#attachment trauma

Number 1: your siblings start recovering from All That Shit™️ and leave you to fend for yourself.

Why Some People Recreate Conflict How trauma, emotional conditioning, and nervous system survival patterns can make peace feel unfamiliar. Some people do not destroy peace because they hate it. They destroy it because they never learned how to live inside it. Many people assume conflict comes from immaturity, selfishness, or toxicity alone. While those factors can exist, some people…

But the withholding has definitely triggered a lot of "punishment-reward" and "things getting taken away". I think the main problem with that is, and things like reading a book weren't an every session thing, but that I couldn't internalize the experience. It was always linked to her i guess. So it felt more like a - i think, i'm not sure about this - "as long as we read a book sometimes and I know that it'll come back every other month or so, this is okay and good" but if it would've fallen away for 4 months I probably would've felt worried or panicky about it? So that's why she took it away, so that it wouldn't be a thing that "needed" to be a part of the therapeutic relationship.

I have gotten really scared that voicing or expressing attachment needs or things I like in therapy and in the relationship that it would result in further "consequences", because you know, I've kind of been proven right even if I can kind of understand her perspective on the taking away things. And I can 100% follow that some things have to change in our dynamic.

We do have transitional objects, that I can just keep (having to give that back would feel like dying honestly, and that might be the point of taking away some other things, because the feeling like dying isn't really okay). They help me to hold on, but the issue here is again that I can't internalize it. It stays linked to here and it's really important to me that tjose object still "count"? Like I have a plushie from therapy and I take it with me to therapy and in the past it used to be really important to me that "the worth" of the plushie had to be reaffirmed sometimes by her, and that's a problem. That has gotten way less though. I do need to take it with me every session otherwise I would panick, but I need less verbal affirmation that the plushy is okay and important and that is represent something between us?

I think all those things, like plushy and reading a book or listening to a song or... are all like little lines of connection, but those lines of connections can't be dependent on my therapist? (which I think is weird because it's a connection between two people so it is dependent on both of us??)

It's honestly just really confusing (and painful) but also so confusing. But it does help to have some places to talk about it outside of therapy, because it takes up a lot of head space and emotional space and I feel a bit weird about in more general spaces, because being too attached is weird, but also reality for me.

Hope you slept well <3

Hey you again,

I'm gonna pick some quotes from your message and reply to that, but there's so much I could say and I could never write it all. I just really deeply relate to the emotional struggle and hope you'll be able to keep on bringing it all to therapy 💛

You write "...but if it would've fallen away for 4 months I probably would've felt worried or panicky about it? So that's why she took it away" - and my response to that is: why take it away instead of talking about it? Why not puzzling together what that worry and panic is telling you? Where is that worry and panic coming from (which past experiences or feelings)? If you do parts work, which part(s) are holding these feelings? Is there anything that you and T could do to make it (the book reading) feel like something healing instead of something that feels good but doesn't "stick"?

I think taking it away is avoiding all that's being brought up from that closeness of having T read you a book. Now, again, I'm not you and I'm not your therapist (I'm not even a therapist at all lmao) and I don't know you beyond your messages, but these are the questions that come up for me.

In your next paragraph you describe your fear of bringing things to the table and that's something I deeply relate to, too. Just earlier this week I emailed A a poem with the line "everything I tell you becomes something you can take away". However: not talking about something that's holding you back in therapy/therapeutic relationship, is always gonna hold you back from healing that aspect.

And as harsh as it may sound, that is a choice you are making. Yes, it feels terrifying to still share your feelings with her. However, by not doing so you're not making any space for different experiences. That's your decision. I would always encourage you to keep bringing it up. Write out your feelings. Draw them. Do whatever you need to do to be able to bring everything (every feeling, every fear) to therapy.

"We do have transitional objects, that I can just keep (having to give that back would feel like dying honestly" -> so why not practice it? She gives you a pen to borrow. You give it back the next week. How does it feel? What does it bring up? That gnarly painful area, that's where healing happens. That's where you listen to all the pain from your past that has yet to be heard.

Of course connection is dependent on another person, because a connection is between people. However, over time, generally, people are able to "hold onto people" even in their absence. That's the goal. And god, it's a horrifying and painful path to get there - but it is possible to get there. And it's also your own responsibility to keep on working on things between sessions. To work on reminding yourself that your therapist is there, even if you don't feel or believe it yet. To tell yourself that a plushie doesn't "lose meaning" all of a sudden.

Also, I'm gonna quote A here: "Too attached? What IS that even? Of course you are attached to me, you have years of attaching to catch up on!"

Thank you 🥹 I think it's really cool too!! I just wish I knew more about what exactly helped get me here, it's just so hard to pinpoint it.

Like so many parts still don't believe this can ever be enough. Accepting this as enough still feels like (near) death to them. But at least for a few of us it's slowly starting to feel a bit more steady and that honestly feels kinda magical.

yesterday was my dad's bday and I wrote to A about how I had been thinking of him. wondering if on this day he would think of me too, maybe? and if he did, would he secretly miss me a bit? or would he just feel angry and hateful? and how sad that made me.

and how I wish I could gather the parts who are still waiting for dad and tell them, "it's okay, you can come home with me now, you did so well waiting for him all these years but he is not coming. yes that is very sad. come, I will bring you home now"

and A wrote "your father is missing an amazing daughter", followed by "if only he had looked better", meaning - if only he had appreciated you for what you are.