[ScarletPimpernel]

I'm trying to help L understand what it's like for me when she goes on vacation. She's really good at object constancy and has a lot of long-distance relationships, so she doesn't seem to understand.

I'm having problems putting it into words. The longing, the aching, the feelings of betrayal and abandonment. The feeling that she disappears from me, and the fear that I disappear from her.

She has giving me a lot of reassurance for this vacation that "hit the spot". And I am getting better at holding her when she's gone.

I just want her to understand what I go through.

How would you describe your separation anxiety?

[Amandae8787]

It’s the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again. I know that the person will be back, but I can’t feel it in my body. I can’t feel that the person really exist. And I feel so alone, even though I’m really not. I feel like I’ve lost something that can’t be replaced until the person get’s back.

[Mountaindewed]

I’ve been having separation anxiety for 4 months and 2 weeks. I don’t even know if it’s considered separation anxiety at this point or if it’s some weird kind of irrational feeling of abandonment that I don’t remember ever having before. I honestly don’t think it will ever get completely better for me. I really don’t.

When she was on vacation last summer I’d listen to music a lot. When I was in IOP I was majorly depressed when not in the program. Doing the program was fine though. I just had to find other ways to deal with my feelings about her.

Basically separation anxiety just sucks and I don’t think my mom knows just how much this is still hurting me.

[Favorite Jeans]

I know it is so important to feel understood by your T. I have gotten stressed out about this many times. It feels like a pre-requisite to them giving you the empathy you crave.

And… here’s the But:

I mean impermanence is a fundamental existential truth, right? We are not permanent beings. Every relationship ends. There’s a lot of freedom in accepting that. What if your job here is not to learn that things are permanent but to accept that all we have is now... and become okay with that?

You are okay. You love people even though they may die or otherwise leave temporarily or permanently. You are building security within yourself even though the world is uncertain. It’s no use telling yourself that there is permanence and security; there isn’t. But there can still be trust and okayness.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Feelings are feelings. They're neither good nor bad. I can't help feel separation anxiety. As far as why I want to describe ot to her: 1. My goal thos year is direct communication. AND 2. L wants to know. Seriously. We talk about it a lot, and I've tried describing it to her, but I don't feel like I'm able to capture it completely with words. I thought if other people could describe their experiences, I might be able to find the words. This is in no way to manipulate L!!! She knows this. This is just so she can relate better to how and why I feel what I feel. Like I said before: She wants to know how I feel!

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

The best analogy I can come up with is it's similar to when you as a kid can't find your favorite stuffed animal anymore. You have no idea whether you lost it and whether you will see it again. And you start to worry that you don't have anything to remind yourself of that stuffed animal, you didn't smell it one last time, didn't hug it really hard one last time... and you have no idea whether you're ever going to get it back, so you start to freak out since you weren't ready to lose that stuffed animal. You can of course think of it, try to remind yourself of how it felt, or even try to replace it. But it's never quite the same. Then your mom come in and tells you she's only washing it. But you don't really believe her, because you can't see into the laundry machine. You trust your mom that she's not lying, but now you're sitting in front of the laundry machine, anxiously waiting for whether the stuffed animal will reappear once the cycle is over. And up until that moment, some part of you always feels like maybe it's not going to come out, maybe your mom just hoped that you'd forget about it until the laundry is done. And all that time you think about how much you just wanted to say some parting words to the toy, just touch it one last time, maybe take a picture of it. And you worry about how you're ever going to feel okay again if it won't come back.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Thank you. That was so beautifully put. And really describes what it's like.

What is the focus of the anxiety? That harm will come to you or that the other person comes to harm in some way? Or anxiety about having to see the person again?

Is there a difference between a lack of object consistency and separation anxiety? I struggle with object consistency but I am not sure this manifests as obvious anxiety. I am more likely to become hostile or avoidant. Maybe these states are themselves a type of anxiety, I am not sure. I want my therapist to be at my beck and call, I want to control her, so when I can't have contact with her I feel angry or sometimes I miss her. I am not aware of feeling anxious.

When I don't believe she will return or that we will see each other again, I shut down or lash out. Sometimes I can be vulnerable enough to say I miss her or that it's hard to not have sessions, but it sounds as if you are describing something else. It's very brave of you to be able to be so honest about your needs.

