Object Constancy or Emotional Flashbacks?

[felloutofthesky]

Hi! I'm new here
I have a huge amount of trouble with object constancy (ie. being able to remember that people love/care for me, or even remember me when they aren't physically in the room) but I am beginning to wonder if there is an overlap to emotional flashbacks? I'll often become extremely panicked that people are angry at me even though I don't know why (as adults were frequently angry with me for reasons completely left field, out of the blue and bizarre as a child). I fortunately have an amazing close friend who asks me to call or text when I feel like this, and she always reassures me that it's not true. However, it's incredibly painful, frightening and exhausting to feel like this so frequently, especially when it spirals into self-destructive behaviours and suicidal thoughts.
Does anyone have experience or thoughts on the overlap of object constancy and emotional flashbacks?
Kindly,
K.

[mourningdove]

I have a huge amount of trouble with object constancy (ie. being able to remember that people love/care for me, or even remember me when they aren't physically in the room) but I am beginning to wonder if there is an overlap to emotional flashbacks? I'll often become extremely panicked that people are angry at me even though I don't know why (as adults were frequently angry with me for reasons completely left field, out of the blue and bizarre as a child).

I relate to all of this 1000%.

Welcome, K!   

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome! For me, that is usually one of my first indications that I'm in an EF - disconnected, unloved.

[papillon]

Welcome! 

I had never thought about it being related to object constancy, but yes, what you said makes perfect sense to me. I have a terrible memory, I always chalked it up to that.

[movementforthebetter]

Wow, I totally relate to what you wrote. I did not know that is what this is called (object constancy) or even that it is a thing. It rings true but I had never been able to describe it. Thank you for this post from the bottom of my heart.

[felloutofthesky]

Thank you for the welcome! The only person I can talk to at length about c-ptsd in real life is my therapist who I can only see every other week right now. It is such a relief to know other people understand.

movementforthebetter - I'm so glad you saw the post and it helped you. I completely understand. When my last therapist told me that what I was trying to describe to her was called object constancy and that it was a real thing in reaction to trauma, I cannot describe the relief I felt. It is so subtle but so debilitating and painful, especially on a daily basis. I have researched it a lot since I found out what it was called and some things that might help - they help me pretty well for now - are keeping objects from people you love, having someone you can call or text when you feel as if they hate you / have forgotten you / are angry at you who can reassure you that it's not true and not judge you for it. I try to rationalise my way out of it but that usually doesn't work so well as it's feeling-based and not logic-based. Now that I am out of the worst of an eating disorder / self harm / drinking, the most difficult thing is the object constancy which both creates and is perpetuated by anxiety and depression. But you are not alone or crazy. It just takes time. I know someone who has healed from it so I have hope. Sending love.

[Sceadu]

This is my second post here.  I posted my introduction on the welcome board.

I have had issues with object constancy with romantic partners for a while.  My first high school sweetheart (age 15) was an exchange student who went back to his home country and "ghosted" on me because he had his own fair share of psychological issues.  I was a really lonely person, frequently bullied or ignored, and he was the one person at school who I felt a connection with.  From then on, if I couldn't see the person I was in a relationship with or contact them, I would lose a sense of object constancy when triggered.  Separation became synonymous with abandonment. 

Partners accuse me of being "clingy" because of this.  If they leave to go on trips without me, I need frequent calls or texts to continue to feel safe.  Not hearing from a significant other when we are apart is a major trigger for me and I will freak out trying to get in touch with them.  I have been made to feel a lot of shame about this because men inevitably take it personally when I feel like they may cheat or leave when they're gone.  This is not to mention the connotations of being "clingy" and how it is labeled an unattractive trait.  So then in addition to my flashbacks to previous abandonments, I get the added bonus of the shame I feel when I want to contact the person, and how that makes me a worthless, horrible girlfriend.  The more I feel worthless and horrible, the more I want to contact my boyfriend for reassurance, the more I feel worthless and horrible . . . a downward spiral.

[meursault]

I find this very true for me as well.  I had coffee with a woman who's about my best friend a couple of days ago, and I mentioned that I have problems with object constancy, and as time away continues, it starts to progress into me feeling I'm hated, I've done something wrong, or I'm being rejected/abandoned.  I said I know logically it's not the case, but emotionally it's my reality.  She said she's aware of that and keeps it in mind.  Thought that was really supportive of her.

I've also been having issues in therapy.  My last therapist allowed me to email whenever I wanted.  She virtually never responded, and rarely brought up any of the stuff I wrote in session unless I did.  It actually took a lot of encouragement to get me doing it in the first place, as I expected it was a way she would use to reject and get mad at me.   I would generally only email once, between sessions, sometimes not at all, sometimes several times.  I discovered it kept her attachment based therapy functioning.  Without that each session was like starting from scratch learning to trust her.

Imagine a graph where my sense of being acceptable/lovable/worthwhile peaked in session as we talked about things.  I'd leave, feeling pretty good about myself, calm, not incoherent or panicked, capable of healing, but as the week progressed, the curve would deteriorate, since I don't have this sense of worth internalized yet.  Bad events would cause the line to descend quicker.  Ultimately, I'd get below a certain level and I was existing just in trauma brain.  I'd barely function at the valley of the curve for a day or days before the next session.  Then I'd go back, and with her as my "mirror self" object, that trauma state would be recovered from in session, and the attachment would give me a secure base again.  Then a repeat of the slide the following week.

