Do painful feelings go away and some reflections on addressing attachment pain and trauma.

I wonder sometimes if deep emotional trauma from injuries or just being alone and taught that it was hopeless or useless to need ever fully goes away (this may be just the way I am feeling today, though!). I think for so much of my own life I had to bury the needs I had and when I think about it my Mum had to do the same with an emotionally disconnected and unavailable mother. I was crying a fair bit a little while ago after reading a post from someone who also struggles with emotional vulnerability and I was contemplating some of my own past angry outbursts in the light of this.

If we are in deep grief over not being validated or held the grief so easily turns to anger and frustration. I was crying before about how when my Mum did try to be there for me later in life I could not really accept that but also she was never consistently able to be there, sometimes she would but if a better offer came along I would often be ‘dropped’ and I have just connected the dots on my first so called ‘best friend’ in adolescence who was always dropping me or letting me down, often not turning up when she had a friend who was more fun to be with. Fair enough she was meeting her own needs, maybe I was too ‘boring’? Who knows. I just know I made significant turning points a few years ago when I stopped meeting up with people who were inconsistent and may drop me or not honour their agreements with no notice. I didn’t cut them out of my life as I had to do the work on what was triggered but I did limit involvement.

Its strikes me that our capacity to set good boundaries rests on our capacity to value ourselves. If we think we are not worth being treated well then we put up with bad treatment and I guess we all have different levels of sensitivity. Of course as an adult not everyone can be there for us and will sometimes let us down but the point is an issue of balance.

I think a lot lately of how my anger sometimes pushed people away who were trying to be close but then I think of the friends who never abandoned me knowing my anger was a cry for love and this is something The Course In Miracles addresses. It says that all anger or attack is a cry for love and so we are best to react in love and tolerance. That said we don’t need to be constantly disrespected and trampled on but if someone has a large degree of childhood wounding and is trying to address it isn’t the right thing to do to cut them some slack and have a respect for the level of need hidden underneath the pain?

I have heard it said of alcoholics in recovery that we are too emotionally dependent but it took years for me to come across a book on addiction as attachment trauma to connect the dots on that one. We addicts often had to turn to substance or process addictions in the absence of other care that behaviour ends up being counterproductive when it stops us opening up our vulnerability and reaching to give and receive love in healthy balanced adult ways. And those of us with high level narcissistic wounding from childhood really need a very skilled empathic, attuned and emotionally aware therapist.

I am sure I am not alone in having been misunderstood or mistreated in therapy, I know I am not. But if we suffer from emotional neglect or attachment trauma our lowered sense of self value and others who abuse us may try to convince us we should not expect more and have to settle for less. But that is not true. We have the right to set our own boundaries for love, respect, attunement and self care.