Dealing with disappointment

According to therapist Nancy Napier dealing with disappointment and despair may be two of the most difficult experience for those of us with childhood trauma.. Disappointment and despair are related to both need and hope, the hope was that we would be loved and valued as children but so often this did not happen.. Relationships in adulthood that trigger disappointment may lead us to anger, depression or despair.

I found the following quotes from Nancy’s book Getting Through The Day : Strategies for Adults Hurt As Children helpful.

Resolving the issues behind despair and learning to face and resolve disappointments lead to less overwhelming ups and downs… both arise within an interpersonal context, when as children we interact with people we need for our survival. Learning more effective ways to handle how it felt to be so let down by these important people in our lives may ease old vulnerabilities and deep shame, as we come to terms with the depth of need we felt to be cared for adequately when we were children.

.. each time you feel let down by someone is an opportunity to explore how you coped with disappointment.. Do you fly into a rage? Do you withdraw emotionally but act friendly? Do you leave physically and write off the person? As with triggers, each time you find yourself struggling with feeling disappointed in someone who matters to you is another opportunity to learn more about what life was like for you as a child.

(it is similar with despair.) Children who are traumatically hurt inevitably feel despair. When you were young, there was no way to deal with these feelings, there was no place to put them. Now you have your adult state of mind available and can build your cognitive tree, you have a place to put these devastating feelings.

The needs not met as children linger and wil reappear in present relationships, we seek them in each new relationship and often replay experiences of the past until we recognise the original longing or need, respect, feel and honour it. Avoiding relationships will not heal us. Looking for what we get then, now will not heal us. Only recognising and learning to hold those needs and feelings and disappointment triggers and know what they were about from the past will heal us.

For children who were traumatised there is an unbearable need to be rescued from what was ‘not fair.’ That wish or longing can endure well into adulthood, but we can never be rescued from what was not given then. We can only recognise it happened and let go of the need for others to rescue us. As children we are invested in hiding our true feelings of helplessness. We deny them, split the feelings or shut them off and these feelings include a sense of deep danger.

(and) while it is natural to want what you did not get in childhood, the demand that others make it better for you causes all kinds of problems in adulthood. Mostly it leads to disappointments with people who cannot possibly live up to the expectations and wishes that reside deep inside this inner child part.

Holding onto such expectations we don’t allow others to be human or fallible, and we forget others have their own lives and agendas separate t our.. they are not just put here to meet all of ours. In time we have to learn how to weather life in the face of all we needed but could not have i in childhood as we work to make the best of the present, dealing as we must with life’s inevitable disappointments without falling into utter despair, this is the ongoing work for those of us who suffered childhood trauma or neglect, since disappointment acts as such a major trigger.