Relationships: How to Stop the Drama in Your Relationship

In my work as a couples therapist in New York City I work with many couples who struggle with emotional drama and chaos in their relationship (see my article: How to Reduce Emotional Reactivity in Your Relationship).

Stop the Drama in Your Relationship

What is Drama in a Relationship?

Drama in a relationship refers to unnecessary conflict, emotional manipulation or the creation of problems (where they don't really exist) to get attention or control the relationship including:

• Attention Seeking: Some individuals in a relationship create drama in an effort to feel validated by their partner--often at the partner's emotional expense.

• Poor Communication Skills: When one or both people lack good communication skills, they can struggle to express their emotional needs or resolve conflict in a healthy way.

Stop the Drama in Your Relationship

• Unrealistic Expectations: When partners don't have realistic expectations of each other, this can lead to drama, especially if they don't know how to communicate well (see my article: Are You and Your Partner on the Same Wavelength About Your Relationship?).

• Projecting Emotional Pain: Partners can project their own emotional pain onto each other which usually leads to conflict.

• Past Unresolved Psychological Trauma: Partners can unconsciously project their unresolved trauma from the past onto their current relationship (see my article: How Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Relationship).

What Are the Signs of Drama in a Relationship?

A couple might have all or some of the following signs:

• Constant arguments, bickering or fights

• A partner trying to control the relationship by claiming to be "right" all the time

• A partner constantly needing attention and validation from the other partner 

Stop the Drama in Your Relationship

• A partner who is self centered and selfish most of the time so everything is about them or what they want

• A partner who constantly twists reality, tries to make the other partner doubt their sanity or memory (see my article: What Are the 7 Stages of Gaslighting in a Relationship?)

• A partner who doesn't show interest in the other partner's concerns or well-being

• A partner who doesn't apologize or take responsibility for their actions

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases, illustrates a couple struggling with drama in their relationship and how they were helped in couples therapy:

Sue and John

When Sue and John first started dating, they both felt their relationship could flourish and grow. But six months later, they were arguing a lot and breaking up every few weeks.

Stop the Drama in Your Relationship

They decided they either needed to seek help in couples therapy or go their separate ways so, rather than break up again, they sought help.

Over time, in couples therapy they learned how unresolved trauma from both of their childhoods was getting played out in their relationship.

Sue's parents were emotionally neglectful of her and so in her relationship with John, she sought constant attention and validation from him in a highly agitated state--to the point where he felt she was emotionally exhausting him. Sue realized in couples therapy she was re-enacting unresolved childhood trauma in her relationship with John.

John was raised by a single mother who was highly anxious most of the time. She looked to him, when he was a child, for validation and attention. This heavy emotional burden was more than he could endure as a child. As a result, he learned to ignore her and fend for himself. In couples therapy he recognized that he was doing this to Sue too without realizing it.

Learn to Break the Negative Cycle in Couples Therapy

Their negative dynamic was the source of many of their arguments until they learned, over time, in couples therapy to identify their negative cycle so they could break their negative cycle.

How to Stop Drama in Your Relationship

• Learn to develop healthy communication skills

• Learn to address and work through unresolved trauma in individual therapy

• Learn how to identify and manage your emotions

• Set realistic expectations for the relationship

Get Help in Couples Therapy

It can be challenging to change unhealthy relationship patterns on your own.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

If you have attempted to work through your problems without success, consider seeking help in couples therapy.

A skilled couples therapist can help you to identify and break the negative cycle in your relationship so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples (see my article: What is Emotionally Focused Therapy For Couples - EFT? ).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Setting Boundaries: How to Stop Being Enmeshed With Your Family

I began a discussion about enmeshment in an earlier article, Overcoming Shame in an Enmeshed Family.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Topics in the Current Article

In the current article, I'm covering:

• What is Enmeshment?
• What Causes Enmeshment in Families?
• How to Overcome Enmeshment
• Getting Help in Therapy to Overcome Enmeshment

What is Enmeshment?

If you grew up in an enmeshed family you probably had at least some of the following issues:

• There was a lack of physical and emotional boundaries.

• There was a tendency to focus on what's best for other family members and not what's best for you.

• You put other family members' happiness above your own.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• You feel guilt and shame, as an adult, if you put your needs above other family members. For instance,  you might not want to call your mother every week, but you feel guilty and ashamed if you don't because you know she wants you to call weekly.

• Your family's self worth is dependent upon your success.

• Your family expects you to share everything about your life--even things you might want to keep private. They get offended if you say something in your life is private.