[corbie]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

I know it is so important to feel understood by your T. I have gotten stressed out about this many times. It feels like a pre-requisite to them giving you the empathy you crave.

And… here’s the But:

I mean impermanence is a fundamental existential truth, right? We are not permanent beings. Every relationship ends. There’s a lot of freedom in accepting that. What if your job here is not to learn that things are permanent but to accept that all we have is now... and become okay with that?

You are okay. You love people even though they may die or otherwise leave temporarily or permanently. You are building security within yourself even though the world is uncertain. It’s no use telling yourself that there is permanence and security; there isn’t. But there can still be trust and okayness.

I don't think this is about permanence. I'd say it's about continuity. Or lack thereof. It's about the difficulty or even inability to differentiate between a temporay absence of someone who's still out there and still cares and can be trusted to return, and a permanent loss.

For me, it's like ... I tolerate being alone in the sense that I don!t freak out and I can find ways to occupy myself. It recently came up in therapy that I could do so at an age when some mothers report that they can't as much as go to the loo and shut the door without their child despairing. BUT that doesn't mean I was or am dealing well with it, but ... dunno, hard to put into words. I might somehow dissociate the feeling, which means I'm not dealing with it but I'm also not dealing with anything else - I might succeed in forcing myself to do stuff, but it doesn't feel like anything matters or is even real.

As far as object constancy I ... kind of have issues I think. I have a vague concept of people I know being out there, but it's hard to take their existence seriously unless I meet them regularly. With xT, I'd form some sort of image of her in session, then in a couple of days I'd start struggling to hold onto it, doubting the reality of it and reverting to seeing her in therms of my fears and hopes. There was a lot of anxiety involved for a number of reasons. With current T, the overall anxiety ;evel is far lower and I've been semi/consciously keeping my distance from her so far ... will have to see how that changes. Also, xT is still my main attachment figure, so the longing and aching for her is still there.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Yes! I don't think this is about permanence for me either.

Sure I'm afraid she won't come back. She could get sick/injured, die, abandon me, etc. I have those fears in general because I've experienced those things. There's also the possibility that she might move. And these fear are amplified when she's away. But that's a different kind of anxiety than separation anxiety, for me at least.

I think for me, it very much has to do with object constancy. The longer her vacation or the farther away she is, and especially not having any contact, creates a fear and longing that can feel unbearable. The fear is that she won't be able to hold onto me. I guess it's me projecting my issues onto her. I have difficulty holding onto her.

This is all so hard to define for me.

I am getting better though. I able able to hold some images in my mind. I can hear her voice of certain phrases. The transitional objects help. And her emails help.

It's just so painful when she's gone. And I want to explain it to her the best way I know how. Not to manipulate or change anything. I mean it's therapy. This is where you're supposed to process and explore feelings. This is what helps you grow, at least for me.

[sarahsweets]

Paralyzing fear and emotional wreck.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

Feelings are feelings. They're neither good nor bad. I can't help feel separation anxiety. As far as why I want to describe ot to her: 1. My goal thos year is direct communication. AND 2. L wants to know. Seriously. We talk about it a lot, and I've tried describing it to her, but I don't feel like I'm able to capture it completely with words. I thought if other people could describe their experiences, I might be able to find the words. This is in no way to manipulate L!!! She knows this. This is just so she can relate better to how and why I feel what I feel. Like I said before: She wants to know how I feel!

Totally. Feelings are feelings and you want to explain them as best you can.

I’m sorry that I answered a question you didn’t ask Scarlet.

Maybe it’s an issue that’s been playing around in my mind a bit. There’s a way therapists or perhaps some modalities of therapy, really do not adequately acknowledge or address the harm they do in creating dependence in the client. I think the profound distress so many of us experience in the therapist’s absence is so common as to be predictable.

Like if you were going thru chemo, you’d be told the terms of it: the best outcome, the likely outcome and the likely or certain suffering it will entail. Then you could consent or not. But therapy is quite a bit less honest, there is no forewarning, no acknowledgement of the pain it will cause. Then when you feel and articulate the pain, they suggest that more therapy, more talking is the way to lessen the pain, a claim that lies somewhere between conjecture and outright falsehood.

So we struggle to explain our experience of distress to them, an experience so common and so predictable that they should actually be thoroughly educated about it before beginning their practice. For that reason, making people struggle strikes me as almost a kind of gaslighting. Like if your oncologist were making you find the exact right words to explain hair loss.

