medium.com/illumination/how-to-emotionally-detach-from-someone-who-has-started-pulling-away-9e60f0868242
How to emotionally detach from someone who pulled awayKey skills from the psychologist’s couch to encourage letting go and restoring dignity
Annika Lindberg
ILLUMINATION
Annika Lindberg
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As a Psychologist, hearing stories of peoples’ heartbreaks can be moving and sad. Despite the sorrow, there is often something beautiful that gets born during the process of letting go and healing. To watch a person ‘resurrect’ and start to love themselves through this difficult process is a truly rewarding experience. In this article, I wanted to share my observations from the coach of what helps people reach the holy grail of detachment. Try for a moment to recognize that from the point the relationship ends; they live in you mainly through the memories you have of them, and the thoughts and feelings that you continue to manufacture. The ability to widen the small gap between your sticky thoughts, nostalgic memories, and intense emotions — and you the person experiencing it all is an initial aim. And through encouraging you to grasp hold of your behaviour I want you to experience a degree of control and choice over your own actions during this next phase.
Heartbreak hurts even more when we are feeling out of controlHeartbreak can sometimes feel like something that happens to us. He/She ‘broke’ my heart — we say while feeling as though an external force or other person needs to come in and fix us up in order for healing to happen. Although there is no getting around the sadness and grief of losing someone you care for or love (not feeling anything would be concerning!), there are plenty of things you can do to aid detachment from them, from your emotions and from allowing the situation to derail your entire life. When we lose control emotionally, our brain will compel us to try and regain control through any means possible. This is where chasing, cyber-stalking, obsessing, reassurance seeking and many other mistaken attempts to regain control come into the picture. Minimising such, whilst also trying to put our attention to controllable and actionable steps of our existence is going to speed up recovery significantly.
Someone else deciding to pull away without warning will exacerbate your sense of losing controlFrom an emotional perspective, the type of heartbreak that results from one person gradually- and/or secretly starting to pull away deserves a special place in hell. Not only do these situations poke holes into peoples’ baggage, abandonment issues, early rejections and other attachment insecurities. They also leave people feeling unworthy of a proper goodbye or an explanation. Let alone a relationship! Self-doubt, second-guessing and untold amounts of rumination are natural consequences unless steps are taken to rein the mind in.
Ruminating oneself ‘towards’ finding solutions is going to be an enormous source of energy spillage and if anything will take you further from finding closure. This is because those solutions do not exist within you. The person who executes the breakup may or may not know the answers, and irrespective of which- you might never find out. This is tough to come to terms with and hence I would promote immediate acceptance if you want to move towards healing and taking your control back in a situation where you were undemocratically dumped or phased out.
The pros and cons of vilifying the perpetratorBefore embarking on the steps towards detachment, I should also mention that many people who do pull away are not doing so vindictively. Attachment issues, intimacy fears and a range of fears around confrontation and personal backgrounds of hurt and rejection are common themes among those who pull away quietly. Whilst it can be tempting to vilify the perpetrator who broke your heart and left you with no answers, the truth is that it rarely leads to better or faster healing. If anything, it is more likely to keep you stuck in a mindset where you see them as ‘the one’ who can take you out of your misery. You will need to rescue yourself! If that hurts to hear, try to see the good part of having the control back in your court. Having said all that, I have seen a few situations where hanging on to anger initially helps people activate some of the steps below. Do what is best for you for the moment — but if you think long-term: remember that feeling wronged and angry is not a recipe for letting go and finding peace.
Taking back control: Put solid boundaries in place to prevent cyber-stalking of any kindSome people I have seen over the years have wasted the equivalent of months worth of time fuelling pain via the use of Instagram, Snapchat, dating apps and various other forums where one can gain illicit access to an ex-s life. Yes, I do completely understand that the compulsion to try and regain a degree of control over them or the situation is driving this behaviour, and that chances are you already know it is not helping.
Stimulus control — adding barriers that stand firm at times of poor willpower and self-controlFor this reason, one of the tricks you need to employ is what in addiction treatment we refer to as ‘stimulus control’; Trying to make it as hard as possible to do the wrong thing by protecting yourself from acting in response to certain stimuli! If you need to tell yourself that you could one day be friends, insta-buddies or similar — then that’s okay, but for now, give yourself a break from it all. To aid your detachment, make it as close to impossible as you can to reach out for an update on them or any kind of status check.
The action step of deleting apps, outsourcing your password to a loved one, and/or simply taking a break from your phone can be surprisingly positive for your mental health. Not only will you feel proactive when taking charge of your own happiness, but you will also be far more likely to live in the here and now as opposed to dwelling on the past or the future.
