Psychotherapy Helps!

Hi,

I'm back on this board, and have been having some psychotherapy sessions to better understand myself, something I decided for myself would be a worthwhile idea.

Through this and also just through creating a 'timeline' for myself I have been able to recall something from childhood which I think helps to explain my attachment style, or some of it; in childhood I would periodically have a dream or vision of being in my bed or cot, alone, in my room, and with the door closed at the far end of the room. In what seemed like an instant and without the door opening an adult was there, in the room, exceptionally close to me, and I have an idea they were shouting, or that their mood towards me was not a positive one. This used to unnerve me.

I've found out that my mother suffered with both post-natal depression & agoraphobia, and couldn't leave our home without having my grandmother or aunt with her. I now think the 'dream' was real and that it was a recollection of me seeking comfort or reassurance and not getting this from my mother, worse so she potentially denied me this not through ignorance but her own inability at that time to cope.

This goes a long way to explaining the huge anxiety I used to suffer as a child, and sometimes as an adult, and why I didn't like to go on school trips for fear of leaving my mother. I also used to dream about my grandmother dying, so I think my attachment to her as a caregiver was significant, and likely stronger than my attachment to my mother, or to my father, who had to work very hard to support us. My mother would also work hard in the home but I have few recollections of her spending time with me or offering reassurance, comfort or support. As such this has shaped my avoidant style and also my family's style of "just getting on with things" became my way of doing things.

When I met my wife I noted she had a lot of insecurities, and I made a really bad decision to try to forget my own insecurities, figuring we couldn't both be that way. I suppressed a lot of emotions, both negative and positive, and these are now being uncovered in my psychotherapy sessions. I don't think it helped that when I returned to my childhood default of hiding my emotions, almost sulking, my wife did not understand my behaviour and did on one occasion assault me. Sadly I think this may have just reinforced my thoughts that expressing emotions was a negative thing, and that expressing needs would be a 'weak' thing to do, that I needed to be the strong person in the relationship.

I've now learned a painful lesson that I need to find a way to express my feelings, but not in such a way that I look weak, or needy. I find I move between being fearful-avoidant but also sometimes anxious, depending on the external stimulus.