Toxic Attachment Trauma After Emotional Neglect

I'm Alan Robarge a relationship coach welcome to the new love addiction where we are not talking about addiction we're talking about attachment injuries and healing attachment trauma I want to try to get to the heart and the core of this dynamic and the dilemma the painful reoccurring dilemma of having relationships struggle repeat itself and you just cannot quite resolve a relationship that feels like it's not working there's a history the dynamic I'm referring to is there's some history where there's a great limitation around emotional honesty emotional connection emotional disclosure emotional harmony emotional attunement and there is a limitation on one or both of the partners abilities a limitation true know how to enter emotional awareness and emotional exchange to offer presence and warmth beyond just love we're not talking about having a you know a general kind loving feeling we're talking about a very astute sophisticated skill to drop into an emotional awareness it's like a sixth sense it is a it is a form of knowing of how to respond and to maneuver in a rhythm of a back-and-forth give-and-take to pay attention to your partner your partner reciprocates and pays attention to you and you can respond it could be verbal it could be through touch it could be through a glance of your eyes it's these very these micro moments of interaction and how it translates in in the mo obvious sense for the most tangible sense through language is to have a partner someone who is asking you questions about yourself someone who is inviting care you know leading from a place of curiosity to want to know your experience and can anticipate what your experience might be through the function of empathy and by imagining what your experience might be would take a risk to invite you sort of it's a way of steering the conversation sort of massaging the conversation in such a way that lets you know that they get your experience they could imagine what you're going through and to either ask a question or to make a statement or a comment that feels open-ended so that there is this either very obvious invitation or the conversation lends itself to where you feel invited to share more to share yourself imagine that both partners it's as if if you're not literally saying the word yes but it's through the body language through the right types of questions it's through the smiling and looking into your partner's eyes and just genuinely and generally being present and and when your partner is present and when you're when you're present back there's a flow that is that is happening so that's the ideal that's what we want and if perhaps you have a history where in your past assuming in your family or a succession of relationships in your adult life where you did not get this and and it's not it's not like you just didn't get it it's that you did not get it to such a degree that your sense of self and your Epping self was impacted wounded hurt shutdown and the opposite of what I just described to have that emotional attunement and to participate in this exchange is the feeling of being invisible the feeling of being non engaged the feeling of you are just a shell and you're empty and there is no real relating going on but you're simulating relating so you could be out to dinner but you're not really connecting emotionally you're talking about you ordered something on Amazon and arrived and you're talking about you got to pay the light bill by next week and you're talking about so-and-so has a birthday party and are we going to the birthday party and they were you know we're at a restaurant and we're eating a sandwich and we're talking and saying oh are you going to eat your pickle so all of these everyday nice little things you know certainly are very important as far as having an ordinary experience or the common experience of just interacting but this couple you whoever me when we're in relationship if there's not a dropping down into a deeper level of connection through being able to ask your partner and to be asked hey what's going on with you how are you no no no how are you really doing or remember the other day when you said XYZ that has really stuck out in my mind that is really interesting and I've been thinking about that and I was curious to know you know when you said XYZ what does that mean about you know how you feel about whatever the conversation is off the conversation is going so let's let's say you have not had this so it's not just shrugging your shoulders and going oh well I don't have that I never had that what this means is that for many people it has coated itself this lack this wound this-this-this being denied emotional connection for years and years and years in your family to not have the rich depth of emotional awareness emotional presence to be denied that has actually coded itself in such a way that it triggers an alarm system there is anxiety there's some panic there's a sense of oh wow this part that you whoa this is scary stuff now because we're in relationship we're talking but we're really not talking there's the the person I'm with does not want to know my emotional experience the person I'm here with does not really want to know not only what's going on with me but as a result they don't want to know me so you're in your family and you're getting the message of I don't really want to know you I love you but I don't know you I love you but I'm not going to ask you who you are I love you I don't know how to inquire to know what's really going