....I've been thinking about this, too. There are parts to it, and it's hard to see just how important any one of them is--and that probably changes with the episode, anyway.

But here's what I've been thinking about:

+expectations--and I mean that we WANT something and we don't think we're going to get it

+the importance of not assuming...here's an example: a friend says her bf has made two lists of all the TV channels. One list is good, the other bad. He has shown her how to access the good list. She asked to be shown how to access the bad list. He said, "Oh, you don't need to know that. You wouldn't like them.".......She is far healthier than me. What she tells me she said was: "You're assuming."............Oh. As in, OH, that's how to stand up for yourselff, and OH as in that IS what he was doing. My friend is one smart cookie....

+that what I take as signs that someone doesn't have time for me, or that I am not important to him, may be a product of the fact that I am not validating what is important to HIM....Like, that he needs more time in his study right now because he has a lot of work that has piled up. He has to get it done. And I have to give him time to do it.......Just the way of the world.

+the part that physical sensations of fear and pain play: We're still just like little kids: If something scares us, we clam up and get really still (it might be that in an instant we will be raging in absolute fury, but that's if he is asking something that doesn't feel fair...whether it is or not and we're too confused by our pain to figure that out), and our bodies HURT . So....we need to get rid of those emotions--they feed each other, spiral until the situation shifts (and that may be what the rage is about: we are forcing a change, trying to take control?). IF we were our own child, we would probably do that first--reach out and get ahold of the little one, pull them in tight and safe, rock them a little, kiss the top of their heads, their hair. All the while saying "It will be all right. We're going to fix this." "Let's look at what happened." And then, crucial I think, we say at each stage of explanation: "What do you wish had happened here?" And then, as the adult, we answer their need: "I think I can do that for you. Let's see. This is what I need from you to help me do that."

That's where I am with it........I have a pre-adolescent and an NVLD daughter. And me. And an avoidant husband.............I'm learning to have these conversations and live to tell about it.......................