CCChat April 2025.pdf - Flipbook - Page 31
I think that’s the key, that they have
to figure it out for themselves and it’s
incredibly hard.
Yeah, and when you work with someone it
does happen. It does. It always does and
it’s quite interesting because sometimes
they forget when they came to you that
they held these people up on pedestals. I
remember one patient telling me that her
friend thinks she needs to go and visit her
mum and she told her no way, why
should I? Why should I keep exposing
myself to this toxicity? Only six months
prior she was completely upholding her
mum up on a pedestal and wouldn’t
fathom the idea of breaking up that
relationship but it was a journey that
she’d gone through and without me being
really overt in telling her what to do . I just
listened to her and helped her find her
way herself. It’s a much better way.
It’s really difficult because even
when, on an intellectual level, you can
see the relationship as abusive, on an
emotional level you can still have
really strong feelings for that person
so it’s really hard to break that. If I’m
being honest, there’s something that
really freaks me out is that I still have
dreams about him.
The dreams aren’t about the abuse but
about how I felt, right at the beginning,
when he was very much love bombing
me and had me high up on a pedestal.
In the dreams, I’m ecstatically happy,
full of love, glowing, completely
cherished, protected and safe.
And then I wake up and it really screws
with my head. I get those dreams quite
a lot and it doesn’t happen with any of
my other past relationships- just this
one and I don’t understand it because
the deep love I felt for him didn’t
actually last very long and I’ve had
deeper feelings in other relationships.
Is that a normal thing?
We can dream about anything, it
doesn’t necessarily mean we desire it
or want it but if you have had feelings
of neglect and you haven’t been
responded to positively throughout
childhood and that person has come along
and shown you what it feels like to feel
loved and secure, that emotional
connection you get is highly addictive and
it might feel like love but it’s hormonal.
It’s lovely to think that it’s this
Hollywood thing of true love but It’s
more like a whole stack of oxytocin
that’s been released. It feels good
because when you have spent all that
time feeling terrible, and you’ve only
got cortisol running around and it’s
negative feelings and numbness a lot
of the time and you don’t feel anything,
then that feeling of security and not
feeling anxious, for a little while,
however short it was, even if you were
in a twenty year relationship and only
the first six months was ok, you hold
onto that feeling of security that you
get when they are being loving.
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