The Journey from Abandonment to Healing - Susan Anderson, MSW

[goochiegirl]

The Journey from Abandonment to Healing Author: Susan Anderson, MSW Publisher: Berkley Trade; 1 edition (March 6, 2000) Paperback: 352 pages ISBN-10: 0425172287 ISBN-13: 978-0425172285

Book Description
In an attempt to characterize abandonment in the way Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's characterized the grieving of Death and Dying, Susan Anderson's book defines five phases of a specialized kind of grieving--grieving over a lost relationship.  The Journey From Abandonment to Healing is designed to help all victims of emotional breakups--whether they are suffering from a recent loss, or a lingering wound from the past; whether they are caught up in patterns that sabotage their own relationships, or they're in a relationship where they no longer feel loved. From the first stunning blow to starting over, it provides an interesting perspective on abandonment recovery.

Everyday there are people who feel as if life itself has left them on a doorstep or thrown them away. Abandonment is about loss of love itself, that crucial loss of connectedness. It often involves breakup, betrayal, aloneness. People struggling with abandonment issues include those going through the ending of a relationship as well as searching adoptees, recently widowed, and those suffering the woundedness of earlier disconnections.

Abandonment represents core human fear. We have all experienced it. When a relationship ends, the feelings harken all the way back to our lost childhoods when we were helpless, and dependent. Our adult functioning temporarily collapses.We feel shattered, bewildered, condemned to loneliness. As we apply the tools of recovery, at the bottom of abandonment’s pain, we discover a wellspring of positive change.

Abandonment is a cumulative wound containing all of the losses and disconnections stemming all the way back to childhood.

Here are the five stages of abandonment: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Anger, and Lifting – introduced in the book JOURNEY FROM ABANDONMENT.

1: SHATTERING - Your relationship is breaking apart. Your hopes and dreams are Shattered. You are devastated, bewildered. You succumb to despair and panic. You feel hopeless and have Suicidal feelings. You feel Symbiotically attached to your lost love, mortally wounded, as if you’ll die without them. You are in Severe pain, Shock, Sorrow. You’ve been Severed from your primary attachment. You’re cut off from your emotional life-line.

2: WITHDRAWL – painful Withdrawal from your lost love. The more time goes on, the more all of the needs your partner was meeting begin to impinge into your every Waking moment. You are in Writhing pain from being torn apart. You yearn, ache, and Wait for them to return. Love-withdrawal is just like Heroin Withdrawal – - each involves the body’s opiate system and the same physical symptoms of intense craving. During Withdrawal, you are feeling the Wrenching pain of love-loss and separation – - the Wasting, Weight loss, Wakefulness, Wishful thinking, and Waiting for them to return. You crave a love-fix to put you out of the WITHDRAWAL symptoms.

3: INTERNALIZING – you Internalize the rejection and cause Injury to your self esteem. This is the most critical stage of the cycle when your wound becomes susceptible to Infection and can create permanent scarring. You are Isolated, riddled with Insecurity, self- Indictment and self-doubt. You are preoccupied with ‘If only regrets’ – - If only you had been more attentive, more sensitive, less demanding, etc. You beat yourself up with regrets over the relationship and Idealize your abandoner at the expense of your own self Image.

4: ANGER – the turning point in the grief process when you begin to fight back. You attempt to Reverse the Rejection by Refusing to accept all of the blame for the failed relationship, and feel surges of anger against your abandoner. You Rail against the pain and isolation you’ve been in. Agitated depression and spurts of anger displaced on your friends and family are common during this turbulent time, as are Revenge and Retaliation fantasies toward your abandoner.

5: LIFTING – your anger helped to externalize your pain. Gradually, as your energy spurts outward, it Lifts you back into Life. You begin to Let go. Life distracts you and gradually Lifts you out the grief cycle. You feel the emergence of strength, wiser for the painful Lessons you’ve Learned. And if you’re engaged in the process of recovery, you get ready to Love again.

The Author
Susan Anderson is a psychotherapist who has practiced for 30 years. She is the author of Taming your Outer Child: Overcoming your Self Defeating Patterns; Journey from Abandonment to Healing; Black Swan: Twelve Lessons of Abandonment Recovery; and Journey from Heartbreak to Connection. Her educations includes Diplomate in Clinical Social Work (1993), of Social Work: Stony Brook University (1983), Masters of Liberal Studies: Stony Brook University (1974), Addictions Specialist Certificate: Certified Substance Abuse Counselor (1997).

[JasperCO]

I can't bring myself to "find my seat". I have been feeling absolutely consumed by my emotions. Denial, shock, longing, resentment. I keep cycling between the Shattering and Withdrawal stages with a little bit of the Internalization of Rejection thrown in. These stages are in the book "Journey from Abandonment to Healing" which I highly recommend. I feel totally abandoned in the cruelest of ways.

