How to Deal With Separation Anxiety : Expert Tips for Managing Fear of Abandonment

You ever get that weird, anxious feeling when someone you love leaves? Maybe your partner goes on a trip, or a friend doesn’t text back fast enough, and suddenly your brain is spiraling! 

What if they’re pulling away? What if I can’t handle being alone?

That’s separation anxiety, and yeah, it’s not just a kid thing. Adults deal with it too, sometimes in ways we don’t even realize.

In this podcast, we’re breaking down what separation anxiety really is, X signs you might have it, and how to start managing it so it doesn’t take over. Let’s get into it.

#PersonalGrowth #Empowerment #MentalHealthMatters #CristiBundukamara #PainandPurpose #MentalStrength #mentallystrong #SeparationAnxiety #AdultAnxiety #AnxietyRelief #MentalHealth #AttachmentTheory #EmotionalWellness #CopingStrategies #MentalHealthTips #anxietymanagement  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Separation anxiety is not just for kids. It's that sinking feeling when you can't get a hold of your loved one or when you are dropping your child off somewhere and you feel anxiety raising up. Or maybe it's calling your husband, your boyfriend, or there's a delay in texts. And even with our friends. like thinking that maybe they don't wanna talk to us when we call. And so this separation anxiety can actually happen in adults as well. My name's Dr. B. I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner and I have 25 plus years of experience clinically, but I have personally struggled with anxiety as well. Some of it is due to attachment issues, Some of it is due to like actual hardships. And I've lost three children. One, my son, Johnny, in a drowning accident. My son, Reggie, after 10 years of medical trauma and fear of his death. And then suddenly my daughter died in her sleep in 2021. And I've also lost my husband of 26 years. I've raised seven children. And so I... know from both a clinical perspective, an attachment perspective, and actually experiencing some of that anxiety that comes with life. So what is separation anxiety? Well, if we stay true to the definition from the DSM, which is this book that psychiatry uses to diagnose, it is considered a pediatric adolescent disorder. When it's exhibited with adults, we might talk about attachment issues or attachment styles, but it doesn't matter. It is anxiety. And I teach that anxiety is a strength. And oftentimes, people don't understand where their anxiety is coming from. So how do you know if you have this type of anxiety? The separation anxiety, attachment anxiety. Well, you might feel it physically. Let's say you call someone, they don't answer. And then time goes by and time goes by. Does the anxiety begin to build? Do you have like a physical feeling in your chest, in your heart, in your throat? Maybe mentally. Do you feel chaos in your brain? Like the chaos of lack of control? Like I don't have control. You know, maybe you have teenage children and they're out too late. And then you've called them and then there's this separation. This anxiety is not just in romantic relationships. It's in all relationships. When we talk about attachment theory, we often talk about it in relation to romantic relationships. But separation anxiety, which may have been diagnosed as generalized anxiety, is actually all of these relationships. And sometimes in borderline personality, you have these kind of separation type anxieties. So that's the physical symptoms. The mental symptoms may feel chaos and emotional symptoms. You may actually want to cry or actually cry. And that is this kind of separation anxiety, this chaos that you feel like you have no control of. So why is this happening? I teach something called a thought map. And a thought map is, it's kind of like journaling, but very targeted. So in thought map, in mapping out your feelings, this is to figure out why. You start with a central thought. I'm anxious. What is making you feel anxious right now? Well, my boyfriend won't call me back, or I can't get a hold of my child, or... My boss is not responding to me. There's this anxiety. We're going to put that as the central thought. And then you're going to put in bubbles what has caused that. What is causing that right now? And you might expand with some more bubbles so that you can kind of really flesh out what is all the factors right now. Then you're going to ask yourself the question, what has caused me this anxiety in the past? And you're going to name some things and flesh that out. And I have a whole course on the Mentally Strong Method, which if you click the link below, you can get information on how to take the Mentally Strong Method course. But the first element of that course is this thought map. And we are asking ourselves these four questions. What's making us feel like this right now? What's made me feel like this in the past? Next question is what made me feel like this in my childhood? And oftentimes we don't think about these things. We're like, I've moved on. I don't have any problems in my childhood, but it's important to take a step of like, asking yourself that question because oftentimes, especially in separation anxiety, there was probably something in your childhood. And this is not about blaming your parents or blaming your environment. It is just about insight for yourself. And so when you ask that question, it just brings light to a pattern in which you are operating under. And so the more insight you have for yourself, the better you are able to understand Make decisions in line with what you want. The fourth question in that thought map is how does this impact my spiritual relationship? And not a lot of people talk about their spiritual relationship as it relates to their mental health journey, but it is super important. Whether you believe in a God or don't believe in a God, have a strong faith or don't, it likely impacts how you perceive the world and how you are perceiving this current separation anxiety, right? For me, you can watch my documentary, hear