#33 | self-soothing
Some takeaways from the book I'm reading, Anxiously Attached by Jessica Baum:
People with anxious attachment style often have sharply critical internal voices that overwhelm their emotions. Instead of accepting their negativity and letting it break you down, reframe them as protectors who are trying to guard you from pain you've experienced in the past. Then ask, what old pains are they trying to protect you from, and how can you heal them?
I did a lot of digging into my childhood. I have a decent relationship with my parents now, but as I was growing up, my dad was working abroad for weeks at a time, and my mom and him had a very rocky relationship with each other, so they were quite emotionally absent and I became the mediator of my family, fearful of abandonment. Combined with the typical experience of growing up chinese in the midwest (getting mildly bullied, high expectations leading to fear of failure), I would cope with all of this stress by throwing myself into friendships as well, because if I was a perfect friend to others, they would never leave. This made me sensitive to the feelings of others, but it was ultimately a form of escapism to avoid processing my own feelings and also an external source of validation.
In my very first adult relationship, that ex and I fell in love very quickly. We were both in a very socially isolated period of our lives and latched on to each other. He insisted on meeting my parents despite knowing he would be leaving town in a few months. When he didn't want to do long distance, I felt blindsided and didn't know how to process that feeling of abandonment. I felt deceived. I tried to solve this by attaching harder, reaching out to him anyway. In some ways, he encouraged that blurring of boundaries—he told me he missed me too. We were both wanting something that just couldn't be. Eventually he understood it was wrong and became incredibly cold, cutting me off and leading me to think it was all my fault. I felt even more abandoned and continued to reach out for a couple of months after, to no reply, but then ran into him at a party where he said sorry and that he missed me. So much confusion during that time of my life.
Years later, in this recent breakup, I've been realizing that I'm stuck in a rut of self-hatred because I still carry an incredible amount of shame and sadness from that prior relationship. Before, I was so embarrassed and considered the messiness of that breakup entirely my fault instead of accepting that we were both young and didn't know how to communicate with each other. If I try to forgive my younger self, I can be kinder to myself in the present as well. I know what happened with my recent ex is not entirely my fault, and it's ridiculous to think that.
This spiral of shame and low self-esteem I'm in is also an indicator that I was becoming dependent on her for a sense of self, especially because we were in a period of extended stress where I was worried she would abandon me if I did not live up to expectations, so I desperately wanted to "prove" my worth. For the past couple months, her breaking up with me felt like a confirmation of my greatest fears: I've been feeling like I'm a bad person/partner, undeserving of love, unattractive, incompetent, and incapable, when in reality, she would never say any of these things about me at all. When I can admit that to myself, I can recognize that she was trying to say she cannot bring herself to be vulnerable in the way that a relationship requires right now—it's too exhausting and overwhelming for her to ask for help during this time of intense grief.
anyway, that's all the takeaways for now. It's been very healing so far and I'm glad to be reaching a point of healing in my journeys. The book included some good meditation exercises for self-calming and getting more in touch with your true thoughts and feelings, so hopefully all of this reflection continues :-)