As adults and independent, we still acutely experience the loss of relationships. Why do we fail to avoid suffering and how can we alleviate it? The Gestalt therapist answers.
Psychologies: Why is it so hard to break up?
Victoria Dubinskaya: There are several reasons. The first is that at a basic, biological level, we need someone nearby, without a relationship we cannot. In the mid-twentieth century, neurophysiologist Donald Hebb experimented with volunteers, trying to figure out how long they could be alone. Nobody made it for over a week. And subsequently, the participants’ mental processes were disturbed, hallucinations began. We can do without a lot of things, but not without each other.
But why don’t we live in peace without everyone?
VD: And this is the second reason: we have many needs that we can satisfy only in contact with each other. We want to feel valued, loved, needed. Third, we need others to make up for what was missing in childhood.
If a child had distant or cold parents who raised him but did not give him spiritual warmth, in adulthood he will look for someone who will fill this emotional hole. There may be several such deficits. And frankly, we all experience some kind of deficiency. Finally, just interest: we are interested in each other as individuals. Because we are all different, each is unique and unlike the other.
Will it hurt when you break up?
VD: Not necessary. Pain is a reaction to injury, insult, insult, which we often experience, but not always. It happens that a couple breaks up, so to speak, beautifully: without screams, scandals, mutual accusations. Simply because they are no longer connected.
Parting by mutual agreement — and then there is no pain, but there is sadness. And pain is always associated with a wound. Hence the feeling that something has been torn out of us. What is this pain about? She is an indicator of the significance of the other for us. One disappears from our life, and nothing changes, as if it never existed. And the other leaves, and we understand how much everything was connected with him! We experience relationships as a kind of channel for the movement of life.
As soon as I imagine the one I love, something immediately begins to rise inside. An invisible force is pulling towards him. And when it is not there, it turns out that the channel is cut off, I simply cannot live what I want in full. Energy rises, but goes nowhere. And I find myself in frustration — I can not do what I want! I have no one. And it hurts.
Who has the hardest time breaking up?
VD: Those who are in an emotionally dependent relationship. They need the one they have chosen like oxygen, without it they begin to suffocate. I had a case in practice when a man left a woman, and she fell ill for three days. I didn’t hear or see anything, despite the fact that she had a baby!
And she was killed, because in her understanding, with the departure of this man, life came to an end. For someone who is emotionally dependent, the whole life narrows down to one subject, and that becomes irreplaceable. And when parting, the addict has the feeling that he was torn to pieces, the support was removed, he was made disabled. It’s unbearable. In Austria, they are even going to introduce the name of a new disease — «unbearable love suffering.»
How are emotional dependence and wounded self-esteem — «I was rejected»?
VD: These are links in the same chain. Wounded self-esteem comes from self-doubt. And this, like the tendency to addiction, is the result of attention deficit in childhood. In Russia, almost everyone has low self-esteem, as it happened historically. Our grandfathers had flints, and our parents are very functional — work for the sake of work, pull everything on yourself. One question for the child: “What grade did you get at school?” Not to praise, to cheer, but to demand something all the time. And therefore, our inner confidence, understanding of our significance, it is underdeveloped, and therefore vulnerable.
It turns out that uncertainty is our national trait?
VD: You can say so. Another national feature is that we are afraid to be vulnerable. What were we told in childhood when it was bad? «Stay calm and carry on!» Therefore, we hide the fact that we are in pain, cheer up, create the appearance that everything is fine, and try to convince others of this. And the pain comes at night, does not let you sleep. She is rejected, but not lived. This is bad. Because the pain needs to be shared with someone, to mourn. Psychologist Alfried Lenglet has an expression: “Tears wash the wounds of the soul.” And it is true.
What is the difference between breakup and loss?
VD: Breaking up is not a one-way process, it involves at least two people. And we can do something: react, say, answer. And the loss puts us before the fact, this is what life confronts me and that I need to somehow work it out inside myself. And parting is an already processed fact, meaningful.
How can you ease the pain of loss?
VD: This is how the processed losses become more tolerable. Let’s say you’re struggling with the fact of aging. Let’s analyze where it comes from. Most often, we hold on to youth, when we have not realized something in life and as if we want to go back in time and have time to do it. If we find this reason that we once didn’t finish it like that, work it out, you can transfer the loss of youth to the rank of parting and let it go. And still need support. Drama happens when they are not. Fell in love, broke up, looked back — but there is nothing to rely on. Then parting turns into hard labor. And if there are close friends, a favorite business, financial well-being, this supports us.