I should have known enough by now to know that just when I was starting to travel really well and get more of a grip on self care and the roots of my abandonment trauma that I would be set up for yet another dose of being taken down by a retrigger incident and that was just what happened to me today.
One of the impacts of having abandonment trauma or emotionally unavailable parents is that we get set up for these kinds of relationships later in life. We maybe aware on one level that something is not quite right or off the nose in some way. It’s those little things that others can do which are actually big things to us that can set us back and make us nose dive down into that huge conglomerate of pain that sits inside us from all the times we were abandoned or betrayed in some way.
This happened to me today with someone that has proved to be fairly inconsistent in the past. This is beyond one friend just disappointing another. It is about a friend who made commitment to be there reneging on things due to her own inability to say no and set good boundaries with others and it burned me really bad. I adapted my schedule around this person because certain times and days of meeting didn’t suit her. Never mind that it took her four days to return a call when I was so clearly in emotional distress. Silly me went back for another dose of being let down today and I got stung really, really badly. And the affect on my body and soul was so powerful, I literally felt like my insides had been scalded with burning liquid.
As a friend of mine said when I was sharing about it with him in order to come to clarity. “There are some people that rob your time and energy.” This person consistently turns up late. She will then deny that she was actually late on so many occasions and maybe for others who don’t have the degree of abandonment trauma that I have this may be manageable but what I have found out today is that it costs me far too much to engage with someone who consistently demonstrates by her actions that my time and needs aren’t that important.
I took the risk today to express how it felt to be subject to this kind of treatment after being blown off with 5 minutes notice after spending the entire morning and yesterday executing a morning tea for her. I didn’t receive any answer and my entire body and then digestive system went haywire for the entire afternoon, at least until I eventually found a way to express the anger and get myself back into a calm centred space with little Jasper.
What I learned today is that I have to be a lot stricter with third and fourth chances, especially in interpersonal relationships, for if I don’t honour my own truth and needs my body soon enough makes the truth known. Trusting someone inconsistent or emotionally unavailable does have really painful consequences for me. It can launch me back down into the spiral of emotional abandonment depression that is very, very powerful and deep. This is the place I am working so hard to break free of. It has dogged me for so much of my life and I absolutely don’t want it to rob my life energy anymore. And so I must definitively shut the door on those people and those relationships that trigger me and take good steps to deal constructively with the pain that occurs when I am launched back again into deep abandonment depression.
(Later : I wish I was stronger. I wish this didn’t affect me as deeply. I am unclear as to whether my friend should have to carry the wrap for past pain stirred up. I am so confused at times but I only know it hurt me very, very deeply today. I can’t seem to rationalise my feelings any more.)
Emerging From The Dark Night 