• Your family might have imposed their ideas on you when you were a young adult instead of encouraging you to follow your own hopes and dreams. If you wanted to follow your own aspirations, they felt offended and you felt guilty and ashamed.

• Parents in enmeshed families tend to treat their children like friends instead of children because there is a lack of boundaries.

• You tend to avoid conflicts, even now as an adult, because you have difficulty setting limits.

• You lack a strong sense of who you are.

• You absorb other people's emotions around you because you lack appropriate boundaries (this is different from being an empath).

What Causes Enmeshment in Families?

Enmeshment usually develops in dysfunctional families and repeats the pattern from one generation to the next (see my article: 

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

It can be difficult to pinpoint when an enmeshed family dynamic started since it might go back generations and family members often have little to no awareness about the enmeshment.

Enmeshment often develops due to unresolved trauma, mental health problems, substance abuse, compulsive gambling or other related issues.

What is the Impact of Enmeshment in Adult Relationships?

The following characteristics are common for adults who grew up in enmeshed families?

• Low self esteem
  

• Anxiety
  

• Fear of abandonment
  

• Being out of touch with your feelings

• Feeling burdened by guilt and shame

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

• An overdeveloped sense of responsibility

• Poor personal boundaries

• Difficulty setting boundaries with others

• Codependency
  

• Difficulty with assertiveness

• Difficulty with emotional regulation 

• Difficulty calming or soothing yourself emotionally

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates the negative impact of enmeshed family dynamics and how psychotherapy can help:

Maria

Maria grew up in crowded family home where she shared a bed with her two older sisters. She had no privacy. 

When Maria was 15 years old, her oldest sister found Maria's diary, she read it to their parents, grandparents and siblings and they laughed at what Maria wrote about feeling sad.

Her parents and grandparents invalidated her feelings and told her she had nothing to feel sad about since she had a roof over her head, food and clothing.  They told her that only someone who had something terrible to hide from the family would even want to write in a diary.  Then, her father tore up her diary and threw it in the garbage. He told her she should be ashamed of herself for what she wrote.

When she turned 16 years old, Maria's maternal uncle, who came to live with her family, began touching her inappropriately when no one was around. He told her that he would hurt her sisters if she told anyone about the sexual abuse (see my article: Overcoming the Trauma of Sexual Abuse).

One day her mother happened to come home early and she found her brother touching Maria's breasts. She threw her brother out of the house and she also blamed Maria for the sexual abuse.  

She told Maria it was her fault that the uncle touched her inappropriately. Then, she made Maria promise not to tell Maria's father because she feared what he might do to the uncle if he found out.

When it was time for Maria to choose a major in college, her parents insisted that she become a teacher--even though Maria wanted to become a medical doctor. Her parents told her that women shouldn't become doctors because they would have to see men's naked bodies and this was shameful for a woman.

Maria was upset that her parents were trying to force her to choose a career she didn't want so she sought help from a professor who referred her to the college counseling center.  

In counseling, Maria learned to set boundaries with her family--even though they didn't like it and they threatened to stop paying her tuition.

Overcoming Enmeshment in Your Family

Her counselor helped Maria to get a scholarship and a room in a dorm so she could live independently from her family.  She took pre-med courses and, eventually, she went to medical school.

While she was in medical school, she sought help from a trauma therapist so she could deal with the impact of her enmeshed family, including the sexual abuse.

Even though her family didn't like that Maria was making her own decisions and setting boundaries with them, they accepted it reluctantly.  

While she was in medical school, Maria met her husband-to-be and she learned to have a healthy relationship with him with the tools she learned in therapy.

How to Overcome Enmeshment

To become a mature adult, children need to learn to become their own person at stages that are appropriate for their development at the time.  This is part of the individuation process.

Individuation means being your own person and not just an extension of your parents and other family members.

When you are appropriately individuated from your family, you can maintain your relationships with them with appropriate boundaries. You also learn how to be your own person physically, emotionally and psychologically.

To overcome enmeshment, you need to learn to:

• Set appropriate boundaries with family members (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Guilt).

• Discover who you are as an individual apart from your family.

• Learn to stop feeling ashamed and guilty if what's right for you might make your family unhappy.

• Get help in therapy when trying to overcome enmeshment becomes too challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

Overcoming enmeshment can be challenging.

Getting Help in Therapy

A licensed mental health professional with the right expertise can help you to develop the skills you need to overcome enmeshment and develop healthier relationships.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapy.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma, including enmeshed relationships.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy

Retroactive jealousy is a problem in many relationships. This type of jealousy can occur for  people with any attachment style, but it's especially common for people who have an anxious attachment style.

