Observing the Maladaptive Loops

So I went through an experience this week where I learned the hard way that some responses to shit childhoods, can mimic other mental health diagnoses.

I’m sorry, that was a long fucking sentence that made things sound way more complex than I intended.

Said another way:

Whenever you go through REPEATED shit in childhood, you respond with mental gymnastics and behaviors to make sense of the shit and to feel safe despite the shit. (Mental gymnastics are the crazy rationalizations you have to create to make sense of bullshit.)

You practice these mental gymnastics and behaviors over - and over - and over - And in adulthood, that shit still exists as a well-worn pathway.

But NOW that we are older, we can give them names, like anxiety, depression, OCD, Narcissism, codependency, borderline, etc., you get the gist.

Let’s call these mental gymnastics and behaviors: “Maladaptive responses”.

If you’re like me, (and honestly maybe it’s a good thing you’re not 🤣), I tend to go after these maladaptive responses and prod at them until I can figure them out.

Lately, the one I’ve recently discovered is, I created a bit of an obsessive-compulsive (OC) loop in response to feeling afraid of abandonment.

So I have observed my OC loop to be the following (Maybe it’ll resonate with you):

• I experienced abandonment constantly as a child, both in the form of emotional neglect and the physical leaving of a parent.

• I also experienced emotional scapegoating from a parent and had to be perfect all the time, otherwise they’d blame me for their negative feelings.

• This in turn made me develop constant anticipatory anxiety regarding things that could make me feel bad if i didn’t try to prevent them (like the parent leaving, or the parent not paying attention to me or the parent blaming me for everything whenever they DID pay attention to me). SO I’d go through mental gymnastics to make sense of situations to see how I could control the outcome. (Obsessive part of OC)

• So then I began to act in ways to prevent these events before they’d happen, so that way I avoided the outcome. (compulsion).

• This prevention strategy only worked for so little, in that my parents, (being my parents) would always just do the same things over and over again and reinforced this anticipatory anxiety and this pathway in my brain.

• In adulthood, this manifests as me being in relationships and having intrusive thoughts about the worst scenarios that center on being left, being emotionally neglected, and feeling wayyy more responsible over other people’s emotions and actions than I actually am. (I know, sounds fun right?)

I still struggle with this shit today.

Don’t pity me though, we ALL have shit like this whether we are conscious enough to notice them or not!

Since most childhood trauma is RELATIONAL in nature, our maladaptive responses usually appear while IN relationships.

I share this because I realized a lot of my maladaptive response mimics OCD.

The responses we have can often mimic mental illnesses that exist in modern day but their root is in trauma.

I just posted about this shit the other day:

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or offering ANY mental health advice. BUUTTTTT this newsletter is to share my thoughts, beliefs, and philosophies with you as I have learned them to be true. 🙂

Food for thought?

So in understanding this, maybe depression was your response to a situation, which in essence was “shut down all feelings and emotions to keep the peace”.

Or maybe you demonstrate borderline tendencies can have a root in previous trauma, from a situation that forced you to constantly be abandoned.

Here are tips I recommend to begin to pay attention to, when it comes to maladaptive responses.

(These are signs that it’s time to dig into them a little bit and understand their origins):

So what differentiates a maladaptive response from a regular response?

1. You have a predictable response to a certain situation, 99.9% of the time.

2. This response feels uncontrollable and against your will. It is hard to break out of.

3. This response feels unpleasant to you.

4. You feel yourself in fight, fawn, freeze or flight (FFFF mode).

5. This response without fail, takes a specific pathway of emotion, thought, and behavior you can almost trace out every time.

6. It usually makes you feel worse about yourself after.

Now, in my opinion, a adaptive response is:

1. Preceded by a decision-making process.

2. Not the same every time.

3. Your nervous system isn’t in FFFF mode.

4. You feel in control the majority of the time.

5. You feel more empowered than anything else.

These are general observations of course, humans aren’t a NEWSLETTER and things can shift but this is my experience. :)

Did you notice any resonance with your own life? Think back to your own patterns.

The first step in acknowledging they exist.

Only after, can you work towards resolution.

I recently picked up a book on intrusive thoughts that I can’t wait to read and work with. I’ll start there!

If you noice any concerning patterns that don’t add to your life, start with some self-education, talk to a mental health professional, get into coaching, read a book on it, etc. Shit, hit me up on Twitter DM and let’s have a conversation about it! There are many options.

I’ll love to hear how it goes ❤️

Best of luck to you my friend!