on your world and so there's a sense of pleasantries or assuming your family was you know relatively nice or okay people there's this sense of pleasantries and you know if you're fortunate enough where your basic needs were met or even above and beyond your basic needs where you know you had you had some nice things growing up but nonetheless your family your parents your mother your father whoever it is out right ignored you emotionally and chances are they did this very subconsciously they're totally unaware that they're doing this and most likely they have had it done to them as well that there parents were had a limitation of being emotionally available so here you have this history of not being engaged and invited to be known so what does this do to a person it can create confusion around your sense of self your identity in your worth it can create confusion around your love ability and whether or not your needs and desires to be loved are valid or if they have worth this can confuse your voice with regards to either you protest a bit much and you're very vocal about demanding attention or the opposite takes place where you lose your voice and you're sort of a doormat and you just you don't know anything any different this could also turn you into a fake shell of a person where you're more overly identified with your presentation and the facade of how you're just showing up in the relationship because you don't really you have not been trained to no one has demanded substance of you so you mor have become overly identified with your external presentation and and the shell of who you are the experience of non emotional interaction makes you feel like a shell and then also to stay in this type of non emotional relating means that you you continue to show up you're just a shell and this impacts our sense of self to where we feel fake you know I'm a fake person I'm just not really real I'm not really here we're not getting back information we're not getting an engaged other person you know in the example I originally was talking about a couple scenario or romantic relationship scenario and in this moment thinking of a parent you're with your parent and if your parent is not interacting you know after two years three years five years seven years age 12 age 14 age 17 age 22 age 34 I mean at some point you realize that you're in relationship where you're not seen you're not valued for being you and the parent is not asking you to be to have more presence to share or reveal yourself so here's the challenge I just set this all up to to point out to acknowledge part of the ongoing chronic struggle is this is like a riddle so it's a riddle to solve this within your family as you're in your current adult self to figure out how the heck do I stay in a relationship with certain family members if this is the dynamic and nonetheless the dynamic is not changing or we recreate this with adult partners in romantic relationships and we find ourself in the same dilemma so either way the challenge is that we are going to be looping around a impossible scenario where we know we cannot continue on like this but nonetheless we are going to work very hard to try to stay in relationship in our rational logical mind or a reasonable a reasonable counter-argument a reasonable response to this is to say well why can't I just accept I'll use a parent the example of a parent why can't I just accept my mother for who she is I'm going to accept that that it's obvious that she has some limitations on the divorce for how she engages emotionally and we're just going to say well can I can you all of us can we accept that and to acknowledge the parents age again if I'm using an example of the mother can we accept that at the mother at my mother's age is there an acceptance of that this is how she relates this is what she knows this is what we've been doing for years and she just doesn't have that skill now at face value or the initial hearing of that response makes total sense and it sounds as if we are appealing to your compassion we it sounds like we're appealing to just having empathy that we we don't need to get bent out of shape that the parent cannot deliver the level of emotional engagement that we know is possible and that we know that we want and that it does initially sound like that that is an act of forgiveness and kindness and compassion to say well that's just where my mom is at that's just where my dad is at that's just where other family members are at that's just who they are and and I'm going to consciously choose to say that it's going to be disappointing for me I know that I'm going to go without emotional engagement but nonetheless they're relatively okay people and I'm okay being in relationship and again we could apply this to a romantic partnership the same thing you're with this person and you're trying to you know go the riddle the confusing thing is to keep going around in circles saying well how do I accept him or her how do I accept this is just who they are they are emotionally withdrawn they are emotionally avoided they have some limitation to to offering engagement and so it makes sense that we would try to come at it from a practical rational place and say well that's the way it is and am I able to accept this are you able to accept that my answer to this question and why we are perpetually stuck in the cyclical looping sort of redundant to say it that way why we are stuck looping in this place is because it's not ours to accept and there's nothing to accept when the actual interaction that I'm