jacdl
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Posts: 17
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Post by jacdl on Jul 30, 2022 10:03:42 GMT
Hello everyone, I’m new here and would really value your thoughts.
My situation that has made me identify with FA. The break up.
I met a lovely girl start of last year - we quickly fell in love and I seriously thought I have met my wife. The only things were she always spoke of big tickets items early on within first few months of us dating : our wedding, having children, “I want a child next year”. Gave me slight anxiety.
8 months into dating She moved into my flat and it was great as time went by I told her I would like to buy us a flat… 2 days later she said she has already decided she will be buying her family home from her dad - would I like to pay towards it and we can move in together. Make it ours.
BOOM! “Fight or flight” response kicked in. I jumped up with adrenaline and started saying No No! All of a sudden my head was filled with “cognitive distortions” - “black and white thinking”. Suddenly the relationship and situation had all became negative. My inner dialogue was telling me “you need to focus on yourself”.
For 3 weeks I began to shut down, I now found her unattractive, I couldn’t look at her, I didn’t want to hold her hand or hug or have sex. She knew something was up but I couldn’t communicate - I was angry and began telling friends I was in a controlling relationship and that our future together would end in divorce as I worry she become abusive. I felt the house was a trap. Got paranoid as to why she wanted to have kids so soon with me! Convince she would be a narcissist that will cause me harm once I moved into her family home.
I never communicated any of this to her but just bottled up.
As anger grew, I began to delete photos of her from my phone and then called her to come by our flat… I bottled all these emotions up… I then broke down crying saying I can’t keep going on as I felt like a doormat and broke up. She was confused and distraught - she really loved me.
The next week I felt pressure off me as I no longer worried about buying and moving into her family house.
The next weekend, She visited for 12 hours where I felt I really love this woman - why have I done this ? I asked her to work on things but she said she couldn’t (…and got a new partner 3 weeks later - anxious attachment?).
Since then I have been destroyed, no idea why my mind went to those places. I have been heart broke. So confused why I did what I did so impulsively - no logic but just overwhelmed with negativity - it was alll out of character from me. Never treated a girlfriend like this but perhaps I never been this much in love with one before?
Reading this forum I feel I may qualify as FA. I feel dreadful how I broke up - our relationship was drama free! Any advice for me to prevent behaviours and thought patterns like this occurring again would be appreciated.
6 months on I am still Devastated for what I have lost.
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 10:44:28 GMT
Hi It sounds like you went into panicmode , overwhelm and survival mode. Flipping the lid, so that you couldent use the cognitive part of your brain but you jumped right into the old part of your brain, limbic and reptile part of your brain - where your survival instincts comes from - fight, flight, freeze, fawn. When we are in survival mode there is no room for love, reproduction ect. People with some desorganised attatchmentstyle are at the instinctive level afraid of getting overwhelmed in a relationship. Intimacy can be a trigger. Also they have problems with feeling their boundaries or if they can feel their boundaries, they can doubt that it is okay to set boundaries. Also having problems with asking for what they need. Black and white thinking is common when triggered- you are either with me or against me - friend / enemy Also letting things buttle up and not speaking up can cause drama. In general women often want to commit within 3 months (not that it is healthy), while men moves at a slover pace - it can take up to 2 years for a man to fully commit. Maybe you felt that you dident have a choice, when she said, that she wanted to move into her parents home ? If we can’t speak up in the situation, it can be because we can go into freeze, so that our voice box shuts down. If things are moving too fast there’s a chance that a person with some desorganised attatchmentstyle can end things abruptly Relationships are a lot of negotiation and compromising. Also knowing what you want - by making a love vision ect. - can be a good thing Comparing love visions in a relationship can be a good thing. And talking through things. She could also have told you before that she wanted to live in her parents house. Did you have any kind of therapy where you work with the instinctive level ? Maybe you can benefit from reading this healing thread ? jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1073/healing-disorganized-attatchment-chock-trauma |
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jacdl
New Member
Posts: 17
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Post by jacdl on Jul 30, 2022 10:55:50 GMT
Thank you for this insight. I have never heard of FA until I watched Thais Gibson - I always thought childhood trauma had just made me like my own space however when I ended this relationship so suddenly with someone I really loved… I knew something wasn’t quite right within myself.
