or so upset at his lack of trust that she does exactly what he fears & leaves him!

 

People who fear abandonment may go to a perverse extreme of trying to control the spouse's actions & thoughts with the use of intimidation, threats or violence.

 

You deserve credit for understanding enough about yourself to recognize that you're afraid of abandonment. Many people who're much older & wiser than you destroy one potential relationship after another without understanding how this fear has prevented them from having a healthy, stable marriage.

 

It'll take time & effort for you to understand the root of your fear & to learn how to move beyond it. We hope that you have the courage to take the next step of working to eliminate that fear to obtain a rewarding marriage or relationship.

 

"Looking back, I realize now that I felt insecure & unsure because I was afraid of being abandoned by those I loved." could this be you? 

 

Most of us experience feeling abandoned at a time in our lives. At the root of this feeling is the suffering from our past that holds our precious life-force energy in abeyance, making it unavailable to us. We feel fatigued, mildly depressed, confused & afraid to make a decision.

 

We're stalled in picking up the threads of our life paths. Bringing ourselves fully into our present lives & living with authentic power comes from taking back our need to have someone else take care of us, be responsible for us & tend to our wants.

 

As children, we needed parents to play this role & many times they let us down & perhaps even brutalized us emotionally & physically. We carry this lack of trust as cellular memories in the tissues of our bodies.

 

A previous partnership, friendship or close working relationship can also leave us fractured & afraid to love again. Eventually we realize that our perspective & not the actual situation, is what has made us hurt so deeply, though the situation may have been extremely painful.

 

Two people can have the same experience, after which one feels depleted & undone for life while the other is able to move on. Our way of evaluating a situation is based largely on how much we trust ourselves & are in communication with our authentic natures, our spiritual selves.

 

It's this aspect of ourselves that allows us to experience greater resiliency, self-nurturing & forgiveness of the events that have hurt us. We forget that we have powerful spiritual resources to draw on.  

Our lapse of memory is like having a lottery ticket in our pocket & going hungry because we've forgotten that we hid the ticket in a safe place. We also possess a genuine sense of inner authority & compassion for ourselves, an understanding of what we need, & the qualities that can heal our pain rather than re-stimulate it.

Relationship With Self

My relationship with the hardest person to have a loving relationship with.

Oh ... the ideal relationship. To have a friend, a partner, a lover, who thinks you're beautiful always & in all ways. Someone to walk w/hand in hand, to talk to for hours. Someone you can disagree to disagree with without a shouting match. Someone who sees you at your worst & still loves you.

Someone to enjoy a good meal with, a good movie, who shares things that interest you & you share things with him that interests him. Someone who tells you you're beautiful enough times that you believe it.

Someone who allows you space to be free … to be yourself. Someone to snuggle with & whose arms are made for hugging.

This is the ideal relationship outside of ourselves. But what about the relationship with ourselves? Recently, during an exploration of my feelings of abandonment, I found that it was I who had abandoned me … not someone out there. My body told me that I had abandoned it ... that it felt unloved.

My baby ego told me it was feeling abandoned because I was letting it go. I reassured it that even though I didn't need it any more, didn't need it to protect me, that I still would love it.

As children & teenagers, in most cases, it's indoctrinated into our being that we're not worthy. We're told, in most cases by the media & in a lot of cases by our parents, friends & siblings, that we're too short, too tall, too thin, too fat. Our hair is too curly, too straight. We didn't have just the right form at all. And form was very important.

I spent many years in a girl's school as a child where it was inappropriate to run up stairs. That was the only way I knew to get up the stairs, being a jubilant & energetic child. Because I laughed out loud & giggled, I was no lady. I'm still no lady although I can put on the lady mask & fool anybody … w/the giggling little girl just below the surface. There's nothing I enjoy quite as much as a giggle or a good belly laugh.

We laugh way too little these days, life has become too serious. Why? Have we bought into the notion that life is serious & we don't measure up to the ideal of what we should be, so we have to be seriously trying to fit the mold?

And as well as the giggling little girl, we have the fearful one under the surface also. Well I know that's what happened to me. I forgot to have a good relationship with me. I abandoned myself in the search for the perfect ideal of me. There was little about me that was worthy of having a relationship with.

Playing the game didn't make me happy. Being the good student, the good wife, the good mother, being of service to others, trying to change the way things were in my community.

Oh yes, there was a certain amount of self satisfaction. There was a lot of love & happiness with my children. But there was no ME. I wasn't a good enough mother, a good enough wife, a good enough at anything … always striving to be perfect ... or at least my idea of perfect.

A few years ago I left my marriage. I moved to get away from negative influences in my life. I spent my year by the sea (literally living 20 feet from the water). I learned that it was good to be with me. I spent many hours contemplating on the rocks ... talking to the seals. They're good listeners. It was a haven for a well worn soul. A place to heal. I read, I took a course with the Beloved Community led by Jimmy Twyman, I wrote in my journal. I healed.

Then in the spring I knew it was time to move on. To move away from this place. So I sold a lot, gave all the silver, etc. to the children who are now men & moved.

Mind you ... I took my comfort things … the things that make my space a home w/me. But I moved. And in trying to establish a relationship with a new person in my life, found the first person I had to establish a relationship with was ME.

I'm still working on this. I've done a lot of healing of old sores & scars, but it's good to know as each one comes up & is healed … I'm moving ahead. I'm not stuck.

I've realized I'm the only person I can depend on. I'm the only solution to my problems. No one else can make me happy or whole. No matter what I'm the one that will always be here. Spirit has told me that I'm always in His/Her presence. Just because I sometimes feel invisible doesn't mean I am. We are one.

The things I just typed were easy to type (except I couldn't just get that coma to go after "no matter what"), they're easy to say. But I have to tell you that they're not easy to trust in my soul.

How do I have a rewarding relationship with myself?

One of the old fallacies was that I wasn't worthy. Well I'm here to tell you I AM worthy. I'm worthy of every good thing that comes my way ... & I don't deserve anything that isn't good in my life & it's up to me to make those choices.

When something comes my way ... it's up to me to decide if it's good or bad & sometimes in the moment it might appear to be bad when in actuality it's just an experience from which I can learn.

If I feel someone has caused me pain, it's up to me to either stay w/ the pain or choose to move to a place of peace. This isn't easy for me ... because in the instant ... in the moment … I react.

But, at least, I do recognize now what's happening & can then change direction. The ideal place to be isn't to react. Sure wish I knew how to get there.

When something comes my way ... it's up to me to decide if it's good or bad & sometimes in the moment it might appear to be bad when in actuality it's just an experience from which I can learn.

If I feel someone has caused me pain, it's up to me to either stay w/ the pain or choose to move to a place of peace. This isn't easy for me ... because in the instant ... in the moment … I react.

But, at least, I do recognize now what's happening & can then change direction. The ideal place to be isn't to react. Sure wish I knew how to get there.

The other thing is I'm very vocal & so when I react, everyone knows. When maybe other people not being so vocal, react quietly & then change directions. Hmmm. Light bulb moment?

Maybe the lesson is not to be so vocal …hmmmm.

Well there I go again ... trying to fit into the mold created by others that I shouldn't react in such & such a way. To be true to myself & the relationship to myself for myself & my own well being is to come to a place where I don't react so strongly.

Result ... lowered blood pressure & healthier heart.

