Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships

Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships

Michelle Skeen PsyD

Language: English

Pages: 200

ISBN: 1608829529

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Everyone thrives on love, comfort, and the safety of family, friends, and  community. But if you are denied these basic comforts early in life, whether through a lack of physical affection or emotional bonding, you may develop intense fears of abandonment that can last well into adulthood—fears so powerful that they can actually cause you to push people away.

 
If you suffer from fears of abandonment, you may have underlying feelings of anger, shame, fear, anxiety, depression, and grief. These emotions are intense and painful, and when they surface they can lead to a number of negative behaviors, such as jealousy, clinging, and emotional blackmail. In Love Me, Don’t Leave Me, therapist Michelle Skeen combines acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), schema therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) to help you identify the root of your fears.
 
In this book you’ll learn how schema coping behaviors—deeply entrenched and automatic behaviors rooted in childhood experiences and fears—can take over and cause you to inadvertently sabotage your relationships. By recognizing these coping behaviors and understanding their cause, you will not only gain powerful insights into your own mind, but also into the minds of those around you.
 
If you are ready to break the self-fulfilling cycle of mistrust, clinginess, and heartbreak and start building lasting, trusting relationships, this book will be your guide.

Inheritance

30 Days to Getting over the Dork You Used to Call Your Boyfriend: A Heartbreak Handbook

Trust Rules: How to Tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in Work and Life

Intimate Connections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

true than untrue of me 4 = moderately true of me 5 = mostly true of me 6 = describes me perfectly ___________ 1. I need more love than I get. ___________ 2. No one really understands me. ___________ 3. I am often attracted to cold partners who can’t meet my needs. ___________ 4. I feel disconnected, even from the people who are closest to me. ___________ 5. I have not had one special person I love who wants to share him/herself with me and cares deeply about what happens to me. ___________ 6. No

this journey—I’m asking you to identify and examine past experiences that may be emotionally painful. Remember, you are examining your past in an effort to leave it behind you. I don’t want you to get stuck on what didn’t work; just identify it so that it’s easier to make helpful choices going forward. Now we are going to take all of the information in this chapter and bring it together so that you can start to see the bigger picture that includes where you’ve been and where you want to go.

unconsciously, your relationship with your story is getting in the way of the connection that you long for with another person. The ultimate goal of this book is to get you to a place where you can be present in a relationship without being controlled by your fears. Let me explain how this journey will get you to that place. In chapter 1 we’ll take a close look at fear of abandonment. You probably know that you have it, but this chapter will bring all of the aspects of this hardwired,

You will increase your chances for success if you approach your self-disclosure in the following three stages (McKay, Davis, and Fanning 1995). Step 1: Only disclose facts about yourself. Facts include when, where, what, who, and so on. You could relay information about your job, where you live, and so on. In this first step, you should refrain from including any of your feelings or opinions. You may stay in step 1 for a while. You should feel comfortable before you move on to step 2. This means

navigate your social interactions with awareness. And, as you already know, we all have core beliefs. So let’s look at how you can deal with others’ core beliefs while continuing to manage your own. Others’ Core Beliefs As you continue to maintain awareness about yourself, it’s important that you extend your awareness to the other person. As you get to know the other person you can probably make an educated guess about what his core beliefs might be. You can review some of the statements in

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