Imagine Hope Counseling Group Blog
Inspiring Hope for Life & Relationships
Imagine Hope Counseling Group has been discussing abandonment issues this week. So far, we have gone over the first stages of abandonment: Shattering, Withdrawl, and Internalizing. Today we will discuss the final two stages: Rage and Lifting.
Rage
In this part of the grieving process of abandonment, all of the feelings of insecurity and despair turn into intense anger against the person who abandoned them and is where a person starts to fight back. These feelings, which have been internalized to this point, become externalized in the form of rage. This is a turning point in the abandonment process, where you start refusing to accept all of the blame for the failure of the relationship. This stage may look like agitated depression, irritability and you might have fantasies of retaliation and feel revengeful. Sometimes people tend to lash out in spurts of anger towards the person who abandoned them or displace this anger towards friends and family. This is an important step in the process since it allows feelings of inadequacy to shift towards empowerment, but it’s also important to recognize the possible destructiveness of this phase. This phase, if processed inappropriately, can actually cause people to distance from you, starting the whole process over again and creating the very feelings of abandonment that a person is struggling with. It’s also important not to get stuck in this phase because it will cause further isolation and keep you from fully healing.
Lifting
After the anger/rage has been processed, which allows your pain to become externalized, the pain slowly begins to lift. In this stage, you begin to let go and feelings of strength and encouragement replace the grief. During this phase, a person is more likely to begin seeing the experience as one that has taught them a life lesson or has given them wisdom about their issues and pain. They might even feel gratitude for having gone through the experience because they see it has helped them become a more emotionally healthy person. This phase is when people feel the readiness to open their heart and love again. They have courageously embraced the process of recovery and begin to feel more strength and hope. It’s important to go through the stages to get to this point, because it ensures that old feelings aren’t brought into new relationships as “baggage”. It’s also important during this stage to take your feelings with you so you don’t become emotionally disconnected, which doesn’t allow others to get close to you in future relationships.
Remember that these stages are different than the normal grieving process, as we have discussed. They are unique to abandonment issues. As Susan Anderson states, “You SWIRL through the stages over and over within an hour, day, a month, sometimes a period of years– cycles within cycles– until you emerge out the end of the funnel-shaped cloud, a changed person, better able to find love than before”.
Thank you for joining us this week!
Resources: The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson
www.abandonment.net
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
Posted in Abandonment, Codependency, Grief and Loss | No Comments »
Teri and Tamara have done a wonderful job of explaining abandonment and the first stage of the process- Shattering. I want to reiterate what Tamara said, this is different than the normal stages of grief and loss. Everyone experiences these stages. The abandonment we are discussing goes far beyond that. it pushes something in us that causes us to react to things differently than “normal” grief and loss would. I am going to discuss 2 stages today:
Withdrawl
This stage is much like withdrawal symptoms when someone stops using drugs or alcohol, or any addiction for that matter. It is the aching, longing, the craving to have that person back. They yearn for the person to come back. The needs they were filling are more readily noticed and the void feels huge! The same as an addict, you feel the loss of appetite, not being able to sleep, staying awake trying to figure out how to get them back. You feel the true loss and separation in this stage.
Internalizing
This is the most critical of the stages for 2 reasons-
1. You are very vulnerable. You are walking around with an open, gaping wound! You are susceptible to being hurt even worse because of your wound. If you latch on to someone at this stage, you could easily be taken advantage of and hurt even more deeply.
2. You beat yourself up during this stage, making you even more vulnerable. You bargain with yourself. “What if I would of? I should have, could have…”. Because you are doubting yourself, your self-esteem is taking a beating. This makes you a target for someone to treat you bad and to get into a bad relationship- which could start the cycle over again.
It is important during the stages of withdrawl and internalizing that you understand what is going on. Get support from family and friends who will help you and support you. This is a great time to seek counseling as well.
Tomorrow Joleen will discuss our last 2 stages. Thank you for reading.