Do not chase. No matter what.A natural part of being left suddenly or out of the blue is the notion of wanting them to ‘remember you’. Perhaps you feel like they did not even get to encounter the best of you or as if you did not get a chance to communicate critically important parts of your story. As a result, your mind might think it makes good sense to issue ‘reminders’ that you exist. How these reminders manifest very much depends on the situation. In some cases, they are displays of agony, angry messages and guilt-trippy hints of the pain that has been caused. Other times they take the shape of happy-clappy pictures from a cool club, beach shots or perhaps at the low-end, lovely snaps featuring a new hot date. There are also those who argue that the person who broke up with them did not ‘know their own best’ and therefore sent a reassuring note offering themselves up as a fallback option. Don’t go here. It is a 100% strategy for feeling cringe about yourself later and to come across as a bit crazy. It is hard to come up with an example of when these reminders prompted a person who has already exited a relationship to think ‘you know what- I messed up here. I will take immediate steps to get them back and this time I shall never let them go again!’
I know this pains to hear, but if a person needs ‘post-break-up-reminders’ to recall your greatness, then it is time to recognise that they never valued you enough anyway. The best thing you can do is to recognise that your value is not defined by them- it is inherent in you. You just don’t feel it right now.
For more reasons not to chase please read my recent post on Medium:
A psychologist’s view: Why you mustn’t chase in relationships
This behaviour is deeper than you think
medium.com
Do not accept a ‘crumbs only’ relationship with someone you actually want to be with!It may well be that your ex would be happy to keep providing the bare minimum to keep you hooked. Please do not interpret this as a sign of love. In a state of desperation and depletion, people often settle for any level of attention and then try and make it into something else.
If someone loves you, grant them the adult responsibility of actually showing you that they do. This should not have to be a coerced process!When people provide crumbs- it is not a sign of their undying love for you and that they just cannot keep themselves in check from letting their love leak out. It is however a testimony to their inability to commit to being in a relationship with you for whatever reason they may have. As tends to be the case with commitment issues, those who have them also struggle to commit to letting you go. So they hover in the middle. Only you can stop their access to you.
If a relationship is what you want, remember that the reason for their break-up does not matter. They are effectively showing you that they will not be able to give you what you want.
(I wrote a post about the boiling frog syndrome to explain how people come to expect less and less (but paradoxically find it increasingly tricky to leave) during the process of an unhealthy relationship. You can find the article below)
“Boiling Frog” Syndrome and Why People Stay in Bad Relationships
It’s not your fault but you have to take action.
medium.com
Upgrade your mindset: don’t let your thoughts keep you hostage‘Why….’ ‘How could they…’ ‘If only….’ The ruminations are neverending and the lack of closure feels like a gaping hole. There are no answers, so you keep thinking that …..a little more thinking might just fix it. As anybody who has recovered from anything would likely recognize- our recovery happens on several planes. We move our practical behaviours on. We gradually adapt the way we feel. In order for all of this to come together nicely, we can also give our thought processes a little nudge. They will otherwise keep operating with the false belief that more thinking, processing and fixating is going to bring the closure you so badly need.
In reality, the longer your mind is stuck in the mud of obsessing over them, there is going to be a continued sense of energy drainage and, weirdly, it will be as though they are still very much a part of your life.
Energy flows where attention goes…. Tony Robbins
Be very careful how much energy and attention you end up putting towards someone who has walked away from you. Whether you spend your time thinking, rehashing events with friends or nostalgia-tripping over photos- just know that it is all energy.
Live in the present moment — each moment presents a new opportunity to accept what is
It is natural for the mind to try and escape the pain by taking refuge in old nostalgic memories, or false narratives about the future. All along, the only process that will actually help is your own ability to realign yourself with your present reality be it good or bad.
At every step on the way, try to recall that things are what they are right now and that it is OK. Perhaps things are not meant to be any different either. Events will most certainly not get better because you try to wish them away or question if they even happened. Having some faith does help with this step, but even if you have none, you might be able to accept that denying your own reality is a futile venture. Dealing with situations requires us to accept that they are happening. This is always a first step towards moving on and healing.
Keep a good routine- even if it does not feel natural or funThe brain will not allow you to fully enjoy anything properly at the moment. However, being slumped on the sofa for days on end is going to be counterproductive on so many levels. Not only are you optimising the chances of being hijacked by negative thinking, but you are also going to feel more hopeless watching yourself sit there staring into space. If you have children or a demanding job, you might find that these come in handy in keeping you tied to a routine. If not, you can use other commitments to create a small daily routine. Victimhood and feelings of rejection will be frequenting your pity party. Both tend to derail people from taking constructive action. Even if the pain is bad, try to recognise that tiny positive action steps done regularly will help build positive momentum.
At the final hurdle: Surrender the need to feel in control and understand everythingTry to surrender your need to understand everything and the desire to have all the pieces of the puzzle laid out perfectly. It is okay to let it be messy and a bit of an unsolved mystery. Focus on finding peace in knowing that you have your own back, make your own choices and control your process going forward. You decide what you spend your time on. Our healing is not dependent on knowing it all or having every piece of understanding. If that were the case, traumatic episodes involving lapses in consciousness would be impossible to move on from — and yet they are not! Take a leap of faith and trust that by working on yourself through the breakup process, you will come out better, stronger and very soon feel so much happier again and in time ready for a new better relationship.