Also in having a good relationship w/me, is being kind to me. Not telling myself I'm too fat, too tall. Not condemning myself because I have arthritis & find it hard to walk sometimes.

Accepting my age. Last summer, I spent a couple of months at an old farm house back in the woods. A friend had told me to dance in the rain. It didn't seem appropriate to do this when folks were around but … when I was alone … the first time I ventured out. I wore a T-shirt & undies afraid a stray bear might come along … gradually I slipped out of the cumbersome clothing & felt the cool rain wash over my body. Feeling for the first time … my body … it was beautiful.

It's time to glorify in the years I've been here & the wisdom I've obtained. Knowing I am beautiful & perfect in the eyes of my creator. And really, who else do I have to please except myself & God?

And I don't have to please God ... because He'll never forsake me ... He loves me as I am. We are one. It's good to be at the age where I am free to be ... to go ... to do whatever I want.

Any age is a good time to glorify ourselves. Any age is a good time to start a relationship with ourselves. To give up the notion that to take care of oneself is selfish … So What??

Any age is a good time to start taking time to be with self, even if it starts with just a few minutes of quiet time between the time the children leave for school & you open the door to leave.

Just take a deep breath … stop … then open the door. The elevator ride up … close your eyes … go within for a moment … say hello to self & give yourself the gift of a wonderful day.

I've adopted from Bette Midler a new mantra. I'm BEAUTIFUL, DAMN IT. And everytime I say it … I swing the hips.

Thank you for allowing me to share these thoughts with you & in that affirming myself. I AM that I AM.

In Peace & Divine Love, Amber

Feeling Abandoned by God?

Kathleen Howe

 

In the never ending scheme of things, my life experiences once again bring me to yet another source of abandonment... "feeling abandoned by God."

 

For those who've put their hardened faith into the Lord, only to continually be scathed in further hardship, tested beyond your limits, branded by the irons of further emotional pain, humiliations, intimidations & loss; I'm with you on how it feels.

 

When you're at the end of your rope, you're wondering how God could allow this to happen to you. You lay in bed, bent in fetal position, rocking yourself unknowingly thru the enormous waves of pain, coursing thru every inch of your body, your heart shattered into a million pieces, your mind racing in a blur of your most dreaded fears coming true.

 

Your faith in God is beginning to wane.... you're numb, you're feeling very abandoned by God.... I've been there.

 

I think that some people feel like this when something horrible happens to one of their children... some when they experience some other kind of horrible unspeakable loss, or even experience an injury that is disabling or an illness that is life threatening.... The Lord tries us all on some level, I believe, to test our faith... but perhaps it's all for an even bigger reason. Perhaps it's the ultimate lesson for us to learn, after all, so we can begin to live our lives as he intended us to live instead of how we, the fallen man, believe we should live our lives.

My husband had left me to be with the only person I could consider my best friend, since my best friend had recently abandoned me as well.... sounds like the world crashing doesn't it? But that's what happens when people have marriage problems, no one wants to be around them.

 

I had sent my two older girls to Florida from Michigan to live with their father & step mother because the first time my husband had left me, he left me without giving me any money. He left me to pay all the bills with three children to take care of as well. He left me to go live with some teenage neubie cop, (I think I've mentioned I had been married to a police officer before.) He had started dating other women. My life was breaking into a million pieces. I was depressed. My job was falling apart. I had been trying to take Prozac, but it made me feel too agitated.

 

I was alone with my young son, we got a new apartment, which was right next door to the woman who became my new best friend. We got along famously, when all of a sudden my husband wanted to come back and give our marriage another try. This was so surprising. I was so gullible. I let him move in. Within five weeks time, I had come home early one day to find them having sex in my bed, my new best friend & my husband. She told me, "I've stolen your husband, and now I'm going to steal your son."

 

One Saturday morning, I was listening to Madonna on the radio, (this is in the 80's) it was her soundtrack cd for the movie, Dick Tracy as I cleaned up the apartment.

 

Someone knocked at my door & I danced my way over to the front door to see who it was. As I opened the door, the very kind, friendly face began to appear, of an elderly gentleman. He asked me if I had a few minutes to talk about God. My heart leapt in one huge giant leap, perhaps the Lord had felt my pain, perhaps he was sending me the help I had so desperately prayed for!!!

 

I looked at the old gentleman square in the eye & said, "Do you like coffee?" as I grabbed his arm to pull him into my apartment.

 

It was apparent that he wasn't used to this kind of reception. I'd been longing to talk to someone about my situation. I had been talking out loud to God for weeks.

 

You see, I was so naive, I had never heard of social services - welfare...imagine that. I had never know there were agencies that could help you. I had never heard of domestic violence shelters. I'd never known much about resources for help within any religious communities or spiritual communities.

 

I had been very sheltered & knew nothing about some subjects. My mother & father had always supported me in a very comfortable lifestyle, as well as my previous husband, after being taunted about supporting me "in the manner in which I had been accustomed to" by my mother.

 

We talked about God for hours. He invited me to his church. I went the next morning. I began going to church every Sunday. My life was falling apart. My mind was totally boggled.

 

I was & had been experiencing a very severe depression, as well as other anxiety disorders because of the verbal & emotional abuse I had been experiencing with this husband, the police officer. He had even thrown me out of the house one night, naked, in front of the children. He had hit me, giving me a black eye, he had abandoned me making sure not to make him commit to child support because that was the LAST thing he wanted to do, was pay me money after he had been secretly hoarding it in a hidden bank account for months previous.

 

I had seen the end result of someone feeling abandoned by God already in my lifetime. My father had quit going to church in my early teen years because when his parents needed the help of the church, they were denied, when the great flood hit Corning, New York in the 70's. They had lost their lifetime home to that flood. There were Episcopalians then. Their entire life had been service to that church. They had faithfully tithed, as well as contributing further when possible. But when they needed help from the church, the church didn't help them for whatever reason. My father had been hurt deeply & had become revengeful whenever someone spoke of the church. He simply quit going to church to spite the Lord.

 

Then there I was, living next door to my husband who had chosen to be with my best friend - it was such close quarters, that we shared a wall with each other.... She had sworn to steal my son from me as she had already stolen my husband.

 

Mentally I was falling apart. The Lord was hearing me, or so I thought, by sending this messenger of God to my front door. So I began going to church. It was a Baptist Church. I had to move out of that apartment because I was close to a breakdown. I certainly couldn't work consistently feeling the way I did. I moved in with a married couple I knew, and their two children. I had my son with me. My husband wasn't giving me any money. He refused.

 

Soon he quit his job as a police officer because he refused to pay child support. Besides that, his new girlfriend, (my ex best friend) had told him his life was worth more than $13.00 per hour. He went to work for her at her personal pool business, so she could control him, thus manufacture his lack of income, or was it the minimum wage he earned in those days?

 

Problems continued for me. I had to leave that house as well. Things never work out in those situations. So many husbands start making those eyes with the soon to be divorced woman in the house, & the wife never believes her when she tells her.... it's such a messed up world sometimes.

 

I ended up getting my own apartment with my son. We found a Baptist church that we could walk to. (My car had been repossessed.) It was a fundamental Baptist Church. We lived on the west side of Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a nice neighborhood. Our landlords lived downstairs, an elderly couple. We could walk to the grocery store, the church, a few fast food places to eat & the laundry. Soon I bought a bike & attached a milk crate to the back of it to carry essentials in. My son & I went everywhere by bike. We sang together as we traveled. If the weather was bad, I had to wash our clothes in the bath tub. But it was okay.