Relationships: Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy

What is Retroactive Jealousy?

Retroactive jealousy involves feeling threatened or insecure about a partner's past romantic relationships.

Retroactive jealousy has the following characteristics:

• Emotional Distress: Feeling anxious, angry or resentful of your partner's previous relationships--even though your partner is no longer involved in these relationships

• Obsessive Thoughts: Recurring and unwanted thoughts about your partner's prior relationships

Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy

• Intrusive Behaviors: Including obsessively checking your partner's phone or computer, following your partner's social media obsessively, tracking your partner's whereabouts with a tracker or questioning your partner repeatedly about their past or questioning whether they have had any thoughts or contact with their prior partners

• Compulsive Behaviors: Feeling compelled to engage in certain behaviors to try to control or prevent your partner from having any contact or even thoughts about their previous partners

• Difficulty Accepting Your Partner's Past: Difficulty accepting that your partner had a life with experiences that didn't include you

• Fear of Abandonment: Fear that their partner will leave you

How is Retroactive Jealousy Related to An Anxious Attachment Style?

As previously mentioned, retroactive jealousy can be related to any attachment style, but it's especially difficult for people with an anxious attachment style.

Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy

An anxious attachment style can lead to excessive worry and insecurity about the relationship.

People who experience retroactive jealousy are fixated on their partner's prior relationships or experiences that didn't include them.

Potential Causes of Retroactive Jealousy

• Insecurity: Lack of confidence, low self esteem, lack of trust in a partner

• Past Relationship Experiences: Prior relationship trauma: Infidelity, a partner maintaining contact with prior partners where the boundaries were unclear and other related issues

• Family of Origin Experiences: Including (but not limited to): Growing up with one or both parents who criticized or invalidated you; physical abuse, childhood emotional neglect; one or both parents engaging in infidelity; emotional or financial instability; being a parentified child; parental alienation, alcohol or drug abuse and other related problems

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality, illustrates how retroactive jealousy has a negative impact on a relationship and how psychotherapy can help:

Brenda

After her boyfriend, Joe, gave her an ultimatum to either get help in therapy or he would end their relationship, Brenda sought help from a licensed mental health professional.

Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy

She told her therapist that, objectively, she knew her boyfriend wasn't cheating on her, but whenever she thought about his prior relationship with another woman, she felt extremely jealous of that  relationship, highly anxious and insecure.

She tried not to act on her jealousy but, against her better judgment, there were times she couldn't contain her feelings and she would question her boyfriend relentlessly about whether he ever thought about his prior girlfriend, whether he thought his prior girlfriend was more attractive than her, how his relationship with his prior girlfriend compared to their relationship and whether he would ever leave her for his prior girlfriend.

According to Brenda, at first, Joe tried to patiently reassure her, but no matter how much he tried to reassure her, she never felt any emotional relief. His reassurances would lead her to ask more detailed questions to the point where, even though they were spending hours talking about this, these talks only made her want more reassurances.

When Joe tried to set limits with Brenda about these conversations, she felt ambivalent. On the one hand, when she could calm herself, she realized she was being obsessive for no apparent reason but, on the other hand, she couldn't control her obsessive thoughts and behaviors and she felt compelled to keep questioning Joe.

According to Brenda, when Joe found out that Brenda was following his ex-girlfriend on social media to see if there were any pictures of Joe and his ex online, he told Brenda that her jealousy was getting out of hand. He also tried to reason with her that it seemed the more time Brenda spent on his ex's social media, the worse she felt--even though she found no evidence that Joe and his ex were spending time together.

Brenda told her therapist that the last straw for Joe was when Brenda hacked into his email and texts. She found an old text from Joe's ex from years before he began seeing Brenda. The text had an old picture of Joe and his ex smiling at the beach.

Brenda explained to her therapist that she couldn't contain her jealousy about the photo and, even though she knew she shouldn't have hacked into his account, she confronted him about the text with a barrage of questions: "Why are you keeping this photo?" Do you think your ex is prettier than me?" "Do you ever have fantasies about your ex?"

At that point, Joe told Brenda that he didn't even remember having this old photo on his phone. He agreed to delete the photo if Brenda agreed to get help in therapy for her excessive jealousy. He told her that if she didn't get help, he would end the relationship.

Brenda told her therapist that Joe's ultimatum made her feel even worse because she feared that if Joe broke up with her, he would go back to his ex.  Even though she could see how she was creating problems in her relationship with her irrational jealousy, she felt she couldn't stop her obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior including her obsessive questioning of Joe.