I think you are spot on with I was overwhelmed , particularly with the sensation of being told this is what happening and myself not having a say… I think it panicked me and I needed my partners trust ASAP however I never felt like this before “black white thinking” “distortions” so i didn’t question them and went with my gut.
I wish I communicated how I felt. It wasnt until after we broke up, I realised what my needs were to help us gain trust were… whilst in relationship I was just caught up in anger/ anxiety land.
I think I perceived my partner making a big life decision that would impact us both without a conversation (I already decided I am buying it) as a trigger… though I do not realise why I was so sensitive that it would lead to a break up. I’m disappointed in myself.
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 11:23:39 GMT
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 11:43:47 GMT
Don’t be so hard on yourself
You are not able to think clearly when you are in survival mode. It can take some time to get your prefrontal cortex back online
“ 2 days later she said she has already decided she will be buying her family home from her dad”
- Have she talked about this earlier in the relationship or did she suddenly bring this up ?
You have to talk things through in a relationship - what do you want, what do I want, what do we want…
How can we make decisions together as a couple that will impact our future together ect.
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jacdl
New Member
Posts: 17
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Post by jacdl on Jul 30, 2022 11:45:27 GMT
Thank you for this and the resources…
I’m sure you understand but all of this is new to me. I have been thrown into the deep end of a trigger and NEVER experienced this before - I’m so upset it cost me a relationship with someone I truly truly loved however this has became life changing and I feel this new level of self awareness will benefit future relationships aswell as how I perceive the world.
I feel awful how I broke up - never done that in that style and I never been abusive towards partners so I just feel so disappointed i did not have these tools earlier.
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 12:06:54 GMT
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jacdl
New Member
Posts: 17
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Post by jacdl on Jul 30, 2022 15:00:43 GMT
Don’t be so hard on yourself You are not able to think clearly when you are in survival mode. It can take some time to get your prefrontal cortex back online “ 2 days later she said she has already decided she will be buying her family home from her dad” You have to talk things through in a relationship - what do you want, what do I want, what do we want… How can we make decisions together as a couple that will impact our future together ect. My mind did go into panic mode and clearly cut tied to self preserve but why? Why is that the subconscious goal? I was happy and did want a future… |
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 15:03:52 GMT
Why you cant be happy all the time
We humans want to be happy
We have even developed a culture where one is almost a loser if we are not happy all the time.
We may think, "There must be something wrong with me, since I am not happy and happy like everyone else is!"
You ARE normal! Because our brain is NOT designed for happiness 24/7.
That is, you should not expect to be eternally happy ... On the contrary, the reward system of the brain is designed in such a way that it takes more and more to achieve the same feeling of joy and satisfaction.
The drug is called dopamine - this is what is at stake in the hot infatuation phase(along with the stress hormone norepinephrine). - this is also what is released if, for example. taking heroin or reaching ones goals. - or just doing something new that goes well, e.g. when I succeed in doing this for the first time in that way.
If you have experienced something that was so difficult that it was overwhelming - and you at the same time has lacked support and loving presence,…. Then trauma energy may have settled in the nervous system. It will close your heart so that love and your happiness are even further away 💔
If you then feel good anyway, and you maybe even open your heart and are happy - the trauma energy will pull you out of happiness ... It's because of something that's really good.
This is because our nervous system is designed to heal trauma by itself!
Healing is done by the system using the resources (the good condition) to draw the energy out of the traumas. Voila! It's super smart, isn 'it?
NOT! not if you have so much trauma energy in store that you are never really "allowed" to feel happy and happy (for a long time).
EVERY time I was happy -then I flew back into the trauma vortex and a closed heart instantly or after a short period of time:
- Abandonment, sadness, lack of energy and in relationships the direct path to conflict and distance.
As a therapist I have seen this again and again in my clients, course participants and students. It can be a great relief to discover - if you experience something similar - that it is not YOU who is wrong!
But the cause is situations and perhaps relationships that have overwhelmed your nervous system. That your nervous system may therefore have gone TOO much out of balance ...