 

After going to that fundamental Baptist church for a few weeks, the preacher asked me to visit him in his office. He wanted to know about me. He was interrogating me actually, but I was too naive to know what he was doing. He told me of the rules of the church. He told me that I hadn't been properly baptized if I'd only been sprinkled as a baby in the Episcopal church. He told me that I would have to "submit" myself to baptism by water, "getting dunked" & that I'd have to attend church several days a week & of course, I would have to tithe 10% of my income.

 

What this preacher was actually doing was interrogating me to find out my weaknesses so he could play on them. Caution to all of you that find yourselves in the same situations.... it's a very subtle way of brain washing that these preachers begin to work on you.... before you know it... you're worshipping the preacher instead of God. Before you know it, your preacher will tell you to get your son's haircut & throw you a five dollar bill, just in case you don't have it.... whether your son needs a haircut or not.

 

Before you know it, you're going to church almost 7 days a week & twice on Sundays.

 

Before you know it, the preacher wants to know whose car was at your house last Friday afternoon at exactly 3 o'clock because no one in the congregation has a car like the one he saw.

 

Before you know it, your child is going to the church's very own private school, "for free."

 

Before you know it - you're a "widow," even though you're really divorced & pregnant without a husband.  

 

And when you disobey the preacher, he calls your ex-husband during your custody battle & offers to testify for your husband.... I had felt abandoned by God at this point....

 

I think that preacher felt abandoned by God as well when his congregation caught him forcing the "widows" of the congregation to have sex with him.....

 

For 2 years I'd lived very frugally. I babysat some kids from the church for income. We weren't allowed to wear pants. We weren't allowed to wear make up. We went to church almost every day. We only associated with other church members. If I had five dollars in my pocket when I went to church I would put it in the offering, although I didn't make but about $150.00 a week, I gave faithfully every day of the week that I went to church.

 

I even watched disabled kids for a woman in the church who took in disabled foster kids. She needed some respite care, so I took them. They were very difficult to handle & they scared my son to death because they were teenage boys who would get very physical with me sometimes.

 

We went tracting, visiting people, house by house asking them to come to our church. I loved it. We didn't have a television. We didn't have a phone. We didn't have a car. But when my mother insisted that I was being totally isolated, I just couldn't see it. When she said I might be going to a "cult" church, I questioned my preacher, who had me announce to the whole congregation what my mother had said to me.

 

Everyone smiled, because each of them had family members who were concerned about them as well. The preacher asked the congregation, "Is this a cult?" & everyone in the congregation smiled as they obediently chanted, "noooooo."

 

Living that way was honestly very nice. I loved it. I didn't have many worries. I read the bible, loved the Lord, spent so much time with my son. We loved each other. We had so many friends in the church. I cooked breakfast for the Saturday morning men's prayer meeting. They loved my cooking, but prayerfully thanked the Lord for the blessings. My son & I sang songs while we walked all over the place, like, "Victory in Jesus!" I became a waitress & would sing that very song thru out my shift, keeping my mind in positive & holy things. I ended up being what I thought was, "abandoned by God" & betrayed by the preacher.

 

I caution all of you out there that are being misguided by some religious sect that may actually be a "cult." It's dangerous. It's subtle. It feels really good to be living, "in love" with life & the Lord, but there's a difference. Be careful who your "Lord" actually is. I can come back to bite you - you know where!

 

I ended up being forced to concede in the custody fight over my son when the preacher joined in with my ex husband (my 1st husband helping my 2nd husband) to help my ex best friend & recent ex husband to win the fight, so he wouldn't have to pay me child support. Talk about the ultimate betrayal. (On the other hand, this is what some people would think was my "just rewards" because of the marital history & situation I was in.)

 

I'd gotten involved throughout this whole mess with another abusive man... no wonder. (watch out those who have been in abusive relationships, when you get involved again in the future, it will most likely be with another abuser! seek counseling before getting into another relationship!) I'd gotten pregnant. I ended up marrying this guy. After I lost my son in the custody battle. I was brain dead at that point. We only lived with each other a few months & I found myself in the first domestic violence shelter that I'd been to.

 

For almost a year I ended up bouncing all over the state of Michigan because this husband was following me around, trying to get me. He was hanging around with the low lifers of each town to find out where the domestic violence shelters were. He would find me no matter what.

 

When I ended up on the other side of the state, in the same town my brother lived in, I went to visit the preacher of a Baptist church there. It looked like I might settle down in that town because my brother lived there. The preacher told me that I wasn't walking with God because I wasn't trying to work it out with my husband thru pastoral counseling. .... Geez o pete...

 

Was I being abandoned by God again, feeling damned if I did & damned if I didn't protect myself.  

 

It didn't work out in the end....

I've had more experiences with other religions since this horrible situation.... & what I've found out is that I wasn't being abandoned by God....

 

I was being abandoned by man. God has always been with me, watching over my children when I couldn't be with them. God has always been by my side as he is now, although I'm not attending any particular church. God is everywhere... God is in my heart, with every decision I make in my life. I wish I'd been able to understand that before, man just got in the way....

 

so don't feel abandoned by God, recognize when man is trying to take his place instead!

 

you can do this by becoming open to everything around you or becoming aware enough to accept the insights you may have!

 

a strange thing happens when you do this, (above)...

it takes away from the time you spend in negative energy! (being fearful, anxious, or depressed!)

 

That preacher? He ended up being thrown out of the church. One of the women in the congregation who was also divorced, whom he had also told the congregation was "widowed," so that they felt the need to take care of her like the bible says to do.... well he forced this woman to have sex with him. He was a married man with 3 sons & a daughter. He was a laughing stock. He was really just an imposter. But it happened all a little too late to help me. My relationship with him was just the beginning of his fall. The Lord took care of him in his own way. That's all you can ask for!

 

At least the west side of Grand Rapids, Michigan is a bit safer without him.

How Do You Abandon Yourself?

By Dr. Margaret Paul

How often do you feel sad, alone & empty inside?

 

How often do you feel anxious, depressed, hopeless, angry or hurt?

 

These are the feelings we experience when we've abandoned ourselves in some way. Discover how you abandon yourself & what to do about it.

There are many ways of abandoning ourselves. We abandon ourselves when we:

Coping With Divorce

 

The pain of divorce

When the love we had hoped & expected would last forever fails, our world falls apart.

Unless you've already found another lover, divorce is a very painful experience. The hardest divorces are when you're being rejected by your partner, you thought the marriage was okay & your parents & friends disapprove of the divorce (Thompson & Spanier, 1983).

Very few divorcees end up having a wonderful, creative growth experience with lots of sex, although that's a common fantasy. We lose our most important relationship (or had lost it years before). It can crush us with depression (see chapter 6 for the stages of divorce). It can flood us with anger.

It can overwhelm us with scary changes & decisions, new responsibilities, economic hardships, questions about "What do I want to do?" & on & on. The "leaver" or rejector is sometimes less stressed than the "leavee" but that isn't always true.

Baumeister & Wotman (1992) say many rejectors are profoundly guilty, in turmoil & feel helpless or embarrassed. The "leavee" isn't guilty but is hurt & shamed by failure & abandonment.

