Dear Tony:

“when my mother would go out grocery shopping without me, I’d often wait in the lounge looking outside waiting for her to come home.. wonder(ing) what if something  bad had happened, like an accident… when my grandpa was sick with cancer, I would often travel back home with my mother. Except one time, when my dad picked me up after school and I realised my mother had secretly flown back without me”-

– she decided to travel alone to visit her ailing father, but she kept it a secret from you because she wanted to avoid witnessing your anxious expressions and behaviors over her leaving, something that she experienced many times before.

Way before that event you were already anxious about separating from your mother. Of the two parents, seems like your mother was your main attachment figure. Your attachment to her was disrupted by many events leading to your separation anxiety disorder: maybe (these are only possibilities) she repeatedly went shopping or whatnot, leaving you all alone in the home for long periods of time (a half an hour can seem like a short time for an adult, but for a young boy left alone, it feels like a forever); maybe she was depressed and from time to time made comments such as wanting to leave and go back to the home country alone; maybe she repeatedly got angry at you, telling you that you are a bad, or a difficult boy, and that she may give you away, etc., etc.

Maybe your father fueled your anxiety as well, maybe the family immigrating to another country when you were 4 severely disrupted your feeling of being safely attached: maybe your parents left the home country by themselves, leaving you behind to join them later; maybe they were so busy with the move that they left you alone- emotionally, if not physically- for too long.

Looking into how your separation anxiety in childhood was formed can help, together with applying emotional regulation skills, to lessen this anxiety in adulthood, over time. This may require some quality psychotherapy, but you can start the process here, if you want to.

In adulthood, whenever you felt emotional attachment to a woman- that attachment fueled the separation anxiety, and any time you thought or imagined a cause for separation, any time she expressed something about separating from you, the anxiety was at its peak. It is interesting, how this anxiety is not an indication of a quality of a relationship, but an indication that you formed an emotional attachment to this or that woman.

Lessening your separation anxiety will make it possible for you to focus on and relax into the quality of the relationship you are currently in.

anita