Breakdown of significant relationship with my DA boyfriend

Thais Gibson is excellent. I haven't done her courses but found her after I earned secure and I've never seen a video of hers be off the mark. I believe she earned secure from being FA. Jayson Gaddis and his relationship school are also pretty good, though his style can be more of a ramble than Gibson. He and his wife both are psychologists who earned secure at some point and broke out of their own anxious-avoidant relationship trap dynamics (he was FA, sounds like she was AP) to have a so far lengthy and seemingly happy marriage with children. They occasionally talk about attachment theory specifically but usually incorporate the concepts without hitting you over the head with attachment theory itself. John Gottman also has useful research about components of a healthy relationship, which are less focused on attachment theory.

Locally, I think you should have conversations with counselors about their knowledge of attachment theory, healing and recovering from childhood emotional trauma, and their "success" rates (how long on average they work with clients, how they define progress). Someone who has some specialization in attachment theory and understands AP anxious attachment and typical relationship dynamics, perhaps has some experience in personality disorders or clients recovering from relationships with difficult family members, and knows it takes a couple years on average to work through trauma but everyone goes at their own speed (however, it shouldn't be an indefinite time period of the same talk therapy forever without the person learning the skills to cope on their own at some point) may be a good fit. You don't want to interrogate anyone on their expertise, because you're not looking to make them feel like you know better or won't trust them, just get a sense of their philosophy around their therapy styles and see if it's a good fit for you. I've spoken to people in psychology who think attachment theory is personality test junk science and don't pay any attention to it, and if you bring it up they'll quickly tell you that.

If you think you click with a therapist through traditional talk therapy, great! It may take some trial and error to find the right one, which is totally normal. And you may feel a lot of pain in your sessions that may leave you questioning the process and wanting to quit rather than face the pain, or wonder why it's taking a while and you can't rush it, all normal. I've observed for people going to good therapists that they are really challenged to dig in while simultaneously being taught better skills to communicate, cope with stress, and internally soothe. But the challenge all feels accurate, nothing the therapist says feels instinctually deep down very off to you in a way that is wrong... if your instincts are saying *this isn't right* versus saying the therapist is right but this change is painful, then trust your instincts and don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. There are some therapists who have issues themselves and therefore will give you distorted advice without realizing it. One tip I give people for choosing a therapist is, are they living a stable life similar to your goals? If I always had repetitively bad breakups and was seeking dating advice, I'd be more hesitant to listen to a "dating expert" who is perpetually single than someone in a long-term happy and stable relationship, for example.

If you try talk therapy with a couple therapists and find it doesn't work for you, look into somatic experience (SE) therapy. The focus is more on feelings in your body and has helped some people on this forum who had difficulty making much progress through talk therapy.

The attatchmentstyles and grief, loss ect

Dismissing/avoidant people, in particular, are likely to report less post-traumatic growth after the death of a loved one. They tend to suppress their negative feelings and to convert those negative (disowned) emotions into physical symptoms like headaches or abdominal distress
Those with avoidant/dismissing styles may appear to cope better with grief after a loss, but this really depends on how you define "better" coping. Yes, they are likely to acknowledge less distress and are less likely to admit negative feelings to others. They are likely to suppress their unwanted feelings and externally appear fine

People with preoccupied styles almost never suppress their emotions and experience more intense prolonged grief. Based on this body of research and the theory describing each of the styles, we should expect that those who have anxious/preoccupied styles will be heavily impacted by loss and that the associated negative feelings will last longer. They also may experience more intense and lasting anger over the situation and perhaps even at the lost loved one.

Those with disorganized/fearful styles may literally become emotionally and behaviorally disorganized after a loss. This is because the new loss event may trigger feelings and thoughts related to other unresolved losses from the past. This would be similar to having an emotional flashback in the case of PTSD

Hi Anne,

Thank you for all of your posts and sharing so much with me -- so very kind and helpful. I would have responded sooner but just now saw all your posts. I realized I wasn't even clicking on page two! I have never been on forums like this and I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate and do things (that should be simple) like attach a post to a specific person.