The marital conflicts may have lasted for months or years before the divorce & then emotional distress often lasts for months afterwards.

In fact, although people expect to feel better soon after the divorce, in some cases the worst time is about 1 year after the divorce. During the 1st year after separating, 73% of the women & 60% of the men think the divorce might have been a mistake (Hetherington, Cox & Cox, 1985).

Yet, 1/2 of the men & 2/3 of the women said that overall they were "more content with life" 5 years after a divorce than they'd been before.

Supposedly, time heals all wounds, but the pain of divorce lasts & lasts. 10 years later 40 - 50% of women & 30 - 40% of men remained very angry at the former spouse & felt rejected & exploited (Wallerstein, 1986).

Females over 40 have an especially hard time. They have less chance of remarrying (28%), inadequate income (50%) & loneliness or clinical depression (50%).

After 10 years, in only 10% of divorces was life better for both partners, in 27% of the cases both had a poorer quality of life & 63% of the time one partner was better off but the other was unchanged or got worse.

In the latter situation, the upbeat spouse is more likely to be the woman (55%), usually in her 20's or 30's. Some researchers have found that women more often report joy as they experience independence & new competencies (Riessman, 1990).

But for the majority of us, losing love inflicts deep & remarkably lasting wounds.

Divorced women, who get custody of the children, also suffer a 33% decline in their standard of living.

Men are considered "better off" (except they frequently become responsible for another family). Only about 50% of divorced fathers pay child support regularly; 25% pay some & 25% pay little or nothing at all.

Non-custodial parents (75% are men) are often depressed & anxious because they feel alienated from their children.

Of the 18 million poor children in this country, over 50% live in a single-parent home caused by divorce. The emotional & financial neglect of children is appalling (see next section). This harsh reality underscores the necessity for each parent to be prepared by him/herself to financially care for the children.

Attempting to cope with divorce

Cox (1979) & others have described several pitfalls for recently broken-up or divorced people:

  • (1) Retreat back into a lonely state of self-pity & depression. The pain is so great that serious thoughts of suicide may occur.

If so, immediate professional help is necessary. For many the worst time is several months after the divorce. It's important to stay socially active & seek out friends.

As mentioned above, within 1 year after the divorce, 73% of women & 60% of men wonder if they've made a mistake. It's usually better to get on with building a new life.

Furthermore, this seething anger can harm your children & their relationship with the ex, your physical & emotional health & your interpersonal relations - you can be so unpleasant that others will avoid you.

Divorce is an uncertain, gut-wrenching, destructive, lonely experience (not for everyone, of course).

If divorce is so awful, then why do we choose that alternative so often? We may not realize the problems we face alone or with a new partner. Besides, loud marital conflicts &/or the silence of a dead marriage are awful too.

Many people have little hope of improving the relationship. It would be hard to chose to continue living with an unloving, hateful, uninterested partner for another 40 or 50 years. In our fantasy, as we saw above, it's so easy to find a new exciting infatuation, so easy to dream of a wonderful future with an ideal partner. But how many ideal partners are there?

Medved (1990) & Weiner-Davis (1992) oppose divorce, questioning the common notions supporting divorce, such as "we don't love each other any more," "we are incompatible," "he/she had an affair," etc. I don't agree with them that divorce is "almost never worth it," but I'd urge everyone to consider several factors before giving up on marriage counseling & seeking a divorce.

If so, the same process is likely to reoccur in 4-7 years with another spouse.

  • (2) Are you pretty sure you can & will select a better partner for you next time? Might you be attracted to a person with the same traits? Might you need new communication skills (with your old partner or a new one)?
  • (3) What are the consequences to others, especially the children? See the next section.
  • (4) Are you staying in the marriage because you're dependent (Horn, 1976) & afraid to change?

Vedral (1993) contends that women usually wait far too long to "get rid of him." It's so hard to know ourselves, especially when we are in an emotional turmoil.

If divorce is being considered, I have 5 more recommendations:

1. Most of us by ourselves can't rationally handle the complex & emotional questions involved in divorce. Even friends are often supportive of whatever they think we want to hear. We need to be told things we don't want to hear.

As I emphasized above, most people considering or going thru divorce should get counseling.

2. There are many helpful books about divorce. A very rare (it's one of the first) study compared the effectiveness of 4 self-help books about coping with divorce or breaking up (Ogles, Lambert & Craig, 1991).

All 4 (Fisher, 1981; Kingma, 1987; Wanderer & Cabot, 1978; Stearns, 1984) appeared to be about equally helpful in reducing the misery of losing love, although no matched control group was available.

Your expectations seem to determine how much help you get from the books, i.e. if you think "it won't do any good," it won't. However, the books were second only to "friends" as a good source of help. The better recent books encourage you to try for a healthy divorce which reduces the harm to the children (Ahrons, 1994; Benedek, 1995; Everett & Everett, 1994).

Although dealing with the pain & anger is important, there are many other issues to confront, e.g. how to understand & cope with the divorce process (Lubetkin & Oumano, 1991; Kingma, 1987; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989; Vaughan, 1986; Rice & Rice, 1986; Kaslow & Schwartz, 1987; Gettleman & Markowitz, 1972; Weiss, 1975), how to survive divorce ("Surviving Divorce" tapes by John Bradshaw [1-800-733-2232]; Kranitz, 1987; Triere, 1993; Bloomfield, Colgrove & McWilliams, 1977; Friedman, 1982; Krantzler, 1973; McKay, Rogers, Blades, & Gosse, 1984; Women in Transition, 1975) & how to rebuild a life after divorce (Hayes, Anderson & Blau, 1993; Napolitane, 1978, 1993--see for support groups; Kahn, 1990; Gullo & Church, 1988; Krantzler, 1977; Golabuk, 1990; Fisher, 1981, 1992).

More information & the location of support groups can be gotten from Divorce Anonymous, 2600 Colorado Ave., Suite 270, Santa Monica, CA 90404 (phone: 213-315-6538). Books for helping children cope with divorce are in the next section.

3. If the divorce involves emotional conflicts over marital property or children, consider using mediation (Emery, 1994; Wiseman, 1990; Kranitz, 1987; Neumann, 1989; Johnson & Campbell, 1988, for highly revengeful couples; Blades, 1985; Everett, 1985) rather than lawyers in court.

Margulies (1992) & Berry (1995) emphasize the legal-financial aspects of divorce as well as mediation. The procedure of "letting the lawyers fight it out" is often unfair, very traumatic & results in increased, lasting hostility (Kressel, 1986).

Besides, lawyers are costly & courts aren't always thorough. Most couples, who aren't crazy with rage, can find a good mediator & together work out a fair, considerate agreement (acceptable to any court) within 5 to 8 hours, say for $500 to $1000 or considerably less than going thru a nasty divorce. (Mediators are trained professionals, not your Aunt Alice. Your marriage counselor can help you find a mediator.)

4. Children should have equal representation in a divorce (in an ideal world). The children must be reassured that they aren't being divorced. They have a birthright to two parents, their time, love & resources. The children will remain "sons" & "daughters" forever with the parents, even though the divorced parents will have no relationship with each other.

The most vital decisions in a divorce are about how to continue & enrich each parent-child relationship, not who gets the house & pays the bills. Child custody is an enormous problem. Some of the children's stresses might be lessened if the children were equally cared for by both parents even though the parents are divorced (Galper, 1978).

