Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on October 9, 2019
Blaming yourself for your relationship’s failure to thrive is the most painful type of regret. Beating yourself for losing someone’s love is true agony. But more often than not, we do this when we’re dealing with a breakup. People often blame themselves for breakups, believing that their insecurity is what drove their partner away. Another … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, Break Ups, Heart Break
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Tags: Abandonment, blame, breakup, divorce, getting over heartbreak, healing, heartbreak, life, love, love yourself, mental health, recovery, relationships, self-blame, selfesteem, unworthiness
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2 comments
Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on August 19, 2019
Are you attached to someone who doesn’t seem as committed as you are? Is there a lack of commitment in the relationship? Maybe they’re giving you double messages, keeping you at arm’s length, or pulling away when you try to get closer. Whatever the signs, your fear of abandonment has been triggered and you want … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, anxiety, Break Ups, Divorce, Falling in love, healing from abandonment, Heart Break, Relationships
| Tags: Abandonment, heartbreak, how to raise self esteem, love, mental health, mental health awareness, recovery, romance, self sabotage, selfcare, selfesteem, therapy, wellness
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on August 7, 2019
At one of my three-day workshops (at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon – beautiful place!), one of the participants said he played the caretaker role in his relationship. He’d hoped that attending to her needs might insure that she would never want to ever leave him because he’d made himself so very valuable in her … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, healing from abandonment
| Tags: Abandonment, beauty, breakup, caretaker, divorce, emotionally unavailable, grief, healing, heartbreak, love, mental health, relationships, selfcare, selfesteem, stability, wellness
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on July 30, 2019
Men are just as vulnerable to the abandonment wound as women. Men have the same reaction; there’s no limit to what men experience. It brings them to their knees the same way it does to a woman. Watch this video to learn more: Transcript: Interviewer: Susan do you feel like men have the same response … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery
| Tags: Abandonment, broken hearted, healing, heartache, life, love, men, men and women, mental health, recovery, relationships
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on July 22, 2019
We all have an Outer Child – a hidden nemesis that is always interfering in our best-laid plans – especially when we’re trying to advance. Outer Child is the part of your personality that acts out in self-defeating patterns – that puts its foot in your mouth at a business meeting, breaks your diet, and gets attracted … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, Relationships, taming your outer child, Workplace
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment fear, adulthood, career, emotions, feelings, life, love, mental health, outerchild, relationships, selfcare, selfesteem, selflove, wellness, workplace
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on June 20, 2019
Someone wrote in and asked, “Is separation anxiety related to abandonment?” “Oh yes,” I resounded. Separation anxiety is the basis for all emotional distress – anxiety, depression, insecurity-in-relationships, fear-of-loss. Abandonment feelings trigger separation anxiety and separation anxiety trigger abandonment feelings. Let’s say you walk into a restaurant with your friends and you suddenly see your … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment issues, aloneness, anxiety, childhood trauma, fear, heartbreak, how to raise self esteem, love, mental health, recovery, relationships, selfcare, separation anxiety
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on June 12, 2019
One of the major reasons heartbreak hurts so much is the lack of closure. Sometimes remaining friends with your ex offers the opportunity to maintain a dialogue in which a greater understanding about the issues leading to the breakup can be exchanged. Other times, contact with an ex can prolong the pain and delay closure. … read the full article
Categories: abandonment recovery, heartbreak
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, best life, divorce, grief, heartbreak, love, mental health, relationships, self esteem
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on June 4, 2019
Getting ready for summer, I am doing daily dialogues with my outer child. I’m wondering if using this self awareness tool (outer child) might help some of you also. What is outer child, you ask? Well, you’ve already met your inner child. But whereas your inner child is all about feelings, Outer is all about … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, Outer Child, Relationships, Self Esteem, Self Sabotage, taming your outer child
| Tags: Abandonment, adult, adulting, anxiety, best life, growing up, health, innerchild, love, mentalhealth, outerchild, relationships, selfesteem, therapy, wellness, workbooks, workshops
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on May 15, 2019