referring to is toxic is painful and I once had a client refer to this as accepting poison you're taking on poison and you can't say well it's just a little poison versus a lot of poison poison is poison you are accepting poison what I mean by this is that to have a history where you were wounded and your brain and nervous system are coded to experience a painful rejection of your sense of self when there's a consistent lack of emotional connection emotional engagement that this hurts you and for many of us this is physical you could feel shut down you could feel rejected you could feel ignored to the point that it drains your energy your disempowered and that you feel it's just so painful this is such a painful place to get to to acknowledge this so one reason why we cannot talk ourselves into accepting that this is just who the person is because it's like saying well to stay in relationship in this place and I have to accept that I'm going to be letting in the toxic poison it's still at my expense that's disempowering and in order to do that I need to betray the thing that I know and what do I know here I know that I deserve more and I know that I have a rich emotional life that as a human being I deserve the respect and it is an act of love to be received for someone to actually want to know the fullness of my experience now if you if a person I'll speak for myself if I did not have this history have an attachment injury then it totally makes sense to say well okay I will I will choose you know by right of the situation I can allow myself in a mature sense to accept that this is the reality and I'm just going to accept it as it is I proposed what is the reoccurring hook or the place that we keep returning to why we this is still an unresolved chronic hot provocative place and and that we feel suffering very viscerally and we can accept it because it's we have never had it we the whole reason why we're here meaning the whole how we've ended up with having an attachment injuries that have coded themselves as attachment trauma is due to a history of being ignored and neglected and emotionally emotionally not paid attention to and so to accept quote/unquote accept that to accept that you're no longer you know that your party you're colluding with your own history of abuse and this is why we can't accept it because we are still trying to make sense of what had happened so it's very possible that you could accept the history accept the past and accept what had happened and then you logically intellectually understand the dynamic but it is going to be wildly challenging it is very difficult to then say well let's continue let's continue to do more of the same the parent is not changing the family member is not changing or your partner your romantic partner your husband and wife he or she is not changing but yet you're going to convince yourself to sign up to be in the same toxic dysfunctional unhealthy dynamic at your expense where you get to be ignored which means you're going to feel belittled which means you're going to feel disempowered which means you're going to feel valued and physically it's going to at times be very hurtful or trigger anxiety around this a chronic feeling of needing some connection and then you get to be labeled the needy one you get to be labeled you know someone who's failing to just accept the situation as it is the last point here that I want to make that is one more one more acknowledgement of the impossible crit there's an impossible impossibility for resolution in this dynamic if the other people are not willing to participate in relationship and that to stay in some form of relationship is at your expense and hurtful and the reason why it can be so challenging to accept to say to say well this this is certainly not ideal this is not what I want but but let's go ahead and accept what level or form of relating currently exists with this family member let's let's just try really hard to accept the type of relationship that you do have in your marriage and you know it's not ideal but oh well let's you know the reason why we can't do that it's because on a you know potentially daily basis weekly but you know it's a chronic grief you're it in the acceptance is not a neutral decision in your mind it is reinforcing a active grief an active loss you know that something is being lost and that a grief in the sense of a provocative sadness and some people can experiences it as a provocative depression some people can experience it a provocative anger a ongoing irritation that there can be a good attempt you set the intention say well I'll just accept you know the the phrase here that we often hear is I'm going to I'm going to accept the crumbs I'll accept these crumbs and I can make the most of it I'm just aware you can't you know the parent is not going to change the partner is not going to change and nonetheless for whatever reason we're going to stay in this kind of dynamic can I force myself to be okay with that and my response is no you can't because it's letting in the trauma energy which is like a form of poison and it's reinforcing a very immediate grief that is palpable and yet you can feel this loss that you know something is being lost and what is being lost is at your expense that you're signing up to to be to continue to not only observe how others deny engaging you but now how you're choosing to deny yourself the possibility to be engaged and that is a self betrayal and we can really lose our minds in this place if the whole idea of self betrayal is annihilation and