Sarah McLachlan’s Angel

Does this sound familiar to you?

So many of the people that I work with are beating themselves up about their past – things they should or should not have done, things they wished they had figured out sooner, etc.

And if you grew up in a home environment that was chaotic, toxic, neglectful or abusive, it is always easy to find a reason to not feel good enough. That is because of attachment trauma, which is the disruption to the process of an infant bonding with their primary caregiver. That is due to internalized negative beliefs about yourself that were developed and fostered in those environments.

And I think most of us are desperately looking for distraction these days. But if a person has experienced attachment trauma then this need for distraction is intensified and it is difficult for them to simply be with themselves, their thoughts, or feelings or memories, because they are too painful.

That is why dysfunctional coping strategies are so common. They seem like good solutions when the person is younger, but then they take on a life of their own. They don’t solve the problem of being with ourselves, and so are forever needing to be done again and again.

These dysfunctional strategies can be to alcohol, marijuana or substance. It can be to shopping, acquiring, or getting things. Maybe it’s sex and pornography. Regardless, these are not the solution. Getting help and learning to be able to tolerate being in one’s own skin is the only way to letting go of the past and of current dysfunction. EMDR therapy can help.