Ask A Therapist - If your break up really f**ked you up, look deeper, there’s an emotional wound hiding
Hi friends, Louise here, founder of OPENHOUSE and the queen of a recently very painful break up.
Initially, I was absolutely blown away by the break up. Didn’t see it coming. Was in denial. Couldn’t believe it was happening.
The first few months were horrendous, but over time, as I started to work through things in a more calm and less panicked manner in therapy, I was able to look at what *actually* was going on to cause me to react so severely to the break up.
The wound beneath the breakup
This is when I started to learn - that if a break up really f**ked you up, it’s likely that something is going on deeper below the surface that you aren’t even aware of, that has been triggered, and is causing you all kinds of emotional, psychological and even physical pain.
I started to understand it wasn’t about the break up at all, and, yes I was sad that I had lost someone close to me and that I really deeply missed them and wanted to talk to me, I started to see that it was much deeper.
For me, therapy helped me to see that the break up triggered my ‘abandonment’ wound and my ‘defectiveness’ wound - two wounds that many of us hold, but if you haven’t had them triggered by partners, past or present, you might not even know they exist.
The Abandonment Wound
My abandonment wound was triggered when he left, abruptly, without warning - and then hit me with silence forever onwards. Someone that promised me they would always love me, always care for me and never leave, did exactly the opposite - and abandoned me in broad daylight. What my therapist taught me is that this goes a lot deeper and probably goes back to childhood when, at some point as a child, I would have felt abandoned physically or emotionally. This doesn’t mean that you have to have gone through something as severe as a parent leaving, or a parent passing away, it can even be smaller, more emotionally charged events - such as your parents not being around when you needed them, or your parents working a lot and you feeling alone. We have to remember that as children, we are hypersensitive to the way that our parents treat us and we often take on board the negative experiences as ‘our fault’. For whatever reason, something happened in my childhood that made me hyper sensitive to abandonment and so, when I was abandoned as a 32-year-old woman, bam - I went back to a childlike response. Fascinating, huh?
The Defectiveness Wound
Secondly, this experience plus a lot of therapy taught me more about my defectiveness wound. This is a wound in schema therapy that essentially is a belief deep down that you are not loveable or worthy. This can come from a childhood where your parents didn’t tell you they loved you, or you went to a very pushy school where you always felt like you were never the best, the top or the most worthy. It can also show up in family dynamics where you feel like you were less successful than a sibling, or less worthy of your parents’ attention.
For me, I related to many of these situations and have been aware ever since starting therapy that it is my defectiveness wound of ‘not feeling good enough’ that has driven a raft of coping mechanisms and responses over the years (i.e. work harder, be more successful, be prettier, be skinnier, etc).
Ultimately, however, when my ex-boyfriend left me, he triggered this defectiveness wound - and what this means in practice is that someone who had seen every part of me, the dark, the light, and everything in between, and who knew every part of me and told me that he loved me for it, then left. Objectively, I can understand that a grown adult has every right to leave a relationship whenever they want, but when he did so, it triggered my emotional inner child that was holding this defectiveness wound. It felt like the ultimate punishment - you are not worthy of me staying, I didn’t love you enough, etc.
For me, I didn’t even realise that I was holding onto these wounds until the break up hit me and me feeling stuck for so long and pining over someone that was not choosing me was actually a reflection that my deepest wounds had been triggered.
Healing from Heartbreak
My therapist has helped me to understand that not every relationship is a forever relationship and more often than not, they are purely vehicles for self-development and growth, where our deepest darkest wounds are triggered.
Mine certainly were, but now, 10 months later, I can say that I’m glad that they were. The breakup shone a flashlight into the parts of me that needed healing and now, I am en route to working through them with love, kindness and compassion.
Episode 15 of the OPENHOUSE Podcast
This excerpt from the Podcast summarizes it perfectly, where I was talking to Dr Tari Mack about these wounds and how I discovered them.
Louise Rumball - “It wasn't until that happened that I was put on this path of thinking, wow, what is this wound? Where's it come from? How have I hidden it for so long? But at that moment, it was like, I have nowhere else to look other than the gaping wounds that are causing me so much pain in my heart”
Dr Tari Mack - “You’re so right, I say often that the purpose of relationships is to break us open, right, and to reveal the deeper parts of ourselves that need healing. It's never fun. It's often the most painful part of our life. And there's a saying - the only way out is through, right? So you've got to go through it to get to the deeper layers of yourself. So you can live a fuller life. You absolutely do - and you will always get there, even when you don’t think you can.”
The OPENHOUSE Podcast with Louise Rumball
Want to hear more on healing from heartbreak from Louise Rumball, founder of OPENHOUSE and Head Psychologist, Dr Tari Mack? Head to the OPENHOUSE Podcast.
Our two recommended episodes for you:
Episode 7: The 10 things I learnt in therapy that helped me navigate heartbreak - SPOTIFY HERE or APPLE PODCASTS HERE - in this episode, Louise shares the top 10 things that she learnt from therapy around break ups and how they have helped her so far.
Episode 15: Scott Disick - how to get over the breakup or person that you think you can't get over - SPOTIFY HERE or APPLE PODCASTS HERE - in this episode, we looked at Scott - discussing all things breakups as we shine a light on what we know Scott Disick might be feeling. We dive into what to do when you feel like someone has got away, the different stages of a breakup and how to truly move through the relationships that we think we can never get over.
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