SusanAnderson

Why Eliot Spitzer's Outer Child Acts Out

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Trouble Letting Go of Your Ex?

Several people wrote in about the painful dilemma of trying and failing to emotionally let go of their exes.  They feel extremely intolerant toward themselves for being so stuck.  This continued torment and clinging to their exes is completely involuntary, not subject to conscious control of their cognitive minds: “I try to stop thinking about her, but I can’t seem to stop the feelings.”  More…

Do You Play Caretaker To Gain Love Insurance?

I just came back from giving a three-day workshop (at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon – beautiful place!), and 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 life – but she left him anyway.  At least half of the group could identify with this.  One member said, “You were looking for “love insurance.”  More…

Do You Prefer Immediate Gratification to Accomplishment?

You mean I have to make a choice?  Yes, usually. So many of us have dreams, hopes, and goals but we keep going in circles instead of taking productive steps toward achieving them.  As time goes on, they seem to slip further and further into the distance.  At some point they seem all but lost – lost dreams, lost hopes, lost goals.  This doesn’t have to be.  Deconstruct it.  You will find Immediate Gratification as the nemesis.  Immediate Gratification is a self esteem issue.  People who hold their hopes and dreams as important (self-important) and themselves as capable (self-confident) are the ones who find the strength to overcome their need for Immediate Gratification and take the necessary steps to tackle their goals.  What caused your self-importance and self-confidence to erode and your goals to slip further into dreamland in the first place?  More…

My Ex is Moving On, Why Can’t I?

This happens a lot: The one who is left feeling abandoned has the hardest time moving on – precisely because of the primal pain unleashed by abandonment. The one who chose to end it has a much easier time moving on.  Sometimes the original reason for the break-up was that your partner left you for someone else.  This sends you into the torment of heartbreak and obsession, pining away for someone who is blithely enjoying the ecstasy of new love, completely oblivious to your pain.  More…

Ever Been Mistaken for Someone Older?

It happened twice to me in the past week.  Someone thought I was my brother’s mother. “Oh, is this your mother?” a store clerk asked.  Hello? I tried to suck it up and go about my business, but a dark cloud hovered over me for the rest of the day ...er week (if I have to be honest).   To recover from the stomach punch, I tried to remind myself how many people have mistaken me for someone YOUNGER this past year, how many tell me how great I look,  and how none of this matters anyway. But then I got the second punch.  More…

Rejection Hurts: What to Do

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 judge themselves harshly for not being able to feel better sooner.  They beat themselves up for feeling so weak and needy.  They feel this so called “weakness” is proving their abandoner right for rejecting them.   People going through abandonment lose self-esteem this way.  They beat themselves up for losing the person.  They conclude that they must be reject able, valueless, unworthy.  They shame themselves for pining and yearning and wanting someone who has hurt them so badly.  More…

Malignant Abandonment Rage Strikes at Virginia Tech

It wouldn’t be the first time abandonment rage caused someone to go on the murderous rampage and intentionally cause pain, loss, and horror. Seething for years, trapped inside himself, unable to interact with others, Sueng-Hui Cho seemed isolated, on the outside looking in, feeling abandoned by the human race. “You brats… you snobs… you had everything… You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience.  You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing.”    More…

The Bigger and Better Syndrome

Also known as “Looking to Trade Up,” this syndrome is the scourge of committed relationships.  More…

Part II: Trying to Get Over Someone

Getting over someone: The task can be so arduous that it needs to become an ongoing project.  And you can’t expect results right away.  You have to be goal-directed, determined, and unbelievably patient.  If you learn now to work WITH rather than AGAINST your feelings, you will come out of it sooner rather than later, and you will be in better shape than ever before in your life.  More…