My original answer was my thought about how to go about addressing the pain without chasing the fleeting high of feeling understood by and connected to the therapist. The loss of which feeling being precisely what completes the cycle of therapist separation anxiety.

In my opinion. And experience.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Both L and I want to be able to understand what it's like for me; not just in general. I was asking here hoping there were words that I resonated with (and there have been!).

I don't think L is gaslighting me. I've been through enough good (and bad) therapy to know what it all entails. And I am seeing a lot of progress with L. I can actually say I'm proud of myself which is a huge thing for me.

And I don't think L is just stringing me along. My dad had a fear that L was just keeping me dependent on her. I talked to L about it. She said that if I choose to end therapy, she believes that I'm well enough to be on my own. It's up to me if I want to continue. And I do! I'm getting a taste of what joy and peace feels like, how conflict resolution is important and build relationships, how to hold boundaries and respect myself, how taking care of myself means I can take care of others better, and how my improvements are trickling down to my loved ones and they too are getting better, etc. Even one of her last emails she said that I already have everything I need (to survive). I just want to thrive! And I'm just starting to learn how to feel it and do it.

[Favorite Jeans]

That is truly wonderful.

And like I said, I think I was intending a response to you but ended up kind of elaborating on something I’ve been musing about.

You’ve never said anything about L that led me to think she was unethical or gaslighting you.

I just meant that sometimes it seems that therapy as it’s currently practiced is not well-equipped to handle this type of distress.

[corbie]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

She said that if I choose to end therapy, she believes that I'm well enough to be on my own. It's up to me if I want to continue. And I do! I'm getting a taste of what joy and peace feels like, how conflict resolution is important and build relationships, how to hold boundaries and respect myself, how taking care of myself means I can take care of others better, and how my improvements are trickling down to my loved ones and they too are getting better, etc. Even one of her last emails she said that I already have everything I need (to survive). I just want to thrive! And I'm just starting to learn how to feel it and do it.

I admire L based on what you posted about her so far, but this rubs me the wrong way. if she were gaslighting you (and I'm not saying she is, or even likely to be), this would be something she'd likely say, effectively dodging the question. I mean, compared to what most therapists I know or heard of, she's providing an extraordinary amount of support, and it tends to be highly distressing to you when there's a hiccup in it (or so it comes across to me). How do you go from that to 'choosing to end therapy'? There's a whole lot of work involved in getting to the point where you're ready to make that choice. On the positive side, my vague impression is that such work is being done, and I think the improvements you mention are coming across in your posts (although I confess I don't follow your posts cloesly enough to have a solid idea of what's happening).

[ScarletPimpernel]

Hmmm. I trust L, and believe that she is honest with me. I can see how it might rub you the wrong way. There was a lot more to the conversation about my dad's fears then just telling me that that she believes I'm well enough on my own. Both her and I believe there's a lot of good reasons to keep moving forward. It's not like I'm 100% better or will be. There's always room for growth. Like you pointed out: when there's a hiccup, I tend to have a big reaction. It's not about her or our relationship, but about my trauma. I'm getting a lot better at conflict resolution. And so there's growth.

However, wouldn't the flip side also be wrong? To tell a client that they must depend on therapy. That they're not well enough to cope? Especially if they are.

Anyways, my intention is not to analyze whether separation anxiety is good or bad or a sign of something rather. I simply was looking for other's experiences.

[corbie]

Yeah, having a broader context helps. On its own 'you could manage if you chose to leave' felt likte dodging the question because dependency doesn't necessarily mean you objectively can't cope without. It can mean you could technically cope, or even would be better off (like with my xT), but for some reason fear of losing the person wins out.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread, I was just weirded out, since L made such a good impression so far. But this makes sense.

With xT, I still have this dull ache, like I'm missing something essential, and I just want to curl up and hibernate until I somehow get it back. Except, I know full well that's not going to happen. So it's kind of the inverse of separation anxiety, like part of me is refusing to acknowledge that it's a permanent loss? I find it so hard to make sense of my emotions.

[Favorite Jeans]

For me the anxiety is that I can’t have them because they’re only around for an hour a week but neither can I grieve them because they’re not really gone.

This incredibly intense, vulnerable connection is, IDK, Shrödinger’s relationship? Alive and dead simultaneously.