I found that just being able to express myself to her during the week, even without a response, would cause the curve to "spike" upward again, and cause me to remain in a mentally functioning state long enough between sessions.  I joked with her that it was like I was a baby crying, and just knowing that she could hear me was enough to soothe me, that if it got bad enough , she'd be there for me.  It was a reinforcing of my attachment object, basically doing maintenance on the constancy of that object, before she disappeared and had to be created anew the next week.

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, or if it's just my crazy thoughts, but that feels like what was happening. 

I'm not doing as well now with my current therapist.  I'm working just as hard or harder, but I come in terrified of her, and unable to predict if she's just going to drop an atom bomb on me each session.  So the sessions are spent subconsciously integrating that she is "not going to attack" rather than "she supports".  She has had no problem with me emailing either, she said, but on several occasions she has admitted to not reading what I sent.  We had a big discussion about that last session and we are attempting to find some way to resolve it.  I don't know.  I don't have the sense that there is going to be any point.  As soon as I leave the session, I'm still optimistic, but within a couple of days, I've basically given up again.  I'm currently at mid-week, and I'm debating not going back again.  The object constancy was built with the last therapist and I STILL feel it months later (I can go back to her a bit before XMas).  I KNOW that that therapist cares about me, thinks I'm a good and worthwhile person, and at a fundamental level, has a degree of love for me.  She's just helped me find the most basic and fragile foundation of a real self, one that was stomped to nothing by my Mom growing up.  It has to be built and maintained for a while first.  I just don't have that with the new therapist, and I'm pretty sure based on what she says that she considers it an imposition on her time.  I even offered to pay her for the time it takes to read what I wrote the last email I sent. 

But I need that thread to remain consistently un-severed for a while until I have internalized my object of her enough to maintain it on my own.  I just don't have that object constancy yet, so I get unbalanced and the trauma brain dominates instead.

This is all DEEP psyche *, AFAIC!!!  I think I've been swimming in the "deep end" of my psyche -- trauma, attachment, abuse, object relations, structural dissociation.... for the last year and am starting to actually have a coherent idea of what's going on with me.

Meursault

[papillon]

Meursault,

Problems with object constancy aside, I find it very concerning that your therapist did not read what you wrote her. Did she offer a reason why? Did she even skim it?

[meursault]

I decided to try and address it again at session yesterday.  I had it written down because I didn't feel strong enough to talk about it.  She apologized and said she screwed up.  She said she didn't intend to spend her own time devoted to immersing her "therapist mode" brain in it, as that required a lot more than just casual reading, and it wasn't really fair to her to have to do that, nor to me to not give it due consideration.  She said she just sort of glanced to see if they were requiring some crisis response, and otherwise thought I'd address it the following session and we'd go through it if it was important to me to do so.  A bit of a cop out, I think.  She admitted to screwing up communicating that, at least, so maybe this is salvageable.  And to be fair, she did read a couple of them completely.  And to be more fair, she also read a comic I had printed out and lent her about my past (ugh... I THINK she did...)

She said we need to work out a way that not only can I gte that need met, but I'm not asking more than what she offers (I rightly read that as meaning she wants to be paid for reading these things.)   I'm a little concerned she intends that I'll be paying for an hour a week to do this, and paying it whether I send something or not.  I guess I'll see when we discuss this next week.  She had mentioned how we'd schedule a regular slot for reading what I send!  I'm thinking about it...

Looking at it, there were a total of 6 emails over a couple of months before she mentioned not reading them all: two solicited by her, two in crisis, one on the anniversary of my Dad's death, one a PDF of a comic book I made dealing with inner child stuff.  All the emails combined (not counting 18 page, sparse text comic) total seven pages of text when I put them together, four, if I don't count the ones she asked me to send.  I don't know I consider this to have been too onerous for her to have taken the time for, nor worth my effort or money in the future.

I had a coffee today with a woman I've known for 25 years or more, I went to high school with her, and told her about it.  My friend was one of my therapist's instructors at one point, and she was NOT impressed with what I told her.  Her advice was to think about going elsewhere... actually she explicitly said to leave.  A couple of things I mentioned the therapist saying got her a bit mad, even.  I just don't know.  I'm really thinking the therapist doesn't see the degree of how badly this is screwed up.  I think she is probably a very good therapist for people with single-instance shock trauma, but is out of her depth with the more complex trauma I'm dealing with, which is piles of developmental trauma, shock trauma, dissociation, attachment and object needs, and extreme difficulty in trusting .  I just don't know what's right here.

Strangely, this issue is sort of proving the point.  I left there feeling like she was completely reasonable, and felt optimistic and cared for.  I felt... mainly: GRATEFUL.  That has diminished quite a lot already.  That object constancy is evaporating!  Explaining it to my friend, and now writing it out here, is making me feel like I'm not really getting treated right.  I was pretty dissociative and panicky during session.  Maybe I felt good afterwards because she didn't tear me to pieces at least...

Meursault

[papillon]

Seems like it might be time to explore other options! Hope you're doing well.

[meursault]

I've brought it up more, and we're trying to work through it.  I'm waffling back and forth, but maybe this is part of how I get better....  She is apologetic, and I know she just got married a month ago, so she's preoccupied (no excuse, I suppose, but I get that she's human,too).  She ultimately said she didn't have an excuse, just failed to give them the proper attention. 

I'm willing to work at re-learning trust, if that's something I need to do to get better.  It's hard, though.  She is very enthusiastic, connected and insightful IN session, so I don't want to throw that all away.  My normal pattern is to just give up,  I know I'm not done talking about this yet with her, though.

I didn't realize until after that I hijacked this thread.  I'm sorry, felloutofthesky.  I'll try to be more careful in the future!  I have been feeling a lot happening with me good and bad the last couple of months, so I'm afraid I haven't been very considerate.

Meursault