why exist or how can I exist and this is why people experience this as life or death that the urgency the intensity to see me no really see me no no me I mean I want you to know me the stakes are so high that if you have a lifetime of being denied the presence of someone being denied someone taking the effort to share a presence to drop in to knowing you you are going to feel that something is missing that is paramount to a life-or-death situation and this is why the degree of mental health challenges are so closely linked or so obvious when it comes to attachment injuries and attachment trauma the the grief is real the depression is real the ongoing chronic anxiety is real the consequences of living in hyper aroused State around chronic stress and the hormonal imbalance that that creates and then how that invites a whole host of other physical ailments and imbalances in your health and just your immune system alone taking a big hit so to just try to negotiate in a rather nice way to say well I'm just going to accept the situation not only is that a tall order to a tall or a big pill to swallow or a tall order to fill and mixing up my metaphors but I propose that it's actually a no-win non-choice it's it's not really a solution and we do not need to beat ourselves up or you know oftentimes if we are able to go to to attempt to negotiate this at all with a partner attempt to talk to parents say please parent please see me please let's really practice a different level of healthier relating where there's an emotional investment different than we've ever had before and that often times a defensive response you know your partner your husband or wife you know might say well why can't you just accept me as I am why can't you just accept the situation as I am that that plays into that that implies that you're doubting that you're lacking that implies that you're lacking compassion that implies that you're lacking some altruistic empathy to you know fully accept something or or just forgive life for you know being dealt this dynamic that is a deflection and that is confusing and and if you already struggle with an insecure sense of self you're going to spend some time looping and going around in circles trying to convince yourself that you're supposed to have you know some some deeper level of compassion and understanding like why can't you just accept it as it is and I'm proposing my response is because there's it's not your job to accept being rejected it's not your job to accept the consequence of being emotionally ignored what you can do it is your job to have a voice to say that this hurts you it is detrimental to your health and it is in no way a sustainable form of being in relationship so either you're trying to convince yourself that this is a long-term viable way of being in relationship or you have a parent or a you know an adult parent as an adult you have your parent or you have you have your your spouse and who's trying to convince you that well this is just the way it is and I'm just pointing out to you that what that means is you're negotiating accepting a no-win situation where it's at your expense that's going to impact your sense of self and continue to perpetuate how you're being denied emotional warmth generosity connection curiosity attunement harmony whatever word that we want to use and that's a no-win situation that's not fair to you and it's not because you're lacking compassion it's because this whole dynamic this whole thing is faulty this whole dynamic this this the system that I'm describing right now is unhealthy and it is wildly wildly manipulative and hurtful to the person on the receiving end to the person who has a No awareness is sensitivity that there that there is a withholding going on and this withholding is painful stuff so empathy to you I hope that this was helpful I tried to map out very specifically sort of set up how this is is playing out in our lives and then also a really pinpoint and take us to that place where we keep looping and looping and looping of why can I make this work why can't make this work oh it must be me I'm not accepting reality I'm not accepting the other person I'm not accepting the limitations I need to have more I just need to accept that this is how my parent is I just need to accept that this is you know how my spouse is and I'm telling you that you can work all that you want for this acceptance and label it as compassion you're simultaneously taking on poison you're simultaneously reinforcing dysfunctional relating at your own expense you're simultaneously cultivating more trauma mind and you're betraying yourself the same way that you have been betrayed for years by the same people that you're trying to get their attention from today please subscribe to this YouTube channel if you like this video and or want to hear others just like it and to learn more about me please go to Alan Robarge com thank you

Channel: Alan Robarge / Attachment Trauma Therapist

Views: 114,346

Rating: 4.934886 out of 5

Keywords: attachment trauma, attachment injuries, slaa, coda, acoa, love addiction, emotional neglect, emotionally unavailable, adult children of alcoholics, codependency, codependent, family dysfunction, alan robarge, childhood emotional neglect, alan robarge attachment trauma, emotional unavailability, love addiction recovery, inner child healing, inner child, inner child work, #selfhealers, selfhealers, psychologist, psychology, holistic

Id: 3Rd8C2olIO0

Length: 30min 19sec (1819 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2016