Hi Brianna,

I hope you see this. I just checked my mail and realised that this thread is alive!

I hear you, and i truly hear into your pain. It has been a year since i consciously work on this deep pain within me. And i have to say right now it feels so much better. Perhaps sharing with you some realisations and insights could help.

Even though it is really painful and frustrating, this journey is one towards your inner wholeness.

1. My partner deeply triggered a core abandonment wound within me. At the beginning of the journey, because it is so painful, it is so easy to want to find solution ASAP. One important thing i learn is: I do not need everything to be solved in order to hold myself. I went for therapy sessions and it helped me understand what grounding myself means. In face of trigger, I used to dissociate and just go into panic mode. Hence i want to find solution to this pain ASAP so that i dont have to face trigger. But as i grow and learn, i realise it is about how i could really be present with my emotions and all pain in all my triggered moments. And somehow that made everything better. Grounding tools is what you need if you’re desperately needing a solution. Grounding will also help you see that you can take time for this journey, you can feel triggered, you can feel all sorts of things but still really safe. This is the part of my journey where i learn safety.

2. You have to engage your partner’s help to create safety for you in the relationship. I used to feel like it is all my issue that i am just jealous and am afraid to get my partner’s help on this journey. My partner and I now have reached a point where we are both clearly aware of what triggers me, how to deal with triggers, how to hold space for emotions, instead of wanting all these to go away or be okay asap.

3. For this issue you’re facing, 80% of me am sure that it is a core wound surrounding abandonment. For myself, i came to realise that i needed to be the most beautiful in the room because if i perceive myself to be not the most beautiful, i am abandoned. I didn’t know i actually felt that way until i really dive deep into the real emotions that exist in my body. Since young, i’ve been compared for my appearance, my sister has emotionally abandoned me by telling me that i am ugly and i can never be prettier than her. I grew up with unhealthy feminine figures who make comparisons with other feminines a coping mechanism. But it is really sad because all of us want celebration instead of comparisons. So if anything, i am here to let you know that you’re beautiful and i want to celebrate you. It is indeed difficult to grow up with our masculine figures also being unhealthy and having sexual objectifications. I faced that too. All these contribute to so many layers of abandonment in our psyche, that’s why it feels like such a difficult puzzle to understand as much as you want to reclaim yourself.

4. Right now i feel much more okay because i’m starting to feel like i don’t have to be conditionally pretty in order to love myself.
I needed myself to look a certain way just incase there could be other attractive women. This act is driven from the fear that if im not up to standard (esp appearance), i WILL be abandoned. But as I continue to ground myself, love myself, and engage my partner’s help to show me that it really doesn’t mean a sh*t whether other women are pretty/attractive, things really gets easier.

The old mindset goes like this: Other women are attractive to my partner = my partner will forget about me/abandon me in that moment/go back to porn/ fantasise about her/ make his life about her. (just a note, my abandonment wound also involves my partner’s decades long porn addiction. which help me realise that my fear of abandonment is also largely linked to whether he is able to stay grounded in himself to not abandon his life and escape into porn/women)

The new mindset goes like this: Attractiveness is just a thing that exist in the world, it does not equate to abandonment. Other women are pretty/attractive but my partner is grounded enough to not abandon himself, me and our relationship for it. Other women are pretty =/= i am abandoned. Other women are pretty =/= i am ugly. Other women are pretty = the beauty i see in them also exist in me right here right now. Other women are pretty, and it does not mean much more than the fact that they just look aesthetically nice. Even when i grow old and no longer considered pretty in the societal norms, I am still able to feel my beauty within because it is something that i was born with and something that can never be taken away from me. Beauty is an experience of immense love within, it is a gentle feeling that whispers “i am my own goddess, i am beautiful not because of how i look but because of how i exist in life”.

It took me endless nights of purging, crying, and literally feel like it is the end of my life so many f-ing times, so many difficult conversations with my partner, so much death and discomfort, to acquire all this shifts in my emotional boy and mindsets.
I have alot more to say and if you’re interested please reach out to me, because i can safely say that i really know how you feel in your journey and if i am able to be where i am now, you can too. I’d love to support, you can reach out to me on instagram too, itssunshinedorothy.

You will be okay. Your heart is mending, it will take time, but you will emerge more alive, more authentic, more yourself than before. This is here to crack you open to what life really is, to see life with a completely different lens, to love yourself on a much much much much more deeper level that you never could have thought that it is possible. I love you, i celebrate you. Take care.

Anita, thank you again for the information. I especially find the idea of “self objectification” interesting. Before my current relationship and the current part of my self esteem journey, I think I used to be more self objectifying. I would constantly think about how my appearance affected other people and my impressions on them, including catering to the male gaze and constantly thinking/wondering if a stranger is looking at me finds me pretty/sexy/whatever the case, even if I truly didn’t care about their thoughts. I noticed I still did this even in the beginning in my relationship (6 years ago). Thankfully these habits and thoughts have faded and has evolved into this other one with my partner. But this behavior I had definitely relates to and is an extension of the underlying reasons of those behaviors too.

and I’m also so glad you were able to see my message even though it was old 😀

correction:

i don’t feel like i’m too perfect** to be loved