Adapted from “The Journey from Abandonment to Healing” by Susan Anderson http://www.abandonment.net/
*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville
Posted in Abandonment, addictions, Codependency, Relationships, Therapy | 2 Comments »
Teri did a great job yesterday describing the concept of abandonment and all of it’s characteristics. Abandonment is similar to grief. With both, you experience a loss. However with grief, the more time that elapses, the intensity of the loss decreases. With abandonment, the difference is that the loss feels personal. The intensity of the loss does not decrease because it feels personal.
Today we’re going to start discussing Susan Anderson’s Five Stages of Abandonment. She uses the acronym S.W.I.R.L to stand for each of the 5 Stages: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage and Lifting. You can read more about all of these in her book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing.
Shattering
In this first stage, you realize your relationship with a loved one is coming to an end. All the dreams and wishes you had for the relationship are torn apart, or, Shattered. Despair, heartbreak, and hopelessness sets in. You feel anxiety, depression and for some, maybe even suicidal. You feel so connected to the love you lost that you believe as though you’ll die without them in your life. It feels as though you can’t breathe as deeply without them, experience life the same without them, and your world will never be the same again. During this stage you experience such deep pain and sorrow. You walk around in a cloud, as if life is a blurr. Please note that when relationships end, we’re all going to go through a grieving process. With abandonment, it feels as though someone’s life-line has been disconnected.
If you identified with any of the characteristics yesterday, and this first stage today, I invite you to come back to read about the other stages of Abandonment. You can heal from this, there is Hope.
Written by: Tamara Wilhelm MA, LMHC
*Tamara enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, & couples counseling at Imagine Hope. We also specialize in family counseling, child & adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield & Fishers.
Tags: abandonment, Abandonment issues, fear of abandonment
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Have you heard someone say they suffer from abandonment issues? Most people think about adoption or being left on a door step as a child, but abandonment issues can be caused by many more life experiences.
Author Susan Anderson says, “Everyday there are people who feel as if life itself has left them on a doorstep or thrown them away. Abandonment is about loss of love itself, that crucial loss of connectedness. It often involves breakup, betrayal, aloneness. People struggling with abandonment issues include those going through the ending of a relationship as well as searching adoptees, recently widowed, and those suffering the woundedness of earlier disconnections.”
I explain abandonment to my clients as a 3-pronged fear that has proven itself true in their lives. The first is the fear of loss- any loss. This could be your dog dying, parents divorcing, chronic moving, or your favorite teacher leaving half way through the year on maternity leave. Reoccurring loss in younger ages will strengthen a person’s fear that it has and will happen again.
The second prong is the fear of rejection. This can be from family, friends, boyfriends/ girlfriends, or any place you are searching for belonging. If and when these things happen, it can cause deep wounds that make you sensitive to any type of rejection and take it personally.
The third prong is the fear of physical and/ or emotional abandonment. The physical abandonment can be divorce, death, adoption, and literal abandoning. The emotional abandonment has to do with emotional needs not being met and a lack of attachment.
When these fears are validated a person may exhibit abandonment issues. Here are several traits I have seen my clients show when “under the influence of abandonment”:
- Fears and has a hard time being alone
- Loneliness can be a very difficult and uneasy feeling
- Have trouble trusting others
- Might ask 20 questions in order to uncover a suspicion
- Have moved in an out of relationships without much time in between or has a deep longing to always be in a relationship
- Jumps to conclusions and worst case scenarios and believes them as truth
- Has a sense of urgency to deal with something “right now” even if the timing is horrible
- Fears and avoids rejection
- Has trouble being left out
- Any kind of loss is hard for them
- They tend to be jealous- not just of their loved one being with someone else, but also of their time.
There are many more examples we could cover! Just keep in mind that healing is possible from these issues. It takes a lot of hard work, but you can be free from its power over your life!
Keep reading the rest of the week as we discuss Susan Anderson’s Stages of Abandonment.
Written by Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Tags: abandonment, Abandonment issues, fear of abandonment
Posted in depression, Family Issues, Grief and Loss, Relationships, Therapy | No Comments »
This week, Imagine Hope therapist’s are discussing the different ways we handle conflict. If you haven’t gotten the chance to read the earlier blog posts, we encourage you to do so. They contain some great information! Today we continue the discussion with Collaborating.
