Wow I can relate to Katherine in the case study It has took me 3 1/2 years to cry in front of my T. Even now I hold back a lot of tears but it is getting better. I've cried twice a week every week for the last few months lol I still dont like it but its getting easier

Hev

LL
Thanks for posting this, it is interesting to read as I have a real problem with crying in front of anyone, t included and also even by myself so this makes a lot of sense - also particularly as I am in attachment psychotherapy. It makes a good supplementary reading for me
Thanks

LL,

Thanks so much for this article, it illuminated a lot for me and was very timely in helping me with a present struggle. The passage quoted below was especially helpful:

quote:

Sad crying of despair is the crying that accompanies the working through stage of grief in adulthood. By acknowledging the painful permanence of the loss and reestablishing a symbolic connection with the lost attachment figure, there is energy available for connecting with new attachment figures or for reconfiguring the relationships with surviving ones, a stage that Bowlby calls reorganization. Although this stage does include some form of what is often called "acceptance" of the loss, resolution and reorganization do not necessarily mark the end of crying in the case of the loss of a close loved one by death. Even for some people who have successfully worked through their grief, periodic crying over missing the loved one may continue for decades after the actual loss (Zisook,DeVaul, & Maurice Click, 1982).

The whole passage is my answer to the question, how does mourning our childhood losses heal us? When we grieve the loss, we go through this process of finding hope again and reorganizing so that we can learn to attach and find meaningful relationships now instead of spending our energy searching for that which is gone beyond recovering.

But the part that really helped me now, I put in bold. I just saw my T again, on the one year anniversary of when I stopped going regularly and although I really do believe I am doing well, part of what I was struggling with that sent me back was how much I still miss him, despite knowing he's there and that I don't need him in the same way. I found this passage very reassuring in that it explains how I can have accepted what is going on but still feel the need to cry over it occasionally. (OK, I'm hoping it's not for decades. ) So thank you!

AG

Thanks so much for posting. I can barely cry, and pretty much never do in T and if I do, it is tears rolling down my cheeks and it is so covert that my T does not know unless I grab a tissue or something.

Amusingly enough, I can watch a sappy show or touching movie or listen to someone tell their personal story and start crying like a baby at times. I just can't cry about much at all related to myself...

I will definitely read the article and maybe even share with my T.


Only part-way through right now, but this stood out to me, as it is exactly what I cannot do:

quote:

According to social worker Bertha Simos (1979), at least some of the crying over a significant loss needs to be in the presence of another human being in order for grief to be successfully resolved.

Thank you so much, LL, for posting this. I have tried reading it a couple of times and am having a hard time staying with it because while it is very affirming, it is also very painful because (and I'm sure I'm not alone here) it highlights so well how I should have been responded to when I cried as a kid, and why. And putting that next to how I WAS responded to...ouch. It is probably THE most painful and earliest and most recurring memory I have, of crying when I was scared (and had good reason to be) and having my mom get mad at me...and then when my dad would try to comfort me...she would tell him not to, saying "she's only doing that to get attention". And in this paper, they're saying, well YEAH, that's what I was SUPPOSED to be getting. Duh.

For whatever reason, I definitely do not have a problem crying when I'm alone. That's pretty much the only way I'll cry, though, unless I REALLY REALLY trust someone...and even then, it's hard. My last T commented several times that based on what I'd told her, I really didn't spend much time at all crying in session. Not that she was saying I necessarily should have...but I think she thought there were lots more tears in here than what I was letting her see.

AG - thank you for quoting the part you did - I haven't got that far. I'm glad that part helped answer some questions for you. I love that it reinforces some things you've learned (and are helping me to learn, too), especially that part about not spending our energy searching for what has gone beyond recovering. I'm sorry you are feeling sad with missing your T. I am still crying literally "decades" later over someone. But what is also true, is that in the last four years, I can also see a lot of evidence of real acceptance and reorganization and hope than was there when I first started finally processing my grief over losing this relationship. I can see real progress. But I'm with you, I was hoping the crying would eventually subside. But if not...at least it doesn't have to mean we haven't been "successful" about moving through the grief...and that's hopeful, too.

I'm not sure why reading this should feel like it's kicking all kinds of things loose...but it does. Thanks again for posting it, LL - but I think I'm going to have to take it really slow.

Hug,
SG

LL,

I could kiss you for posting this.

I have been struggling as of late with the issue of crying. It's there, I can feel the urge to cry and break down but I struggle with release.