Her therapist became aware that Brenda's anxious attachment style stemmed from an unstable childhood home with both parents engaging in infidelity, reckless spending, and a constant stream of invalidating messages they gave Brenda about her looks and her intelligence. They also told her she was worthlessness and she would never find a husband because no one could ever love her. They also compared her negatively to her older sister (see my article: Comparison and Judgment Are the Thieves of Joy).

    Therapy Treatment Plan

Her therapist proposed both short-term and longer-term therapy work:

    Short Term Work

The short term work involved Brenda developing increased self awareness and better coping skills including:

• Doing Mindfulness Meditation: Her therapist told her to practice 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation with a beginner's mindfulness recording twice a day (see my article: Mindfulness Meditation: Coping With Painful Emotions).

• Focusing on the Present: As she developed her mindfulness skills, Brenda was encouraged by her therapist to bring her mind to the present moment whenever she felt herself beginning to have obsessive thoughts about her boyfriend's ex--even if she had to do this more than a hundred times a day (see my article: Being in the Present Moment).

Keeping a Journal

• Keeping a Journal: Brenda was encouraged to keep a journal where she reflected on her thoughts and feelings including both her irrational and objective thoughts and feelings related to her retroactive jealousy (see my article: Journal Writing to Relieve Stress and Anxiety).

• Developing Increased Self Esteem and Confidence Through Confidence Boosting- Activity: Brenda's therapist encouraged her to engage in activities that made her feel good about herself, including artwork which Brenda enjoyed and felt confident doing. She also instructed Brenda to write down times when she felt good about herself both in and outside her relationship.

• Setting Limits With Herself: Rather than relying on her boyfriend to set limits, her therapist encouraged Brenda to set limits for herself so she wouldn't spiral into relentless and obsessive thoughts, feelings and questioning of her boyfriend. Her therapist also asked Brenda to write in her journal whenever she found herself on the brink of the spiraling into obsession--rather than questioning her boyfriend as a way to practice emotional containment (see my article: Practicing the Container Exercise).

Even though she still felt very jealous of Joe's ex, Brenda was able to reduce her obsessive thoughts, feelings and questioning of her boyfriend by using the tools her therapist recommended. 

Along the way, she had some setbacks, but both Brenda and Joe noticed the positive change in her and he encouraged her to continue therapy.

    Longer Term Work

The longer term work in therapy involved helping Brenda to overcome the root of her retroactive jealousy including her family of origin trauma using a combination of various trauma therapy modalities:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)
  

• Somatic Experiencing
  

• Parts Work Therapy: including Ego States Therapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS)
  

The work was neither quick nor easy, but Brenda made steady progress with some certain missteps along the way (see my article: Setbacks Are a Normal Part of Healing in Therapy).

Conclusion

Retroactive jealousy is a complex problem that affects many relationships.

As illustrated in the composite vignette, retroactive jealousy has the potential to ruin a relationship.

In many cases, retroactive jealousy doesn't get better without professional help. Without professional help, it can get worse.

Certain self help strategies outlined above (e.g., focusing on the present, meditation and engaging in confidence-boosting activities, etc.) can be help to manage the symptoms of retroactive jealousy. But what is most helpful is getting to the root of the problem--whether the root of the problem stems from your family of origin, prior relationships or other related causes.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you feel your excessive jealousy is having a negative impact on your well-being and your relationship, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has an expertise in this issue (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Help in Therapy

Overcoming retroactive jealousy requires a commitment to personal growth, patience, perseverance and a willingness to work through your challenges.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek professional help so you can lead a more peaceful and meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing, Parts Work and Sex Therapy.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles

Overcoming Jealousy

Are You Arguing About Your Partner's Sexual History Before You Were in a Relationship With Him?

How to Reduce Reactivity in Your Relationship

Floodlighting: How to Stop Oversharing During the Early Stage of Dating

The term "floodlighting" was originally coined by Dr. Brene Brown, social scientist and researcher.

With regard to dating, floodlighting refers to someone who overwhelms their date with too much emotional vulnerability early on as a way to either speed up the emotional connection, test them or try to get validation and reassurance by revealing very personal or traumatic details about their life (Understanding Personal Boundaries: Rigid, Porous and Healthy Boundaries).

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

Although the objective of floodlighting might be to develop immediate emotional intimacy, the result is usually just the opposite: The other person is overwhelmed and turned off (see my article: Dating Challenges: What Should You Talk About on a First Date?).

