Showing posts with label Schema/abandonment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schema/abandonment. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Is FAB ruining your life?

Fears of abandonment (FAB)arise from instability in the early years of a persons life. This instability contributes to insecurities. These insecurities manifest in multiple ways including anxiety, defensiveness, giving up, people pleasing, clinging including stalking, and substance abuse and other mood altering behaviors.

Fears of abandonment is the basis for many of the symptoms that make it possible for mental health professionals to diagnose a person with a personality disorder. A personality disorder is described as repetitive patterns of behavior that are dysfunctional and maladaptive so as to decrease the life satisfaction and fulfillment of the person with the disorder and the people that person has relationships with.

Fears of abandonment can take over a person's life and tell her/him that the world is a unstable place where people wind up leaving you alone to fend for yourself physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, and even spiritually. The fears of abandonment have convinced the person that without connection, acceptance, and belonging with the special other, the person will die.

Fears of abandonment will convince people that they shouldn't fall in love and become attached  because they will be devastated if they lose the relationship.

Fears of abandonment can create jealousy and paranoia when the person experiences the loss of their partner's attention and/or loyalty whether real or imagined.

Fears of abandonment can become stronger and more insistent when there is a physical and/or emotional separation from the person the sufferer is attached to.

Fears of abandonment make a person believe that no one will ever be committed to them and loyal and they are doomed to a life of loneliness and insecurity.

Fears of abandonment can be so tricky and devilish as to make the person accuse others of not being loyal and faithful, thereby pushing and driving them away, and bringing about the very situation of abandonment and rejection they feared. This is called a "self fulfilling prophecy" when the very thing the person feared is brought about by  his/her own self sabotage.

How can one manage FAB to decrease and maybe even eliminate its influence on one's life?

To be continued

Friday, July 22, 2016

Fears of abandonment arise from early life experiences of instability

As human beings we all have a need for connection, acceptance, and belonging. Without it, beginning as children, we experience the world as unstable and unpredictable. How does a child cope with these feelings of insecurity? There are many ways and the predominant way of coping with this instability is influenced by temperament along with other factors.

How do these feelings of instability work for you?

Do you worry a lot that people you care about will leave you or die?
Does it seem that people come and go a lot in your life?
Do you find yourself getting anxious when people are late or tell you they have to go?
Do you find yourself not trusting people and not believing what they say?
Do you find yourself clinging and demanding more togetherness than the other person feels comfortable with and thereby pushing him/her away and your worst fear comes to pass?
Is this fear of abandonment a "viscous cycle" that seems to happen over again and again in your relationships and makes you miserable a lot of the time?

The desire for connection, acceptance, and belonging is normal. The way that people sometimes manage this desire and handle it may not be and cause problems.

What are some constructive ways of managing this desire for connection and acceptance and some destructive ways?

To be continued