Yes, I am a highly sensitive person as well as (from everything I've read) an emotional and intuitive Empath. I had not seen the threads that you attached - Thank you, I'll print and read them!

I've seen more recently a licensed marriage and family therapist who does EMDR and NLP and prior to that (maybe 7 years ago) I saw for several years a pastoral counselor who was a psychoanalyst. And there have been others but so far back I can't remember their background. I greatly appreciate all of your suggestions of what to look for as I would like to find someone that I click with and has the expertise, knowledge and background in the areas you mentioned.

I also am wondering if part of the unrelenting pain I've been in over this relationship is that I formed a trauma bond? His complete neglect of my feelings coupled with almost no communication has created excruciatingly severe relational trauma in me to the core of my being. I have experienced to name a few deep feelings of abandonment and betrayal.

Like many of us, I have had a lot of trauma in my life and at age 50 I developed a tremor (internally) when I went through menopause. Then within a few years it manifested itself (in my head) in a no-no pattern when I look strait ahead. If I turn my head to the left or right it is stable (not there). This tremor is sometimes mild but is much more significant if these things are going on:
1) not enough sleep
2) physical illness
3) being cold (I'm only 100 pounds and live in MN)
4) overly stressed with to many things going on all at once
5) seeing any kind of violence
6) someone yelling or even just communicating in a toxic unhealthy manner

Initially it was situational when these triggers were present. The tremor would go away when the triggers weren't there. Years ago it became constant but the tremor goes from mild to much more noticeable depending on the triggers.

I have always had a highly sensitive nervous system but as I've gotten older it has become even more sensitive. I'm sharing this because I am wondering if you have any thoughts or resources you might suggest.

I might add that, the breakdown of the relationship is with a man who is a chiropractor. He believes that the tremor in my head is structural going back to a very severe 1980 car accident. I think it could be a combination of the two but primarily related to my very sensitive nervous system and trauma I've experienced and that is stored in my tissues.


I'm being affected on every level by this break up and in quite a state of overwhelm. The relational pain plus the oral chemo is causing additional physical symptoms such as memory and processing things a lot slower etc....

So, I want and need to get to some of these deeper layers of much needed healing.

Thank you again for your posts. Each one has been very helpful and greatly appreciated.

Many blessings to you,
Pamela

Yeah, I could be a trauma bond - not that I know a lot about trauma bond myself, but I think there are other people on the board who does

Disregulated People who are in a kind of freeze state and low on energy/who are nummed out are more prone to attract people with dysregulated prepretator energy. People with prepretator energy say that they can spot people in freeze/they can feel their low energy miles away. For examble at a bar.
If you are low on energy, in freeze/shut down and not well regulated be carefull because you can attract these type of people without being aware of it. You are in risk of being hunted like wounded/weak animals in the wild. You are also not able to detect danger the same way as if you were wellregulated.
(Peter Levine)

There is a thread about narcissism in the general discussion forum

Your symptoms could have gotten worse because you were with an unhealthy man ?

Sometimes it can be beneficial to remember and write down the things you actually noticed about your ex that felt off - it could be a visceral reaction, hair raising in your neck, contractions in your stomach, a feeling of needing to 🤮, an urge to pull away as if your body said NO, an urge to flee, something he said, the way he spoke about an ex, eye contact (too much or no eye contact), did he yearn when you yarned or not, did you feel drained and heavy after spending time together ect.

The problem could of course be if you are very dysregulated so that you couldn’t trust your body sensations (people with some desorganized attatchmentstyle / trauma can’t always trust their bodily intuition)

I mean as an empath you can absorb other peoples emotions and anger ect. and carry it around in your body
jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/3551/empath

This is a post about connective tissue - jebkinnisonforum.com/post/40468/
Your type of connetive tissue can have an influence on your fight, flee, freeze, fawn, fitting in responces
People who have more collagenous connective tissue tend to be sympathetic dominant. People who have more elastinous connective tissue tend to be parasympathetic dominant but you can have a mix of both

Hi Anne, I deeply appreciate you taking your time to share all this valuable information. Your insights and the links are so very helpful -- thank you!