I suppose the loss of control is just feeling like my emotions own me right now. My intellect isn't making much of a dent. I can intellectually understand what is happening, but emotionally I am stuck in a wicked cycle. It's about 40 days now of NC and I am exhausted. Tired of thinking about her. Tired of the situation. Tired of this being my reality.

The Big You, Little You exercise came from the book above. The best part is that as soon as I give a voice to the small child (Little You) inside of me, I start crying. I am not a cryer by nature, but I have cried more in the past 40 days than any time in my life. I usually feel better afterward, just releasing the emotion. The Big You, Little You thing is mainly designed to get you in touch with your inner child and your adult. Letting them have a dialogue. Letting your adult reassure and nuture the child within who doesn't want to be abandoned. Later, the book suggests bringing your Outer Child into the discussion. This is the adolescent part of you that wants to fix things for Little You by doing all of the wrong things.

[rocky77]

I have started reading "The Journey from Abandonment to Healing"

This has been incredibly helpful.  Especially in the comparisons to someone grieving the death of a loved one and how what you/we are going through is even worse than that.

You can't rush the process, you can only live each moment and do your best to take care of yourself each hour of the day.  Some moments are better than others and at times it is unbearable.  Just know that it is a process and there are people on bpdfamily that understand and have survived.

tim

[Raeni]

I read a book the other day, it's called "The Journey from Abandonment To Healing" by Susan Anderson.  

I can't say I felt much of anything but intense pain, longing, and a feeling of abandonment when things ended (even though I was the one who did it after he withdrew from me for the 20th time)

[bluelotus9]

Hi,

I found 'The journey from abandonment to healing' by Susan Anderson (she also has a web site) to be extremely helpful. It really is a life saver, and describes the 5 stages of abandonment recovery, providing excellent excercises to help you get through, starting off with mindfulness as an oasis to deal with the initial pain of shattering, followed by excersises to contact that child within you that has carried the abandonment anxiety all your life... .

I cannot recommend it highly enough... .

BL9

[officer1618]

I highly recommend you read The Journey From Abandonment To Healing by Susan Anderson.

Some of it I could do without but it really helped me understand the stages of healing from this type of betrayal. The pain I felt was crystal clear and pure and I've never hurt so bad in my life.  Knowing why it hurts makes it tolerable and there are a few helpful things to do to keep yourself together. I feel for you and know you hurt all the time... .and I will offer this to you... .it will get better over time and with proper perspective. If you pm me any time I'll share with you what I went through and how I dealt with it (both right and wrong cos I made tons of mistakes). Also, if I may ask, was your marriage a happy one or was it full of chaos and tirades. MINE WAS... the entire marriage... and I secretly fantasized about being free... so I was taken back by the reality of the feelings I felt and how strongly I felt them when she cheated on me.

[mmww]

Hi Everyone

I'm looking for a book on loss, or abandonment, and wondered if anyone could recommend one. I am still undecided, and after a short period of NC with my UDXBF with BPD have gone back to LC. I'm trying to understand everything I can about BPD so that I can make a logical choice about staying or leaving and should I leave I would like some information about the stages I will go through. I seem to get stuck in the feeling that ours was a "special" relationship and that no one else will live up too, or that no one will want to date me.  My head knows this is not true, but my emotions take over and I make poor choices at that point. It may seem like I have "decided" because I am asking this question, but I haven't I only want to prepare myself either way. Also to know what to expect from him.

Thanks

[diotima]

This book has been mentioned several times and I refer people to it (having learned about it through others on this website). I am not all the way through it yet, but I am reading it and working through the exercises. I had a kind of allergy to "inner child" work until I started this. I now keep a journal with dialogues between my adult self and my wounded child. It is a real eye opener (second stage). First, I am recommending this book; second, I am asking others to comment on their experiences with this book.

For me: I am involved in a long interchange with my wounded eight-year-old self who is having a lot of trouble trusting me because she has been abandoned so many times. She can be a bit nasty, a bit confrontive, and needy. But she is also not willing to put up with this crap--I am trying to get her to trust me.

Diotima

[Clearmind]

How awesome is that book. I am also up to the second stage and due to childhood trauma I am up in my head much of the time... very tiring!

I loved the grounding exercises at the end of the Shattering chapter - gets you back in the present - which is not a place really known to core trauma sufferers.

What also helped me - I had a huge issue getting my head around BPD and realised that BPDs are very stuck in the Shattering stage - and while this book is about me and not him it has helped me to move on and realise the enormity of BPD and how truly stuck they are.

I don’t think they reach all 5 stages. This is what DBT & CBT essentially does – teaches mindfulness (bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis) – uBPDs tool box of  dysregulation/splitting etc gets in the way of the mindfulness required to logically flow through the 5 stages.

To effectively work through all 5 stages of abandonment to healing requires both the amygdale (emotional memory) and the hippocampus (contextual memory) parts of the brain. These two parts of the brain are not in balance with those that suffer with BPD. The lifting stage is more reminiscent of the novelty seeking/impulsiveness (instant gratification) than lifting in the true sense of the word.

