I started reading a news blog that was on the Huffington Post web page, when I found myself being directed to an article called 40 Features of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of Abandonment by an American Psychotherapist – Susan Anderson.
It made me go cold -This document could have been written about me – For all these years I never really understood – Now, after reading 40 Features of PTSD, I do – I must share this with you.
- An intense fear of abandonment.
- Difficulty forming primary relationships.
- Intrusive insecurity that interferes with your love life, social life and goal achievement.
- A tendency to repeatedly subject yourself to people or experiences that lead to another loss, another rejection, and another trauma
- Shame – any feelings of rejection or failure can trigger deeply embedded feelings of shame.
- Difficulty with trust.
- Tendency toward self defeating behaviour patterns that sabotage your love life, goals or career.
- Anxiety with authority figures.
- Heightened memories of traumatic separations and other events.
- Conversely, partial or complete memory blocks of childhood traumas.
- Intrusive reawakening of emotional memories stemming from childhood losses – i.e. feelings of helplessness, vulnerability and dread – without being able to recall the original events.
- Low self esteem, low sense of entitlement, performance anxiety.
- Feelings of emotional detachment i.e feeling numb to current or past losses and disconnections.
- Conversely, difficulty letting go of an ex, difficulty letting go for feelings of rejection, longing, and regret.
- Difficulty letting go period ( like a dog with a bone) over a conflict with another, a disappointment, etc.
- Episodes of self neglectful or self destructive behaviour.
- Difficulty withstanding ( and overreacting to) the customary emotional ups and downs within intimate relationships.
- Reaching impasses – trouble working through the conflict with others.
- Extreme sensitivity to perceived rejections, exclusions or criticisms.
- Emotional pendulum swings between fear of engulfment and fear of abandonment – i.e. On one hand you feel “the walls close in” if someone gets too close, and on the other hand, you feel insecure, love starved – on a precipice of abandonment – when you become unsure of the persons love.
- Tendency to feel hopelessly hooked on a partner who is emotionally unavailable.
- Conversely, tendency to “get turned off” and “lose the connection” by involuntarily shutting down romantically and/or sexually with a partner is fully willing.
- Emotional anorexia or emotional bulimia, difficulty feeling the affection and other physical comforts offered by a willing partner i.e, you “keep them out” or “push them away”.
- Tendency to have emotion hangovers “the morning after” you have had contact with an ex.
- Difficulty naming your feelings or sorting through an emotional fog.
- Abandophobism – a tendency to avoid close relationships altogether to avoid risk of abandonment.
- Conversely, a tendency to rush into relationships and clamp on too quickly.
- Difficulty letting go because you have attached with emotional epoxy, even when you know the person is not good for you.
- An excessive need for control, whether its about the need to control others behaviour and thoughts, or about being excessively self controlled, a need to have everything perfect and done your way.
- Conversely, a tendency to create chaos by avoiding responsibility, procrastinating, giving up control to others, making messes, and feeling out of control.
- A heightened sense of responsibility towards others, rescuing, attending to peoples needs, even when they have not voiced them.
- Tendency to have unrealistic expectations of others coupled with heightened reactivity when they don’t live up to them.
- Self judgemental, self critical, unrealistic expectations towards yourself.
- People pleasing – excessive need for acceptance or approval, setting yourself up for a lack of reciprocity within your relationships.
- Fear response to peoples anger, which unwittingly sets you up to being disrespected by or even “controlled” by them.
- Co dependency issues when you give too much of yourself to others, put them first, and feel you don’t get enough back.
- Tendency to act impulsively without being able to put the brakes on, even when you are aware of the negative consequences.
- Tendency towards unpredictable outbursts of anger, sometimes burning bridges to important social connections.
- Conversely, tendency to under react to anger out of fear of breaking the connection, or out of an extreme aversion to “not being liked”
- Negative narcissism – preoccupied with self criticism and worry over how you are perceived by others.