Yet, not all joint custody arrangements have worked out well. Recent data suggests that father custody or joint custody can benefit certain children, especially boys (Warshak, 1992). The decision must be based on what is best for the children, not on a parent's emotional needs. We need more study of these matters.

Another point here is that during a divorce, the mother & father frequently get lots of attention & support from family & friends, but the children are often neglected. As a society, we must find ways to keep the parent-child relationships strong, in spite of the animosity between the parents.

Thus far, we are doing a very poor job caring for our divorced children (see next section). But extensive efforts are being made in the 1990's by courts around the country to get divorcing parents to learn to cooperate effectively in providing two loving homes - Dad's house & Mom's house - to their children.

An organization called Childrens Rights Council has a mission of helping divorced parents achieve shared parenting & ideally bringing about further legal changes to facilitate congenial co-parenting based on the legal rights of the children as well as both parents (but the site is father-friendly).

5. Use self-help methods to reduce your emotionality & irrationality.

Remember each day in the former relationship had its own rewards; no relationship is guaranteed to last forever. Get support from friends, stay socially active. If possible, forgive your former lover & yourself (chapter 7). Get on with life.

The negative effects of divorce (abandonment, hostility & over-burdening) on children

Divorce combines with other factors, such as never marrying, so that 70% of all children (94% of black children) will experience living with a single-parent by the time they are 17. About 15 years ago, research (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980) documented that going thru a divorce can be very traumatic for children too.

There are frequently (but not always) loud arguments & accusations, 25% of the time there's physical violence & eventually one parent, usually the father, leaves home. The child may have to move away from friends & into a new school.

About 75% of the children oppose their parents' divorce. To some children life before the divorce hadn't seemed so bad because both parents had concealed their fights & tried to maintain the appearance of a good relationship in front of the children.

In general, many children, no matter what age, have an intense traumatic response to their parents' conflicts: they fear the fighting & worry about possible abandonment; they often feel they're responsible for the arguments & for one parent leaving home.

What a terrible load for a child to carry. The children long for the missing parent. During & long after the divorce, the children, especially those going thru a custody battle, suffer a variety of psychological problems:

We hoped the children "could be protected," but half to 2/3rds suffer a long time. Two excellent recent reviews (Wallerstein, 1991; Amato & Keith, 1991) confirm the findings summarized below.

At the time of the divorce, boys aged 6 to 12 seem to have the hardest time; many become aggressive, rebellious with mother, needy of attention & socially insecure. Boys have trouble in school & socially. It isn't known why boys, at this time, have more difficulty than girls, perhaps because males are more belligerent & aggressive anyway.

Perhaps because boys around 5 or 6 are struggling to identify with dad & pull away from mom. However, 90% of the time, custody is given to mothers & after 3 years, about 52% of all divorced fathers hardly see their children at all (Francke, 1983).

Divorced non-custodial fathers, who maintain some contact, socialize but almost never teach or discipline the children. This is a critical time for boys to be abandoned by their role models!

Nevertheless, boys' & girls' adjustment seems to get better 2 or 3 years later, depending on:

  • how well they're getting along with the custodial parent 
  • how well that parent is adjusting (Pett, 1982)

However, even 5 years later, 1/3 still had a wide range of school & behavior problems & they weren't getting any better. Another 1/3 had some lingering problems. The remaining 1/3 seemed to be doing well.

Divorce may be harmful to children, but what are the alternatives?

Research has shown just as clearly that serious open parental conflict within the home causes harm, probably more harm than a divorce if it goes on & on. So, a loving single-parent home is probably better than 2 fighting parents, although children need close contact with both parents. It may be easier if the parents are separated, but it's also hard for bitterly angry people to work together to provide wise, coordinated post-divorce co-parenting.

Consider this: the children are having the emotional reactions mentioned above; they're also probably critical of the divorce; they may hide their feelings but often show disapproval of mom & dad dating other people; they may feel guilty & "in the middle" of their parents' continuing battles, especially if one parent says he/she is "fighting for the benefit of the children" (implying the other parent is shortchanging the children).

In short, children suffer either way, i.e. in a crippled marriage with parents fighting or in a divorce situation with parents still fighting at a distance. Because fighting is harmful in all situations, some researchers (e.g. Brehm, 1985) conclude that divorce should be decided "for the parents," not "for the children." I disagree.

The children's interests & needs must be considered as much as the adults' preferences because they're unfairly harmed more than anyone else by the fighting. The kids didn't cause the divorce. Their emotional health is too important to be neglected. Since neither parent can quit the job of parenting, an important question is: Can the parents do a better job co-parenting married or divorced?

There's ample evidence that the traditional bitter divorce leading to the alienation of one parent is a potential disaster for the children. An important study has found that if the divorced-&-removed-from-the-home parent (usually father) seldom visits (less than once a month), the effects on the child can be devastating - learning deficits, misbehavior, low self-esteem & depression (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980).

Therefore, I think the rights & desires of the children (along with society who "picks up the pieces") should have equal representation along with mom & dad in divorce hearings. Likewise, one might think the courts should insist that custody & child care responsibilities be shared by mom & dad, assuring the continued intimate involvement of both.

However, it's more complicated than that if continuous anger is involved.

Children who have frequent contact with their divorced-but-still-fighting parents are at very serious risk too. Indeed, the more contact they have & the more switches between mom & dad's home, if they're still warring over custody & visitation, the more behaviorally & emotionally disturbed the children become (Johnson, Kline, & Tschann, 1989).

Thus, not only must both parents stay involved with the children, they must co-parent without rancor. If the hostility of either parent is uncontrollable, psychotherapy is necessary immediately & until the anger subsides. We can no longer consider bitter ex-spouses as benign; they're dangerous to their children.

Yet, healed or calmed or silenced, they're necessary to their children. Society (courts) must serve the children, not just warring parents.

Not every child needs 2live-in parents, but almost every child needs a highly involved, loving mother & father, not just an every-other-weekend visit to eat out. Both parents must talk to the children about their lives, discipline the children, be there in good times & bad, involve the child in decision-making & serious discussions, hold them when they hurt, etc., etc.

Researchers (Hetherington, Cox & Cox, 1985) have found that girls without a father in the home, like boys, suffer long-range consequences; they tend to be negative towards their fathers. Such girls feel more uncomfortable with male adults & peers but act more sexually provocative & promiscuous than girls with fathers at home; therefore, they have more unwanted pregnancies.

On the other hand, girls fought over in highly contested custody battles, tend to form close, dependent relationships with their fathers & become hostile towards their mothers. Being fought over doesn't seem to affect boys in the same way. Recent research findings have suggested that boys without fathers in the home tend to become "hypermasculine," i.e. more tough, more drug-using, more violent, more criminal.

Social analysts (Blankenhorn, 1995; Popenoe, 1996) contend that many of our major social problems, such as crime, violent gangs, alcohol & drug use, poverty, low achievement & marital instability, are attributable to parents splitting & fathers deserting their children. 40% of all children today live in a home without a father.

Fathers aren't expendable. Involved & responsible fathers bring traits & attitudes to a family - alternate ways of coping - that appear to be very important to the child & society. Moreover, a parent who isn't involved sends a message to his/her child: "you aren't interesting or important!"