Characteristics of Floodlighting

Here are some of the characteristics of floodlighting:

• You Overshare Very Personal Information or Traumatic Events Immediately: During the early stage of dating, you share very personal information about yourself. This might involve early trauma, like domestic violence in your childhood home, how devastated you were by your parents' divorce, details about past breakups, your mental health problems, and so on. You're hoping that by sharing your very personal experiences, your date will also share similar information so you can form a close personal bond immediately. But when you stop telling your stories, you probably notice that your date's eyes are glazed over and they look completely overwhelmed, confused or bored, which makes you feel ashamed. 

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

• You Expect Instant Emotional Intimacy: After you share very personal stories or traumatic events from your life, if you expect your date to do the same, you might be disappointed. If your date feels overwhelmed with your oversharing, they might respond with silence, confusion, annoyance or indifference, which isn't what you were hoping for from them.  You might not realize that emotional intimacy develops over time--not during the early stage of dating. The other person might feel pressured to share intimate details about their life too--before they're ready to do this. Even if your date reciprocates by sharing intimate details about their personal life after hearing you overshare, you might think you have developed immediate emotional intimacy, but you and your date haven't established a foundation of trust, which is necessary for real emotional intimacy. 

• You Overshare Very Personal Information to Test Your Date's Acceptance: If you use emotional vulnerability as a way to test if your date accepts you, you might create pressure on your date. Instead of creating a genuine emotional connection, you come across as needing reassurance from someone who hardly knows you. In the early stage of dating, this can be a turn-off for your date, who might resent being tested in this way.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality, illustrates the problem with floodlighting while dating and how psychotherapy can help:

Rena

Rena began dating two years after her tumultuous divorce. 

She met many single men who were interested in her, but things seemed to go nowhere after the first date.

After several disappointing experiences, Rena sought help in therapy to understand why these dates fizzled out so quickly.

Floodlighting: Oversharing on a Date

After hearing about several disappointing experiences, Rena's therapist noticed a pattern: Rena would talk about how awful her ex-husband had behaved towards her. She would go into details about how traumatic it was to be married to him. She also recounted several early traumatic childhood experiences on those first dates.

Her therapist realized that, due to Rena's early traumatic history, Rena never learned to develop appropriate personal boundaries. As a result, she didn't know how to keep things light on a first date.

Her therapist worked with Rena to develop the necessary skills to be more self aware during these initial dates. 

As a trauma therapist, she also helped Rena to work through her trauma so she no longer felt the need to seek reassurance and validation from people she hardly knew (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Over time, Rena learned how to be self aware. She also learned how to have casual conversations, pick up on social cues from others and, eventually, develop a foundation of trust with a man she was dating for several months.

How to Stop Floodlighting

• Develop curiosity and self awareness so you can ask yourself why you're oversharing during the early stage of dating (see my article: What is Self Reflective Awareness and Why Is It Important For You?).

• Pick up on social cues from your date to recognize if you're oversharing and when it's time for you to shift the conversation to keep it light.

Develop Self Awareness and Pick Up on Social Cues

• If you feel the inclination to overshare, ask yourself what you're expecting in return: Are you looking for acceptance and reassurance from someone you hardly know?

• Ask yourself if you're creating an unbalanced dynamic between you and your date. If so, be aware of the verbal and nonverbal cues you're getting from your date about this dynamic and stop oversharing.

• Recognize if you're trying to develop emotional intimacy too early. What you might be creating, instead, is a false sense of intimacy.

• Wait to share very personal details of your life, including trauma, until you and your date have established a foundation of trust between you.

• Find ways to validate and reassure yourself so you're not looking for validation and reassurance from your date during the early stage of dating.

Getting Help in Therapy

Many people who have experienced trauma in early childhood overshare very personal details about their life n a way that reveals their boundaries were violated at a young age. 

They don't have a sense of healthy boundaries because they never helped to develop boundaries in their family (see my article: How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty).

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have a tendency to overshare during the early stage of dating, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

A skilled therapist can help you to understand the underlying issues that cause you to overshare.  She can also help you to develop the tools and strategies to communicate in a healthy way.

In addition, an experienced psychotherapist can help you to develop the confidence and interpersonal skills you need to maintain appropriate boundaries.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled therapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing, Parts Work and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience as a trauma therapist helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation,call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

The Anxiety of Waiting For the Other Shoe to Drop Due to Unresolved Trauma

A history of unresolved trauma can affect your outlook on life (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma).