However I digress! I am caught between internalising and rage at the moment. Feeling angry is great and the books validates me that it is ok to feel anger... .

[seeking balance]

Thanks for sharing this book - it is one that I have not heard of; and must say that I am intrigued!

[diotima]

SB: someone mentioned it awhile back on a thread--said his T recommended it and then I saw scattered references to it, so I bought it. It is a little unusual as self-help books go. It is pretty intense and it doesn't mention BPD, but it really doesn't have to. It is like a manual written for nons recovering from r/s with BPDs.

D

[mistyclouds]

This book has just arrived. I look forward to reading it. I did wonder if it would help a BPD person due to it's title alone?

[newlife3]

 Thanks for sharing D:

I am going to check it out...

[exbpdgf]

I started reading this book shortly after breaking up with my exgf (before I began the process of understanding she is uBPD), but knowing I was hurting and for some odd reason, everything about the breakup was about her. Although I initiated the breakup, I felt so abandoned by her-she knew there were issues and she was unwilling/unable to work on "her side of the street" (even after an ultimatum on my part that I would only stay if she did therapy-she did it for 4-6 months then quit). This is a good book when hurting from a breakup.

[painter]

This is the best, most helpful book I have read on this subject. I found it especially helpful when I read it in tandem with her other book, Taming Your Outer Child. The concepts of the inner child and the outer child helped me to finally understand how I was codependent. These books also, by the way, help me to understand from another angle what's going on in the BPD. Dr. Anderson believes we all have abandonment wounds in varying degrees.

[heartandwhole]

I found this book to be really helpful. 

The insights that really clicked for me and are helping me to detach are as follows:

1) Being abandoned by our pwBPD reopens all our previous abandonment wounds from childhood.  So what we are really processing is the accumulation of every time we felt abandoned by someone we cared about throughout our lives.  This helped me to understand the sheer force of the pain when my pwBPD rejected me.  It was everything together- all at once. I hadn't realized that I was grieving my entire past after the breakup with my love interest.

2) Intensity vs. intimacy: it seems we often think that intensity=intimacy, but not necessarily.  Intensity comes from fear and anxiety, esp. fear of abandonment.  Intimacy comes from passion and love, a healthy, whole place.  There is an adrenaline rush that comes with dangerous/potentially abandoning relationships that we have been conditioned to be attracted to.  But they don't give us what we really need and want.  Intensity feels pretty good, until it doesn't.  The fear of abandonment/insecurity gets confused with feelings of love and attraction.

3) The inner child:  I've never really done inner child work before, but one of the exercises in this book is about the child and the adult parts of us.  When I connected with the little four year old inside of me, I had a very powerful experience of emotional honesty (and lots of tears). I found my deepest fear, the one that influences all of my romantic relationships (and very likely many other areas of my life).  During my r/s and breakup process, this abandoned child had taken over, so that I couldn't access my wiser, caring adult self.

I know it may sound hokey, but I'm telling you that when I found this "adult self" inside of me, I knew that I was going to be all right. 

In one powerful exercise I realized that what I most wanted in the whole world was something I could give to myself.  People have abandoned me and might abandon me in the future, but I am always here for myself, always. Such a simple fact, and  I didn't even know it!  The person I have been longing for is me.  We've heard that cliché a thousand times, but I feel like I've just grokked it for the first time     I actually experienced myself taking care of and being there for me, while in the throes of my deepest fears.  Big difference.  And a long time coming!

Wow, I'm the one. I can do that, I really can.  All this time I was hoping someone else would do it, because I didn't believe I could, didn't think I knew how.  But I do.  All I have to do is listen to/feel my feelings (inner child), and be present, reassure, and accept them (her).

I'm the one.  And a ton of weight just dropped from my heart.   Highly recommend this book.

heartandwhole  xoxo

[guitargrl]

I have this book and have yet to read it! looks like it might be good to start now!

[Allmessedup]

Downloaded this today... . so far it is excellent!  Thanks so much for bumping the thread

[Cimbaruns]

I read this book last year during my 2nd breakup... . it was very helpful.

I will be reading it again as I go through this final breakup and divorce... .

It's a very good read as I'm sure most here will agree

[barbwire911]

Just bought it today... . excited to read it.

[Blimblam]

I can not recommend this book enough.  It is a true gem.  Anyone detaching from a borderline owes it to themselves to read this book, in my opinion. GET THIS ONE.

[Pingo]

I found this book tremendously helpful.  I was the one that ended the r/s with my uBPDexh so wasn't abandoned in the way that many here have been.  But I have experienced a lot of rejection and abandonment throughout my life and it all came to the surface reading this book.  I would recommend seeing a T when you are reading it, it may bring up a lot of difficult stuff.  The books describes the grief process and how to cope with it with very helpful exercises, no matter if you were the one to end the r/s or not.  I highly recommend it.

[Shankz]

I can not recommend this book enough.  It is a true gem.  Anyone detaching from a borderline owes it to themselves to read this book, in my opinion. GET THIS ONE.

definitely