Last week was the first time I cried in front of T in a very LONG time. It felt good. I just was trying to figure out what was going on with me, and this article really hit the nail on the head. Thank you for that.

I'm learning SO much about attachment this week. AND it's making me feel closer to T and understanding myself in a whole new light.

I love all of you who have the wisdom and experience with all of this and post to help us newbies. It really helps me make sense and process what's going on in my own therapy in such a way that I can feel healing.

LOVE you all.

SG yeah it’s heavy going isn’t it? Especially having it acknowledged that we were effectively ‘conned’ as children into experiencing our tears as something bad, wrong, unjustified which deserved treating with contempt and punishment…

What amazes me is that this is the first time in all my extensive reading that I’ve come across any kind of attempt to explain the function and meaning of tears/crying – and everything this woman says strikes me as so obvious and self evident, after the fact.

AG it’s nice when you find something that explains things which we’d otherwise continue assuming were pathological or abnormal. I’m glad that you found something in this article that resonated with you and gave you support in something you’ve been struggling with. Not a nice thought that we might end up grieving for years, but at least it’s not weird or something wrong with us!

Thanks Hev and JMB and Yaku for the thumbs up for this link.

Broken all kisses welcomed! Glad you’re finding so much useful stuff on the forum, it really is a goldmine isn’t it.

I’d probably have more to say (what a surprise!) but right now is not the best time for me to rabbit on about the meaning of tears and not being able to cry .

I’m still working my way through the book this woman wrote and while it’s not exactly overflowing with nuggets of insight and eureka moments, it’s still pretty interesting. Will doubtless return here in the future to comment more on this whole function and meaning of crying.

LL

quote:

By acknowledging the painful permanence of the loss and reestablishing a symbolic connection with the lost attachment figure, there is energy available for connecting with new attachment figures or for reconfiguring the relationships with surviving ones, a stage that Bowlby calls reorganization.

I have a question about the part I've bolded above. Does anyone know what it means? How do you "restablish a symbolic connection with the lost attachment figure"? Looking at the work I've been trying to do over the last few years, it just really seems like this is what I keep trying to do, but I keep getting stuck, or even getting hurt again, so there's something I'm not doing right. And trying to skip over it doesn't seem to work, either. Just wondering if anyone has any concrete or real-life examples to illustrate what they are getting at with that statement.

Thanks,
SG

SG,

I don't have concrete examples because I am still going through all of this attachment stuff as we speak, but I am going to take a stab at what the author is saying in the bolded statement. I think that by accepting the loss of the attachment figure, and being in therapy--once can symbolically transfer that desire for an attachment figure onto another in efforts to heal the original pain. So, it would be for me...I will never have that attachment figure in my mother...but I can accept that loss and create a connection with another person, My T, and that symbolically will allow me to heal the lack of connection with the original attachment figure. So, I think the bolded statement is somewhat talking about re-parenting yourself.

Okay, I might be totally off here...anyone else want to take a stab at it? I am still a newbie to attachment, too. So, I hope I didn't sound like a complete moron. LOL!

Love, Broken

Hi SG,

I'll take a shot as I feel like I have done this with my MIL and am in the process of doing this with my T, both of whom were attachment figures. My MIL is simpler as the loss was due to her death. Grief is the process by which we let someone go to get them back. I was very close with my mother-in-law, she lived with our family the last five years of her life, and it was a significant relationship because my husband and children were close to her, and she was also someone about whom I deeply believed and trusted she loved me. Hers was a good death,if such a thing exists. She went quickly with her whole family there and her health had gotten so bad in the last year that she was ready to go. So the loss was an acute one for my family but also one we had time to prepare for. I had never lost anyone Ilived with before, so initially it was ALL about the loss. Once the funeral was over there was no normal to go back to (I actualy got angry at both my BILs wholivedout of town because they got to go back to their normal lives). So for a period after her death life was about loss. There wasn't an activity that you went to do that there wasn't something missing. Mom and I always went and got our hair done together and the first haircut I got after she died, I actualy walked into the salon, took one look at my hairdresser (whom I've known for over 25 years and is a good friend AND adored my MIL) and burst out crying while she held me. When your actually mourning the loss, the dominant feeling is of the person being GONE, of not being able to have the things you miss again. So in a very real, visceral sense you lose them and eventually have to let go as you come to grips with the fact that the relationship, as you have known it no longer exists. But on the other side of the grief (however long it takes, I can still cry over mom) as you accept that life is going on, you start to remember the good stuff. The funny memories (mom and I both had a crush on her cardiologist who was jaw dropingly gorgeous, so we loved going to her appointments together), the feelings of being loved and the sense of who she was as a person. I carry her inside of me, so there are times when something happens that I know mom would like, or would have been proud (my kids graduating high school) I can "hear" her based on the model of her I have internalized. Sometimes I can picture the wicked twinkle she would get in her eye when we were ganging up on my poor husband as clear as day. So I still have a relationship with her inside of me, she's still there (it probably helps that I believe in an afterlife where I believe we will meet again). I don't know exactly where she is right now or what she's doing but I know I still love her and I know she loves me.