Even when people, who had childhood trauma, overcome adversity and they are no longer struggling under traumatic circumstances in their current life, they can often experience anticipatory anxiety about the future--like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

Many people who haven't had a traumatic childhood can experience this type of anticipatory anxiety after dealing with trauma in adulthood.

Clinical Vignettes

The following clinical vignettes, which are composite cases to protect confidentiality, illustrate how unresolved trauma can create a sense of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding about the future--like waiting for the other shoe to drop:

Sara: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Sara: When Sara was seven years old, her father's job loss plunged the family into dire financial straits. While her father looked for work, her mother took three jobs just to meet the family's basic needs. Her parents had so much shame about their financial situation that they made Sara promise not to talk about it with anyone outside their immediate family. It took her father two years to find another job that could support the family and, eventually, they were financially stable again. But Sara was profoundly affected by these childhood experiences. As an adult, she had a persistent sense that, at any moment, her circumstances could change and she could experience financial ruin. When her company began layoffs, even though she was assured by her manager that she would be spared, she became so anxious that she sought help in therapy to overcome her anxiety and unresolved trauma (see my article: Why is Unresolved Trauma From the Past Affecting You Now?)

John: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• John: John sought help in therapy after he was treated for prostate cancer. Even though his doctor assured him that he had an excellent chance of living a long healthy life after John was cancer free for two years, John had persistent anxiety about the possibility of the cancer coming back or that he would experience another serious medical problem. Prior to his cancer diagnosis, John had experienced episodes of anxiety whenever he had to make major changes in his life. With regard to his family history, he told his therapist that his mother was an extremely anxious person due to her own unresolved childhood trauma. His mother had a terrible sense of foreboding whenever the family encountered even the possibility of change. When John's father was told his company might relocate down South, his father and mother knew they didn't want to move out of New York City,  so he began looking for another job immediately. John's father wasn't worried about finding a comparable job because he was a much sought after professional. But John's mother became so anxious because she recalled her own family's need to flee from a fascist regime.  Her sense of worry made her sick. Fortunately, the father was able to find another job at a higher paying salary within a relatively short period of time. But the mother continued to experience persistent bouts of anxiety and foreboding. While he was in therapy, John learned the connection between his anxiety and his mother's unresolved trauma (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?).

Ellen: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Ellen: After Ellen's best friend, Alice, died suddenly from natural causes, Ellen felt like her world was completely shaken. She had never lost anyone close to her and Ellen felt existential dread about the possibility of her own death. Prior to Alice's death, Ellen would have occasional worries about death--even though Ellen was in excellent health. Although she had other close friends, Ellen felt lost without Alice, who had been her best friend since they were in elementary school. After listening to Ellen talk about her grief and her anxiety for a few months, her friends became impatient with her and told her she needed to "move on." But Alice didn't know how to move on. She didn't even know how to mourn. When Ellen sought help in therapy, she told her therapist she had a great childhood, she had loving parents, she had a loving husband and two wonderful adult children. There was no prior trauma in her history that seemed to be getting triggered. Her feeling that any moment the other shoe would drop was related to the loss of Alice, so her therapist helped Ellen to grieve and Ellen felt comfort in being able to process her loss in therapy without any of the judgment she experienced with her friends. After she completed therapy, Ellen felt she had the usual concerns that middle age people have about death, but her concerns didn't feel as catastrophic as they had been when Alice first died. Even though she felt better, she realized that she was forever changed by the loss of her best friend. But with help from her therapist, Ellen began to look forward to upcoming events in her life in a way she wasn't able to do immediately after Alice's death (see my article: Allowing Room For Grief).

Conclusion

In each of the composite vignettes the clients were affected by past or recent unresolved trauma so that they were apprehensive--even when it was clear that there was no need to worry about their current situation.

Traumatic events can create feelings of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding--even when a person's logical mind tells them that there seems to be no apparent reason for these feelings under their present circumstances.

Even though these experiences are common, people who have never experienced anything like this before might not understand. 

Well-meaning friends and family might tell you to "just get over it" or to "move on" and when you can't "move on", they might be surprised or even judgmental. 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma that causes you to experience feelings of anxiety and foreboding, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to work through unresolved trauma using therapy modalities specifically designed to help clients overcome trauma.

These modalities include (but are not limited to):

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing (also known as S.E.)

• Parts Work Therapy (including IFS and Ego States Therapy)

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis)

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced trauma therapist so you  can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experiencing helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742- 2624 during business hours or email me.