Separation Anxiety... the worse!!

[Teancum18]

Ughhh!! Does anybody else feel separation anxiety in their lives? I get it a lot. For those of you who do not know what it is, I guarantee you've experienced it. It's when you feel great anxiety over a loss, a change, a person, or for a specific time period; in which you'll feel completely separated from. Usually, you'll feel gaping pits in your chest that are physical manifestations of the separation you're experiencing.

Well, right now I've been going through some changes in my life. Not the from-bad-to-good kind. Just the types of changes that everyone endure as a result of where they live, school, work, ect. So I have been feeling it really bad lately.

However, I'm going to continue to try to control this. I think I'll go jogging and the usual things us Mormons do for comfort.

[MaidservantX]

Yup. Gaping pits in the chest, check. I thought I was the only one. Can't ever explain it to anyone.

Hang in there. :)

[Teancum18]

Yup...Hang in there. :)

Thanks!!

I thought I was the only one.

No way!! This is much more prevalent than people realize. That is due to a lack of knowledge about it. I'm feeling a little better. I looked some things up in between my posts and that really helped!

But hearing from people on here helps more than anything! :D:D

[hanne_line]

Separation Anxiety is something I have experienced a lot in my life.. ewww...

That is why I have difficulties even thinking about moving anywhere, and I think I distance myself from people to avoid the experience to come back again.. ?

[WillowTheWhisp]

It sounds similar to grief, or part of the grief experience. I know I still have that feeling of an empty gaping chasm where my late husband used to be even though I have remarried. I don't think I will ever get over that.

I don't think I've experienced it much in other ways because there haven't been any major things in my life which I have missed. I've always more or less lived in the same area. I have smaller holes when released from a calling I've loved and deeply miss. When I was released from Primary I ached to be in there with the children.

[Listener]

I've often wondered how you all cope with this when you're on a mission in a new culture.

Anything we can do to help, Teancum?

[WillowTheWhisp]

Especially in a country where they do not speak your own native language. That must be really hard. I guess without the Holy Spirit it could be almost impossible.

[Aphrodite]

Hey Teancum is that you in your avatar?

[Guest tomk]

Ughhh!! Does anybody else feel separation anxiety in their lives? I get it a lot. For those of you who do not know what it is, I guarantee you've experienced it. It's when you feel great anxiety over a loss, a change, a person, or for a specific time period; in which you'll feel completely separated from. Usually, you'll feel gaping pits in your chest that are physical manifestations of the separation you're experiencing.

Well, right now I've been going through some changes in my life. Not the from-bad-to-good kind. Just the types of changes that everyone endure as a result of where they live, school, work, ect. So I have been feeling it really bad lately.

However, I'm going to continue to try to control this. I think I'll go jogging and the usual things us Mormons do for comfort.

Are you describing homesickness? Mourning the loss of that which is familiar and comfortable?

If so - then, yes, I have felt this.

I went to Sao Paulo Brazil on my mission. For the first few months down there, I was very very homesick. Nothing was familiar. The food / water was making me sick. Everyone was a stranger. The other missionaries I was staying with all thought of me as the "greenie", so they objectified my feelings instead of trying to understand, really, what I was going through. Maybe they understood what I was going through all too well, and perhaps they knew there was no way out of it but "through it" as they say. It was just something I had to endure.

Eventually the homesickness left. I began to make friends. I began to focus a little more outward instead of inward.

This is all normal. Everyone goes through it at some point. Learn from these feelings and experiences as best you can.

Tom

[MaidservantX]

This post of yours, Teancum, is the first time I have realized to call it separation anxiety. As Willow brought up, I have dealt with my experiences by realizing that I was grieving, and thereby realizing that I needed to be good to myself and love myself, just like I would to someone else who was grieving. Also there are stages to grief. I realized that I experienced a lot of loss in my life and didn't become conscious of it, just let the fall out affect my ability to function in life. I am not saying it is just an attitude, though (although good attitude helps a lot of things). It is real, it is physical, and it affects some bodies more than others. It's a body thing in my experience. I used to walk around saying a lot, "My heart hurts!!" Because it really, really did -- ouch. :)

[checkerboy]

Yep. I feel it all the time. I wish I was back in High School. Those days were so much more uncomplicated then now. I recently lost someone that I thought was close to me and it sucked. I have to deal with being seperated from my boys every day. I have discovered though that going to the temple helps relieve at least one seperation: me from God. It also helps ease the other more worldly seperation anxiety I feel.

[Teancum18]

I am feeling a lot better now. For some reason, posting this thread caused me to do a little research for once on separation anxiety. After studying it, I figured out exactly what I needed to do to overcome it. In fact, I realized so many things about it, that I look forward to my next visit from it.

P.S. Yes, that is me in my Avatar.