Something similar is happening with my T (it's not as clear cut as I still see him from time to time, but I also know it's in progress). I miss seeing him regularly and that has been a loss. It's also triggered mourning for the symbolic loss of not being able to get from him what I should have gotten from my parents. And just to make it more interesting (like it needs to be!) is the loss surrounding the fact that therapy is it. But again as I mourn the loss, I am also experiencing a deep sense of how interwoven he is into who I am. When I get triggered and am trying to deal with my feelings, it is his voice I hear explaining what is going on and how I need to handle it. Again, I have a very strong internal model of him, especially because the relationship was so deep and intimate for me, so that I am capable of "talking" to him about an issue and supplying both sides of the conversation but half of it is in his "voice." I experience this very strongly when I do a phone shift on the crisis line. There are many times when I am speaking to someone when I can offer understanding or know the right thing to do and realize I learned it implicitly from my T by watching him help me heal. I often feel very close to him when driving home from a shift, because I know that he is a part of me. The connection is still available externally but the trust I have in it's presence now also makes it powerfully present internally. When I am unsure or struggling, there are times when just remembering that he trusts and believes in me is enough to find my balance. And the things I have learned from him have exponentially increased my ability to form attachments and move closer in relationship, so the reorganization part has been especially tangible.

I hope this makes sense, it is very much a felt, experienced, visceral thing then it is an intellectually understood phenomenon so it is difficult to articulate. If you have any questions or want something clarified, feel free to ask. And may I say thank you for asking the question? Thinkly deeply about this has made me realize how truly loved I am and so much I have to be grateful for.

AG

This is so interesting, thanks for posting!

I'm trying to understand what is going on in therapy for myself. When I first started (around 9-10 weeks ago) I was in a state of 'alter-ego' as I call it. Masking myself and yarbling on. After about the 3rd session, for a couple of sessions, I would come in, sit down and start crying for reasons that I had no idea of. They'd spontaneously start coming out. I think it was because in my mind I'm thinking, 'this person is listening to me. Wow. Overwhelming'.

Where I am at now is a mix of shame and embarrassment at crying in front of her. I swallow my tears and yarble on. My real self might be starting to come out. She happens to be very, very timid, reclusive and very shy. I walk into session now and go on fast in front of her so I'm already sitting. That still embarasses me. When she asks how I am, I feel mute and have no idea what to say to her. Then the 'alternate self' comes in and takes over. By the end, I'm going on and on with a state of indifference and detachment, both to my issues and to her.

I think the reality of me is very different but for some reason, I cannot get to this girl inside. She needs to cry a LOT.

((((LL))))

Very interesting stuff indeed. So glad you were curious enough about it to look into it and that you shared it with us.

Thanks for sharing that. I will have to read through it in full here soon.

AG, what you describe is exactly what I thought of with the bolded comment as well. I think it refers to that internal sense of carrying the person with you in a different way as they aren't physically there anymore.

(((SG))) I'm sorry this is stirring up so much. I suspect it may with me also which is why I'm treading lightly right now.

I'm glad that the article is resonating with so many here.

AG, that was a beautiful account of grieving and loss. And, once you have finished the grieging process and are able to have a more symbolic relationship with that person, that then you are open to new attachment relationships? But until you've finished that grieving process, you won't be open to new attachment relationships because all of your energy is going into grieving?

quote:

So it no longer takes energy to hold them if that makes sense. You put them down inside you.

Thank you, AG. That does make a lot of sense. It makes it crystal clear within myself, who I've let go of, and who I haven't. This really helps me a ton. I love how you can so often find the right words to make certain concepts so real and accessible and understandable. Thank you.

SG

SG,
SO glad it helped and immensely relieved you understood what I meant I was worried I sounded a little crazy.

AG