Time does not heal all wounds! It is in this state - that is, when there is too much traumatic energy in the nervous system - that time cannot "heal all wounds." That no matter how long the nervous system works to get back into balance, it can not by itself, if it has gone TOO far out of balance.
Although it is designed to heal
What do you do then? We humans are herd animals and heal when we are with present humans.
You may know this from the fact that you may feel more comfortable after a present meeting with a good friend or family member. A shortcut to opening your heart, your joy and happiness is to get help to heal your nervous system. Therefore it can be a good thing to work with a good se/attatchment therapist.
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 15:16:02 GMT
You are often locked in "Come Here - And Go Away!" patterns. You reach out for love -> you get frightened -> you pull away or attack -> then you will be calm again, when there is a distance -> you reach out, etc.
The disorganized form of connetcion is not about the accessibility of the other, as for the ambivalent / nervous attatched, but that you are overwhelmed at an instinctive level of contact. The close contact brings the old history into the system - and thus the old state of tension in the nervous system: Alarm! The ambivalent loses interest if the other is available. The disorganized runs scared back or attacks aggressively.
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 15:25:27 GMT
As a child The need to attach is so strong that we are said to bond with any caregiver no matter what their actual behavior was - even if lifethreatening. This may require the child to literally override his or her own survival system or warning signals to allow them to walk into danger instead of running away from it or risking fighting back. You have to look for a therapist who uses buttom up (and top down) techniques. Sush as a Somatic experiencing attatcment therapist, EMDR ect. Its important for people with some desorganised attatcmentstyle/trauma to work with the instinctive level Diane Poole Heller demonstration - m.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ3OcQw3oCIIn this clip from her Networker Symposium Keynote, "Creating a Corrective Emotional Experience," trauma expert Diane Poole Heller explains how trauma involves an internal battle between the sufferer's sympathetic nervous system and resting state. The result, she says, is pent-up energy that therapists can use constructively, should they know how to safely tap into it. Here, she shares a clip from an actual session with a traumatized client, and explains her intervention as it unfolds. |
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 15:28:37 GMT
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Post by anne12 on Jul 30, 2022 15:32:32 GMT
The different love phases can trigger your original attatchment wound
It is often easy to be in the crushing phase / honeymoon phase….
The two of you talked about buying a House/an apartment together and having kids…..SERIOUS STUFF…
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Post by alexandra on Jul 30, 2022 16:02:36 GMT
I'm sorry this happened to you, though it is good and worthwhile to have eye opening experiences and learn from them, especially before really serious comments (marriage, children). I had a couple questions. The first is, how old is she? If she had specific life goals to buy a house and have a child soon, that sounds like she's at least approaching her mid 30s? The second is, have you mostly dated people more avoidant than you in the past who were less interested in "milestone" commitment steps?
Thais Gibson is a very good resource for attachment, as is all the info anne is providing!
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jacdl
New Member
Posts: 17
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Post by jacdl on Jul 30, 2022 18:43:18 GMT
Anne12
Thank you so much for all this knowledge and insight. All of this is new to me and has quite frankly been shocking to me. I did not know why I was breaking up and was left confused but finding out about FA and then reading your summary, it sadly… all makes sense and just so down that it cost me a relationship that I thought so highly off.
Overall, I don’t want to be triggered again! I’m not sure if the trigger was “being thrown into the deep end of buying a house” - her family house - loss of control and identity which provokes a sense being controlled. Which would give anyone anxiety but this was next level shock where I felt I had to get out of relationship.
Alexandra
My partner was 27. I am 31. She A doctor, ironically going into psychiatry - she knew about my upbringing (abusive household). Unfortunately when we broke up she did not want to make amends despite we clicked so well… with time I would of been able to tell her… I have been triggered and never experienced this before.
I have never clicked so well with a partner before - I think previous partners were avoidant and never discussed big milestones together… this one was overwhelming but also felt right - our bond was so unique. I think she was anxious character (she did have anxiety issues, previous anorexia) and I wonder if we did the anxious / avoidant dance?
Her moving on in 3 weeks and telling me she has the ability to switch people off mentally, I find it hard to take in but also fascinating from a psychological level - maybe intellectualising it as a way to suppress emotions.
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