That surely hurts the child's self-esteem. There's building public pressure for society to make divorce harder to get or, at least, to make it mandatory that both parents pay their fair share & stay involved as a parent. Finding solutions by passing laws, however, seems much more difficult than teaching young people to avoid pregnancy until they've found a partner who will make a commitment to any child until he/she is 18, including seeking counseling as soon as problems arise.

Marriage can be temporary but parenting must be forever.

Important research has also documented that the consequences of divorce are much longer lasting for children than we originally thought (A myth: "Oh, they'll get over it in a couple of years"). The long-term effects include feeling the world & relationships are unsafe & unreliable, fear of intimacy, poorly controlled anger, depression & grief & sexual problems.

There are often heretofore unseen "sleeper" effects, affecting girls more than boys, perhaps, when they get into early adulthood. Even 10 years or more after the divorce, Wallerstein & Blakeslee (1989) estimated that 41% of the children of divorce in their study were still doing poorly - underachieving, tense, insecure, self-critical &/or angry.

Thus, children of divorce may be so anxious about love relationships that they'll find it hard to create a lasting family. Although no major problems may have occurred at the time of the parents' divorce, over 10 years later, 66% of young women, 19 to 23-years-old, became afraid of intimacy with a male, afraid of betrayal &/or afraid of losing love.

As adults, women suffered more negative effects from their parents' divorce than men did. For instance, the divorce rate for children of divorce is 60% higher for women than for women from intact families! For men it's 35% higher. This is serious. It seems that divorces often lead to children with low self-esteem & a high need for love; that combination frequently results in unwise sex, ill-selected partners & poor marriages.

Young men with divorced parents also feared their girlfriends wouldn't stay with them if they really got to know them. Moreover, 40% of males, 19 to 23-years-old, 10 years after a divorce, had set no life goals, were drifting in school & generally lacked self-direction.

This lack of enthusiasm for life is understandable in light of their family history: 30 to 50% of their parents were still bitter 10 years later, only 14% considered both their parents happily remarried, 60% felt rejected by one parent & 80% had to deal with a step-parent.

Science is just recognizing that certain problems in adult children of divorce take years to show up.

Another "sleeper" effect of divorce occurs in the 15% of children who become the "caretaker" of a parent during & after the divorce. Some parents, overwhelmed by depression, bitterness, or mental illness, turn to their own child for support. The child tries to hold the parent together & becomes what Wallerstein & Blakeslee call an "overburdened child."

Some eventually become angry because they're treated unfairly & neglected; some "never had a childhood;" some feel guilty & a failure. In any case, the burden of excessive caretaking often increases the child's problems.

1 child out of every 3 has gone thru a divorce. An astonishing study has found evidence that going thru a divorce as a child may shorten your life by approximately 4 years (Friedman, et al., 1994).

Another indication of the devastation following the break up of a family is the fact that 60% of all children getting psychological treatment are from a divorced family & 80% of children in a mental hospital are (of course, psychological-emotional problems, which are passed on to the children, may increase the risk of divorce).

Divorce is serious business (especially in light of the fact the divorced parents often aren't any happier either). Stevenson & Black (1996) have recently summarized the short-term & long-term effects of divorce.

Perhaps the capstone study of 30 years of impressive research has just been done by the outstanding researchers in this area, Wallerstein, Lewis & Blakeslee (2000). They followed 93 children of divorce well into adulthood & compared them to similar children who hadn't experienced divorce (but some had lived with their parents' bad marriage).

The conclusion: in spite of trauma for the child at the time of divorce, the strongest impact of divorce is during the child's 20's & 30's! Having parents who have divorced arouses fears of relationships failing, fears of change, fears of disloyalty & abandonment.

These fears, plus the lack of successful models of handling marital problems, disrupt the establishment of comfortable, lasting intimacy. By age 25, only 1/2 of the women & 1/3 of the men who were children of divorce had a successful personal life.

1/3 had been in therapy & they had experienced many failed relationships. Only 60% of these children of divorce, now into their 30's or older, had ever married (compared to 80% of their peers who had not been thru a divorce).

(Note: critics have observed that Wallerstein's original description of the divorced parents included "moderately disturbed [mental illness, bizarre behavior, bipolar, paranoid] or frequently incapacitated by disabling neuroses or addictions."

This is hardly typical divorcing Americans; therefore, some of the problems observed in the children of divorce studied may be due to family pathology & genes, not just the divorce experience. However, there's no doubt that the problems following the divorce of one's parents can be prolonged & difficult & that the parents' divorce probably caused or contributed to some of those problems.)

Thus far, we don't know much for sure about how to avoid these negative consequences of growing up in a divorced or unhappy family. Wallerstein suggests that, as much as practical, the causes of the friction be discussed by the parents with the intention of teaching the children how to cope with conflicts themselves...& to reduce their fears & skepticism of marriage.

Her research group also suggests that schools offer support groups for children going thru divorce. Some children may need therapy as well. Every divorce court should certainly require every parent seeking a divorce to take a course describing the common problems of children & encouraging cooperative, civil, effective parenting-attitudes & methods after divorce.

Wallerstein, Lewis & Blakeslee (2000) make it clear that they fear our society has put too much emphasis on enabling parents to be happy...& free...while being unaware of the serious consequences of unhappy marriages to the children of divorce. We had the illusion that: "if parents are happier, the children will be happier too."

Marriages, suffering hurts & feeling angry, have been abandoned too easily, at least in terms of the needs & preferences of the children. Many unhappy, resentful parents opted for escape via divorce instead of acquiring coping skills. The children paid a price.

The researchers' latest book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, offer some how-to suggestions & stresses the importance of parents trying to repair their marriages before filling for divorce. And there's a good chapter for couples who are wondering whether to stay in an unhappy marriage or to divorce.

Obviously, some children of divorce do overcome their fears & sorrows to become secure lovers & partners but, as we've seen above, the data isn't comforting.

In summary, most children can probably handle a divorce if both mom & dad continue being a close, supportive parent & if both parents put their animosity & differences aside without involving the children. It's important that the children get loving attention & support from both parents, whether they're divorced or not. It's best if the divorced parents can be fair & kind to each other.

They can even help the children see the many adjustment problems in relationships & marriage, especially if the parents also reassure & teach the children that there are successful coping techniques. It's especially helpful, although often hard, if each partner can point out to his/her children that their other parent has many good traits.

Lastly, remember, your children feel that half of them comes from your "ex," so badmouthing the "ex" is usually an insult or threat to your child's self-esteem.

Helpful books for children of divorce

We're just beginning to learn the complex consequences of a long sequence of stressful events: marital problems, separation, divorce, single-parenting, loss of the non-custodial parent & remarriage. It's knowledge we need to help the innocent victims of divorce - the children - adjust to major losses. Because bitter divorces & essentially, abandonment of the child by a parent are so harmful, many divorce courts require parents to take a parenting class.

I think it's a good idea. Both parents are urged to maintain close, meaningful contact with the child (not just going to a show & McDonalds on Saturday afternoon); ideally, both parents should provide extended & coordinated child care, i.e., total parenting. The parents must learn to be civil to each other; they should encourage the children to love & be with the other parent.

All this means that divorced parents can't just avoid each other. They must talk, plan, decide & work together for the good of their children, just like one does with a good babysitter. Society should expect nothing less from every parent, divorced or not. If you can't control your emotions (by separating your marital conflicts from your parenting role) to the degree necessary to co-parent your children with your ex, get therapy - you have serious emotional problems.