Do you know someone who stays in a bad relationship? What hooks them? The standard answer is that they don’t feel good enough about themselves. They don’t feel they deserve better. They have a low sense of entitlement. While self esteem is certainly a factor, many of these people started out feeling much better about … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery
| Tags: abuser, bad relationships, divorce, healing, health, insecure, love, mental health, pavlov, recovery, relationships, self esteem, therapy, wellness
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on May 6, 2019
When someone rejects you they acquire power in your mind. They acquire power due to their ability to inflict pain. The more they hurt you the harder it is to let go. This is the painful paradox of abandonment. “Why does it take so long to get over it?” people ask. Those suffering from rejection … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, Break Ups, Divorce, Self Esteem
| Tags: Abandonment, divorce, friendship, healing, heartbreak, higher self, love, mental health, rejection, relationships, self esteem, therapy, wellness
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on May 3, 2019
Heartbreak hurts so deeply because it pulls at that raw abandonment nerve we all share. It rips us open to the core, overwhelming us with powerful emotions – loss, despair, panic, shame, hopelessness – that seem all out of proportion to the actual event. Fortunately, we don’t have to suffer from abandonment pain for the … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, Relationships, Self Esteem
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment issues, Emotional Crisis, healing, heartbreak, helplessness, hope, life, love, mentalhealth, relationships, surviving a breakup, therapy, wellness
| 2 comments
Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on May 2, 2019
Do you have a commitment-phobic partner? You’re in a committed relationship. Or so you thought. But do you get the feeling that one of you is hedging your bets? Does your mate still act as if he or she is interested in meeting new people? You can sometimes suspect that your partner is still open … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, Heart Break
| Tags: Abandonment, commitment, committment, heartbreak, love, mental health, relationships
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Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on January 19, 2018
Future Self is the self we would like to become, the one we have every intention of becoming were it not for our patterns of self-sabotage that get in the way. Future Self is who we are today, except perhaps… thinner richer more spiritually evolved more confident more assertive less co-dependent, less people-pleasing happier more … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, anxiety, Break Ups, Divorce, Falling in love, healing from abandonment, Heart Break, journey from abandonment to healing, Relationships, Self Esteem, Self Sabotage
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonmentrecovery, confidence, dreams, goals, happiness, love, selfesteem, selflove
| 1 comment
Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on December 15, 2016
© Susan Anderson December 15 2016 I’ve been developing a profile of an abandoner for almost twenty years, collecting stories and insights from abandonment survivors from all over the world – from people writing to my website and attending my workshops, as well as friends, colleagues, and from my own experiences. Is there a profile … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, anorexia, anxiety, borderline and ptsd, borderline personality disorder, healing from abandonment, Heart Break, heartbreak, Relationships, Uncategorized
| Tags: Abandonment, healing, love, relationships
| 1 comment
Posted by Susan Anderson, Psychotherapist on November 4, 2016
The human condition The fear of abandonment is primal and universal to human experience, the crux of the human condition. We all have it. That’s why I write about it so much. Personally and professionally, I’ve discovered that it’s better to deal with our abandonment fear, know when it rears its head, than try to … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment recover, Emotional Crisis, healing, huffington post, love, mental health, positive change, relationships
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Posted by Admin on March 28, 2014
Attracted to the Unavailable: 10 Ways to Overcome this Self Sabotaging Pattern Why are we attracted to the emotionally unavailable? What can we do about it? Obviously, if we lose interest as soon as someone becomes available, that won’t work because all we’d be doing is forever chasing and never having a relationship. So how do we get … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, Break Ups, Outer Child, Relationships
| Tags: chase, dating, emotional high, emotionally unavailable, infatuation, Insecurity, love, outer child
| 4 comments
Posted by Admin on March 3, 2014
Overcoming the Trauma of Abandonment Abandonment has its own kind of grief trauma – a powerful grief universal to human beings. The grief can be acute – as when we go through the ending of a relationship, or chronic – as when we feel the impact of earlier losses and disconnection. The natural folds in … read the full article
Categories: Abandonment, Break Ups, Divorce, Outer Child, Relationships, Uncategorized
| Tags: Abandonment, abandonment recovery, anger, divorce, grief, heartbreak, loss, love, relationships, separation
| 7 comments
