CEUs are available at AllCEUs.com/Abandonment-CEU
hey there everybody in this video we're going to discuss five signs you have
abandonment anxiety i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
if you have a need to control or be controlled by your partner you may have abandonment anxiety
children who grew up in chaotic households dysfunctional households
may have learned that the only way to be safe is to control everything to walk on eggshells
to try to make sure everything is perfect other children that grew up in chaotic environments
may have learned that it's not safe to think to feel to have any initiative or to act they need to
simply respond to whatever the caregiver says that they need to do so they may lean more towards a
controlling environment they feel like if their partner is controlling them then their partner
notices them and their partner loves them so you can have either end of the spectrum happen
if a child grows up in a dysfunctional household if you have a frequent need for praise this can be
another sign you have an abandonment anxiety a lot of people who have insecure attachment who've been
abandoned have a very low self-esteem they rely on others to tell them you know what you're okay
you're good enough you're you're lovable right now and so they don't internalize a stable
lovable sense of self so they require others to constantly be praising them it's not that they
are to use a term that i hate narcissistic it's that they are terrified and they need people to
regularly acknowledge the reasons that they are deserving of being on this earth
you may feel insecure for no obvious reason vander kulk did some very wonderful research
many many years ago that has shown that a lot of times traumatic memories especially traumatic
memories from childhood are often stored in our body as feelings we may not have images we may
not have words to go with them because we were too young to actually understand what was going on but
we have that feeling that gnawing in the pit of our stomach or that sense that that queasy feeling
so if you start feeling insecure for no obvious reason you're looking around going things seem
fine why am i afraid this person is going to abandon me it may be a sign of abandonment anxiety
if you find that you feel like you have to be hyper vigilant and
engage in mind reading most if not all the time you probably have abandonment anxiety
hyper vigilance is when you are on guard when you're scanning constantly for any sort of
micro expression or microscopic sign that the person is getting ready to abandon you
you are constantly questioning their motives you are constantly looking at things and you're
constantly trying to read their mind you're constantly trying to know their motivations
just by the look on their face or what they're doing you assume you know what they're thinking
and that is a tool that develops in people who've been abandoned before because they say okay when
i saw these symptoms before it meant somebody was getting ready to abandon me so whenever i see them
in the future i will quote know what it means that's not always true somebody may be acting
withdrawn not because they don't love you anymore and because they're getting ready to abandon you
but because they are you know having a crisis of their own or they're having a hard time at work
and they're trying to figure out how to deal with something that has nothing to do with you
however the person with abandonment anxiety is
often assuming that it's all about them and they are trying to anticipate
and people with a abandonment anxiety often stay in unhealthy relationships being in a relationship
is better than being in no relationship even if it's an unhealthy one and people with
abandonment anxiety have often grown up in very unhealthy environments so it's what they know and
sometimes it's easier to stay with something that's predictable something that you already
have tools to sort of deal with than to disengage from an unhealthy relationship and be alone a lot
of people with abandonment anxiety have almost never been alone they bounce from relationship
to relationship to relationship because being alone being with their own thoughts is terrifying
abandonment anxiety occurs when people do not have secure attachments it can occur because you didn't
have a secure attachment in childhood or it could occur after you have a series of bad relationships
in adulthood it's not something that always has to happen as a result of a dysfunctional childhood
but when you don't have secure attachments then you don't have any relationships including a
relationship with yourself in which someone is consistently there you can count on them
they're responsive to your needs not only are they there and they notice but they also are
responsive and help you figure out okay what do i do to improve the next moment what's going on here
they pay attention to you just because you're you not because they have to help you solve a crisis
they actually want to invest energy in nurturing the relationship
they validate your perspectives your thoughts and feelings even if they don't agree they say
okay i hear that you're angry i see your point of view on this again they don't
have to agree but they respect that your thoughts and feelings are yours
and they validate or acknowledge the that they exist for you they provide encouragement
to step outside of that comfort zone and take chances and move towards goals
and they help you feel safe when you step outside that comfort zone and it doesn't go so well they
are that safe home base to which you can return they're that person that you can call up and go
well that didn't happen the way it was supposed to and they say all right let's figure out what to do
it doesn't mean you're a bad person it doesn't mean you're a failure it means that you tried
something and it didn't work out you're a good person who didn't who may have failed at a task
the first step in recovery often involves developing a secure attachment with yourself
consistency checking in with yourself being mindful on a regular basis of your thoughts
wants and needs responding to your thoughts wants and needs instead of ignoring them or minimizing
them acknowledging them and saying okay this is how i feel or this is what i think right now
what can i do about it how can i improve the next moment
nurturing your relationship with yourself paying attention to yourself spending time
with you figuring out what you like what your values are what's important to you
validating your thoughts and feelings when you have them instead of
struggling with them validating i feel anxious about this
okay it's not good it's not bad it just is this is how i feel right now and that's okay
i can figure out if i want to hold on to this feeling or if i want to do something about it
validating your thoughts instead of saying well this is my opinion unless you think i should have
a different one when you validate your thoughts you say this is my opinion and this is why
you don't have to agree with me and i may be willing to change my opinion but right
now these are my based on my experiences and my knowledge this is my perspective and it is valid
from my point of view providing encouragement to yourself saying all right i've always wanted
to learn how to do this so i'm going to step outside my comfort zone and i'm going to try it
and if you try it and you do great at it wonderful and if you try it and it's not your thing
being able to look in the mirror and going all right well we learned something that
is probably not going to be one of our strengths but we looking in the mirror
we are still lovable we are still us that doesn't make us any more or less lovable
it just means we know something more about ourselves and the skills that we have
for more in-depth information on dealing with abandonment anxiety
watch all ceus.com slash abandonment dash videos and there are several there for you to watch