Mental health professionals recommend for 10-year-olds or older:

  • The Boys and Girls Book about Divorce (Gardner, 1983)

for younger children:

  • Dinosaurs Divorce: A Guide for Changing Families (Brown & Brown, 1986)

for older children & adolescents:

  • How it Feels When Parents Divorce (Krementz, 1984).

For kids 4 to 9 missing their dad, try Weninger (1992). For children 5 to 12 upset by divorce, try Blakeslee, Fassler & Lash (1993). Also, it's recommended that divorcing parents try to help their children avoid the school, behavioral, social & emotional problems that tend to follow a divorce; a good source of this advice is by a respected psychologist, Neil Kalter (1989), in his book:

  • Growing Up with Divorce (Santrock, Minnett & Campbell, 1994).

In the mid-1990's there are several new books (for parents) dealing with this current "hot topic," such as Ahrons (1994), Benedek (1995) & Stahl (2000). I recommend all 3 but especially the latter one because it focused more explicitly on resolving conflicts after the divorce.

Other helpful books include Banks (1990b), Francke (1983), Gardner (1971, 1977, 1991, 1992), Teyber (1991) & Jewett (1982). Adult children of divorce with problems should see Beal & Hochman (1991).

A catalog of books & material for children in many troublesome situations is available from 1-215-277-4177.

Two therapists have written a book for protecting the interests of children undergoing nasty divorces (Garrity & Baris, 1994); it's for therapists & judges & bitter ex's.

To keep things in perspective, we have to realize that many children, say 1/3 or so, within a few months are able to cope with divorce very well. Therefore, divorcing parents should take heart & realize that if they learn about the children's problems & develop their own skills & self-control, they can help their children thru this crisis without serious harm.

Some children (maybe 10%) are much relieved when their parents get divorced, a few are delighted & thrive.

Remarriage

About 75% of divorced women & 85% of divorced men get remarried. Half are remarried within 3 years (some got a "head start"). As a result, only 4 out of 10 adults in America are married to their first spouse.

The remaining 6 out of 10 are remarried, cohabiting, or single. 2nd marriages have an even higher divorce rate - perhaps 60%. Of course, none of these peoples' first marriages lasted, so it isn't surprising that 88% say (while still in their second marriage) that it's better than their first one (Albrecht, 1979).

As we'll see, 2nd (& later) marriages are much stronger, happier, more beneficial & richer than the myths about step-parents imply. Step-families usually (70%) have a step-father, 20% of the time a step-mother & only 10% of the time do both parents bring children into a blended family.

People remarry for the same complex reasons they marry. It's our 2nd chance for happiness. We have more life experience & tend to select better partners the 2nd time. Yet, less than half of remarrieds make it thru the early years & find lasting happiness there; they may need a 3rd or a 4th marriage which seem to work out better.

Many 2nd marriages are highly stressful during the first couple of years in which parents' love has to be shared & new relationships are being worked out: the new spouse's family of origin, the step-children & step-parents, the step-siblings, etc. Moreover, financial problems are common, especially if there are step-children &/or biological children with a former spouse to support.

Remarriage may also involve relocating & dealing with 1 or 2 troublesome ex-spouses. Equally important, it may involve losing contact with your own children & intense, bewildering animosity from your new step-children, particularly if the step-parent attempts to discipline.

Some research shows that early in the 2nd marriage step-children are 2 times more likely to have school problems & 4 times more likely to have psychological problems than children living with both biological parents. Children living with a step-parent even have more problems with conduct & adjustment than children living with a single parent.

But, are the problems of step-children the result of divorce or remarriage or both? We don't know for sure yet; however, new research suggests that bitter divorces & continued fighting between biological parents cause more problems for the children than step-parents do.

In any case, the leftover problems from the old marriage plus the integration of additional people into the new "family" put blended marriage to a severe test (Levine, 1990; Goetting, 1982).

Psychology Today (May, 1994) summarized the information we have about step-families. They find hopeful signs for the 1 in 3 children with a step-parent (by 2000 there will be more children with a step-parent than there are children living with both biological parents), i.e.:

  • Once the blended family has adjusted to new members & roles, it's more satisfying, more supportive, more complex & a better learning-to-cope environment than traditional families. Therefore, don't strive for a totally happy family immediately. These complex emotional adjustments take 3 to 5 years involving lots of family discussions about how to accommodate each other.
  • After the first 5 years, step-families are more likely to last than 1st marriages. People can find the love & care they need there; the children see happy, loving parents.
  • 80% of the children raised in a step-family are well adjusted; they're tough, flexible, sensitive to & willing to accommodate other's emotional needs & prepared to face the external world.

It's parental conflict that causes problems for the remaining 20% of kids, not divorce or remarriage. The ongoing fighting &/or the loss of contact with one biological parent are the major sources of problems.

The biological parents must continue to cooperate closely with each other (in a civil, uncritical manner) in the parenting of their children. The custodial parent can't just take over all the child care & discipline (& neither should the step-parent try to do this).

In particular, the step-parent must, for several years, stay out of discipline & thoroughly support the continued parenting by both biological parents of the child; the child needs 1-on-1 time with both parents. Divided loyalty between warring parents (who are sharing their love with newcomers) is usually hell for children.

Some therapists have suggested that girls, especially adolescent daughters, have more problems being a step-child than boys do. Often girls have played a central role in running the household before the addition of a new step-parent; the addition of another adult into the family creates role & status conflicts & confusion.

 

When mother acquires a new husband, who often gets a lot of attention, the daughter may resent the intruder & have a lot of conflicts with the mother for at least a couple of years. If the new male will play basketball with the son, things may be okay. When father brings home a new lover, this too may be a more stressful situation for a daughter than for a son.

 

Any open display of affection & hints of sexuality between a parent & step-parent seems to create more discomfort for daughters than sons. A boy may, of course, have a difficult time at first with a step-parent, but he soon settles in & has no more aggression problems than boys in intact families.

 

The family dynamics can become very complex & may require therapy. Certainly, parents & step-parents should be ever watchful for difficulties & quick to address problems in "family conferences."

Because it's such a common & difficult problem, more & more is being written about remarrying & step-parenting. A Web site is offered by the Stepfamily Foundation which features the writings & audiotapes of Dr. Jeannette Lofas. Likewise, the Vishers (Visher & Visher, 1982), founders of the Stepfamily Association of America, have written a guide to step-parenting primarily for counselors but self-helpers could profit from it.

Other texts recommended by professional counselors (Santrock, Minnett & Campbell, 1994) are about the general pitfalls in 2nd marriages (Janda & MacCormack,1991; Einstein & Albert, 1986). Good general discussions of step-parenting are in Booth & Dunn (1994), Newman (1994), Dinkmeyer, McKay & McKay (1988), Martin & Martin (1985), Krantzler (1977) & Nobel & Nobel (1977).

Specifically, blended families are the focus in Bernstein (1990) & Eckler (1988), step-mothering in Prilik (1988) & Clubb (1991) & step-fathering in Rosin (1987). A couple of books are for children in a step-family (Blakeslee, Fassler & Lash, 1993; Fassler, Lash, & Ives, 1989; Evans, 1988).

I suggest you contact the Stepfamily Association of America (1-800-735-0329) for support group information & many books on all phases of divorce & remarriage.