my whole story. Losing my children one after another caused significant spiritual conflict because I do believe in a God that loves me and loves protects me. But then he takes a child, then another child, then another child. And whatever your horrible story is, that does impact your spiritual relationship. And so we ask that question in the thought map. And sometimes it's related, sometimes it's not. But I don't want you to skip the question. So now that you kind of have all of that out on paper, And you're learning to recognize maybe some patterns. How do you handle that? What do you do about that? Well, all of those little bubbles on your thought map probably have a different answer to that question. So I'm going to stay focused on the anxiety in which you feel in your body, the separation anxiety. The first thing I need you to recognize is you only have control of yourself. You don't have control of anything. You don't have control of the God universal purpose. You don't have control of your partner, of your children. That's a hard one, right? We want to have control of our children. And we have a lot of control when they're babies. And then we lose a little bit of control as they get older. But our love for them doesn't change. And we talk about this in our Raising Mentally Strong Kids course of this battle between giving your child independence and keeping control, giving independence, keeping control. And I often thought of it as a tug of war. But a wise woman said, It's not a tug of war. It's a dance. We only have influence over the people around us, including our children. We don't actually have control. So it's not a tug of war. It's a dance. It is attempting to influence them. And we can only, I say all of that just to say, we can only control ourselves, our feelings, our reactions, our choices. The next video will go more deeply into this, but understanding that anxiety is a strength and that you can control your reaction. It is important to know your anxiety and bring it down. Don't say to yourself, oh, don't be anxious, right? When you tell someone not to do something, that actually increases it. So I want you to just think about decreasing that anxiety. So under that umbrella of I only have control of myself, we have self-care, self-regulation, and your own choices. Those are the things that you can control. I have a whole video series on kind of controlling yourself, taking care of yourself. What does actually self-love mean? So let's go into our questions. A lot of my followers are pretty deep into some sort of intense traumatic grief. The first question is, I am grieving after a traumatic divorce, and I know that I have anxious attachment or this separation anxiety. I want to fix it before I start dating again. Well, first of all, I wouldn't go in with that mindset of totally fixing something before you do something, right? Because part of dating is practicing how you respond in those anxious attachment symptoms, right? I would work on yourself from a self-love perspective first. And I wouldn't say, I remember when I was young and looking for my husband and people would say, oh, you've got to You know, love yourself and be content with yourself before God will bring you your spouse. That's not true. I was anxious attachment and I was, you know, not in a good self-love place and God provided me with my husband. I think because it's a lifetime journey. Fixing our attachment issues, loving ourselves is a lifetime journey. And so I wouldn't say I want to do this before I start dating. When you start dating is a personal choice. And I want you to, you know, spend some time in self-love, but I don't want you to delay dating for long period of time because you're never going to fix it completely. Like it's a journey and I want you to embrace that journey. I talk about that a lot. The next question said, I lost my son in a drunk driving accident and I am constantly anxious when I'm not with my other son. Right? You have a reason to be anxious. You have lost a child in a drunk driving accident and letting your son go into a car with other people must be very difficult. But again, we can only control ourselves. our reaction and we can influence our children, you know, to wear a seatbelt, not to get in a car with a drunk driver, to always be on the offense in doing defensive driving, right? But as you can see from my story, I lost a child after a child after a child. And so for me to sit here and say, oh, don't worry. You won't lose another child. I don't know. And you don't know. And it is a very, very difficult place to be. But try to focus on the things that I've talked about of self-regulating yourself, influencing your child, thinking positive thoughts, praying over their protection. But again, If your anxiety is a 9-10, I'm not asking you to have zero anxiety. I'm asking you to bring it down a couple notches for your own mental and physical health. The next person says, I have a young child and I often joke that I have reverse separation anxiety when I drop her off at school. I am very anxious. But now I'm starting to realize that my daughter is kind of mimicking me. What can I do? Well, I don't want you to focus on your daughter. I want you to focus on yourself. We often do this as caretakers. Your child will treat themselves, not the way you treat them, the way you treat yourself. And so learning the things that I'm talking about, learning how to decrease that anxiety and self-regulate. And And practicing that and talking that through with your child. I know, you know, you could say, I know you're feeling my anxiety and mommy's working on her anxiety and, and I need you to trust me that things are okay. Right. You can have some of that dialogue, but don't dump on your child. Right. Don't say, oh yeah, you're right. I'm anxious. Like all of these things don't, Don't tell them all of the things going on in your mind. They can feel it, and that's enough. So focusing on yourself rather than your daughter. I hope that is helpful. Continue to watch Anxiety is a Strength.