Collaborating is a healthy way of handling conflict. This is the opposite of avoiding. It is deeper than compromise in that the partners dig into the issues to identify the true concerns of the individual. Then the partners find alternatives to the problem that satisfy both sets of concerns. The partners explore the disagreement to learn from each other’s insights. They not only solve the problem or find a compromise but talk about their difficulty in getting to that solution in order to avoid the same communication problems again.
Did you recognize what ways you currently handle conflict? What are the ways you would like to be more effective in conflict resolution? We hope this week’s blog has helped you in answering those questions!
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
Tags: collaberation, conflict resolution, healthy conflict
Posted in anger management, boundaries, communication, Marriage, marriage counseling, Relationships | No Comments »
As Teri and Tamara have mentioned, many of us were not taught how to handle conflict appropriately or effectively. Many of us learn the hard way or don’t learn at all. If you notice that you have a lot of anxiety regarding conflict and you don’t feel it gets resolved in your relationships very often, it’s important to see what part you play in it. Hopefully this week has been helpful in identifying that. Today we will discuss another unhealthy way to deal with conflict:
Accommodating
This is the opposite of competing. This person neglects their own concerns and needs in order to please their partner or the other person. They are self-sacrificing to a degree that they only think of pleasing the other person. They neglect to realize that by accommodating the person and sacrificing themselves, they become angry and bitter towers that person, which breeds more conflict for them!
Usually people who accommodate feel angry on the inside because they feel their needs don’t get met. What they don’t realize is their avoidance of conflict is creating the anger.
Do you ever feel angry but pretend to be fine after conflict? You could be an accommodator. If you identify with this, it might also be helpful to read our articles and blogs on codependency. Often the two go hand in hand.
Thank you so much for reading. Tomorrow Joleen will finish us out with one more type.
*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: Avoidance, Conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution
Posted in Codependency, communication, Relationships, Uncategorized | No Comments »
As Teri pointed out yesterday, conflict is a natural part of relationships. The hard part during conflict is slowing down, taking deep breaths, and really opening your ears and heart to the other person’s perspective. Let’s look at 2 more ways of handling conflict:
Avoiding
This is an unhealthy way to handle conflict, although the majority of people in relationships choose to handle conflict this way. By avoiding, a person is not addressing concerns and not expressing needs. Examples include sidestepping issues, postponing issues until a “better time” (although a better time never seems to come!), or simply withdrawing from your partner.
Competing
This is another unhealthy way to handle conflict. This is pursuing your own concerns at your partner’s expense. People who are power-hungry use this mode to control people and manipulate them into getting what the competitor wants. A person who handles conflict this way uses whatever power they can to win their position. They want to “win”.
Neither of these two ways of handling conflict “feels” good. If you see yourself in these two ways, ask yourself “Where did I learn to do this?” or “Is this style of conflict really working for me in my relationships?”.
Natalie & Joleen have more ways of handling conflict to share with you this week. Thank you for reading!
Written by: Tamara Wilhelm MA, LMHC
*Tamara enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, & couples counseling at Imagine Hope. We also specialize in family counseling, child & adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield & Fishers.
Tags: conflict management, Ways to handle conflict
Posted in anger management, boundaries, communication, stress | No Comments »
Conflict is a reality in all relationships. We can’t avoid it. Many people react and respond so fast to conflict they don’t slow down enough to see that they could be creating more of a problem in the long run. This week we challenge you to see if you use more healthy or unhealthy ways to deal with the conflict in your life. You never know, awareness and a few simple changes could make a big difference in how things work out.
Compromising
This is a healthy way to handle conflict. Both parties feel heard and are able to find a solution mutually acceptable to the both of them. In a nutshell, it’s finding a middle ground. To do this well, make sure you stay level headed and don’t take things personally. You have to be willing to give a little, rather than be stubborn and try to prove a point. You need to practice empathy and try to feel how what the other person feels about the situation. Try to see why they want what they want, and find a place to meet together in the middle. When both parties do this well, it feels like a win-win situation.
Written by Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Tags: Ways to handle conflict
Posted in communication, coping skills, Family Issues, Marriage, Parenting, Relationships | No Comments »
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