Living together isn't easy under any circumstances, but being a step-parent &/or having a blended family are special challenges. Yet, it can be a very gratifying & enriching experience. Many step-parents & step-children are loved deeply & relate warmly. The alternative - living alone - isn't easy either.

It's about a tie, i.e., people who remarry are no happier (nor less) than those who don't remarry (Spanier & Fustenberg, 1982). We can find lots of ways to be happy.

since i had space here... i decided that i'd offer you the "scoop" about the expression i used above in my column, "Abandoning Myself." The expression, "toot sweet" has an interesting history, so i thought i'd share it with you! Sorry, for those who think  me daft, this is also something that drives my children crazy!!!!

kathleen

 

toot sweet


Jack Sanders
writes:

I'm trying to find the origin of "toot sweet."

The English expression toot sweet, which means 'immediately; right away', is an anglicization of the French phrase tout de suite.

Toot sweet - which is also found in more jocular versions, such as toot sweat & the tooter the sweeter 'more promptly' - is first found during World War I, when many French words & expressions were borrowed by English-speaking soldiers.

Some similar borrowings, from different eras, include fox paws for faux pas 'blunder of etiquette', au reservoir for au revoir 'good-bye' & mercy (or messy) buckets for merci beaucoup 'thank you very much'.

A difference between these words & toot sweet, however, is that these other expressions conform the French words to similar -sounding English words, but toot sweet is pretty much how tout de suite is pronounced in French - it doesn't involve an alteration of the French phrase.

The French tout de suite literally means 'all at once; consecutively' - a sense that rarely appears in English - but it's used idiomatically to mean 'immediately'.

this great information was found at The Maven's Word of the Day! 

People have trouble developing trust if they've experienced the loss of a loved one thru death. They can get so caught up in unresolved grief that they're unable to open themselves up to others, fearing they'll be left alone again due to death, or, abandonment.

develop a natural sense of curiosity.... click on the underlined links to learn more about what unresolved abandonment feelings can affect in your life....

abandonment 

a post abortion issue?

 

Post-Abortion Issues

Many people are interested in learning about the possible effects of abortion on women's emotional well-being & several hundred studies have been conducted on this issue since the late 1970's.

Unfortunately, much of the research on women's psychological responses to abortion can be confusing. Mainstream medical opinions, like that of the American Psychological Association, agree there's no such thing as "post-abortion syndrome." (information concerning this syndrome also available on the regret page & at teenscene's the facts page.)

A Summary of the Scientific Research

Since the early 1980's, groups opposed to abortion have attempted to document the existence of "post-abortion syndrome," which they claim has traits similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrated by some war veterans.

In 1989, the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a panel of psychologists w/extensive experience in this field to review the data.

They reported that the studies w/the most scientifically rigorous research designs consistently found no trace of "post-abortion syndrome" & no such syndrome is scientifically or medically recognized.1

The panel concluded that "research with diverse samples, different measures of response & different times of assessment have come to similar conclusions. The time of greatest distress is likely to be before the abortion. Severe negative reactions after abortions are rare & can best be understood in the framework of coping with normal life stress."2

While some women may experience sensations of regret, sadness or guilt after an abortion, the overwhelming responses are relief & happiness.3

In another study, researchers surveyed a national sample of 5,295 women, not all of whom had had abortions & many of whom had abortions between 1979 & 1987, the time they were involved in the study.

The researchers were able to learn about women's emotional well-being both before & after they had abortions. They concluded at the end of the 8 year study that the most important predictor of emotional well-being in post-abortion women was their well-being before the abortion.

Women who had high self-esteem before an abortion would be most likely to have high self-esteem after an abortion, regardless of how many years passed since the abortion.4

Psychological responses to abortion must also be considered in comparison to the psychological impact of alternatives for resolving an unwanted pregnancy (adoption or becoming a parent).

While there's been little scientific research about the psychological consequences of adoption, researchers speculate that it's likely "that the psychological risks for adoption are higher for women than those for abortion because they reflect different types of stress.

Stress associated with abortion is acute stress, typically ending with the procedure. With adoption, as w/unwanted childbearing, however, the stress may be chronic for women who continue to worry about the fate of the child."5

What the Experts Say

In a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Assoc., Nada Stotland, M.D., former president of the Assoc. of Women Psychiatrists, stated:

"Significant psychiatric sequelae after abortion are rare, as documented in numerous methodologically sound prospective studies in the US & in European countries. Comprehensive reviews of this literature have recently been performed & confirm this conclusion. The incidence of diagnosed psychiatric illness & hospitalization is considerably lower following abortion than following childbirth

Significant psychiatric illness following abortion occurs most commonly in women who were:

  • psychiatrically ill before pregnancy
  • in those who decided to undergo abortion under external pressure 
  • in those who underwent abortion in aversive circumstances, i.e., abandonment."6

Henry P. David, PhD, an internationally known scholar in this area of research, reported the following at an international conference.

"Severe psychological reactions after abortion are infrequent[T]he number of such cases is very small & has been characterized by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as 'miniscule from a public health perspective'

For the vast majority of women, an abortion will be followed by a mixture of emotions, with a predominance of positive feelings. This holds immediately after abortion & for some time afterward[T]he positive picture reported up to 8 years after abortion makes it unlikely that more negative responses will emerge later."7

Russo & Dabul reported their conclusions of an 8 year study in Professional Psychology:

"Although an intensive examination of the data was conducted, controlling for numerous variables & including comparisons of Black women vs. White women, Catholic women vs. non-Catholic women & women who had abortions vs. other women, the findings are consistent:

The experience of having an abortion plays a negligible, if any, independent role in women's well-being over time, regardless of race or religion. The major predictor of a woman's well-being after an abortion, regardless of race or religion, is level of well-being before becoming pregnant.

Our findings are congruent w/those of others, including the National Academy of Sciences (1975) & the conclusion is worth repeating. Despite a concerted effort to convince the public of the existence of a widespread & severe postabortion trauma, there's no scientific evidence for the existence of such trauma, even though abortion occurs in the highly stressful context of an unwanted pregnancy."8 (emphasis added)

The Impact of Anti-Choice Activities

Russo & Dabul8 point out that when women in their study were interviewed from 1979 to 1987, anti-choice efforts to stigmatize abortion hadn't yet reached prominent levels.

Today, anti-choice groups regularly harass clinic staff, intimidate patients at clinics & use graphic language designed to punish women (e.g. "abortion is murder," "women are baby-killers").

Additionally, the past few years have revealed a new anti-choice strategy of offering "counseling" services to women. Rather than exploring the roots of a woman's psychological distress & providing non-biased therapy, anti-choice counselors tend to direct her anger towards the abortion provider by claiming that women are misinformed about the psychological trauma that abortion inflicts.

Due to the political bias of these counselors & their misuse of psychological services, women can be left feeling angry & betrayed.

Russo & Dabul8 concluded that practitioners should acknowledge the detrimental effects of the social ostracism felt by abortion patients. Some post-abortion difficulties may result from a lack of social support because women are expected to bear the brunt of unplanned & unwanted childbearing.

The researchers encouraged all practitioners to continue to provide accurate information since many women have been misled by anti-choice sources which may contribute to concerns if they choose abortion.

Further, women who have concerns after an abortion should be encouraged to see a professional psychologist or join a support group supervised by a professional mental health provider, rather than one sponsored by any anti-choice organization.

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