Recent developments in my life have brought me into relation with the theme of fear in relationships, which is often the deepest level of our conditioning, underneath pride, anger, resignation, sadness and all those other various emotions with which we mask our ultimate feeling of vulnerability and abandonment. I am writing primarily from the perspective of couple relationships, but it seems to me that what I say is just as relevant in the context of relationships as a whole – whether with parents, siblings, authority figures, colleagues, and even our own children.
As I understand it, lack of affection in early childhood generates a schizoid layer of personality, which is the most difficult to penetrate, firstly because it lies hidden under later layers, and secondly because it represents an unformed cognitive-affective relationship to the world. It is very difficult for the individual to perceive because he/she lacks points of reference. In this way it is not like, for example, depression, where you see that you suffer from it and others do not appear to, and you can imagine it is not a real part of your personality. The schizoid layer cannot be separated from personality. Overcoming this conditioning requires an actual abandonment of personality, that is, of self-representation. It is necessary to come into a direct relationship with the world without the intermediation of mind at all, to be the authentic self and not the represented self.
It follows that the fear of abandonment, whilst it may seem to refer to concrete childhood deprivations, is, in fact, identical with the fear of abandoning self-representation and of simply being, a fear we all experience. It is a feeling which colors pretty well all human experience. Affection is necessary to allow the ego to remain flexible and subordinate, and intrinsically linked to the process of ego-formation.
This primal fear is frequently manifested as over-sensitivity to the moods of others. In a sense, we are always searching for evidence to confirm our fear of being abandoned, and do not give enough weight to the evidence of affection. How loved ones react in the heat of the moment is given far more weight than what they may say at other times, moments when they may be more truly themselves, and we come to censor our own desires and impulses or give them a distorted form for fear of that reaction.
This may become a very subtle conditioning. Our own insecurity opens us up to the possibility of emotional manipulation, a tactic to which the other may resort, often just as involuntarily, in order to address insecurities of their own. In this way, roles and patterns develop in relationships which perpetuate patterns learnt and experienced in childhood and, by virtue of their very familiarity, may not be perceived as in any way pathological. Indeed, recent research in neurology sheds much light on the mechanisms underlying the process of learning and embedding such roles, a topic to which I shall shortly return.
This basic pattern may survive, I have discovered, notwithstanding quite different reactions at the moment of confrontation when the associated emotional script is launched. My reactions at such moments have changed profoundly over recent years – and yet I still find myself trapped by feelings of emotional dependency some hours or days after the event.
In addition to being a misreading of the situation and impeding communication and personal growth, such feelings of fear become, quite insidiously, self-reinforcing. This is because, if one were clear and open, if ones heart were revealed in vulnerability, motivations would be manifest, connection would remain, and the insecurities of the other would not be provoked to the same degree. Because one shares from a position of fear, expressed as defensiveness and/or aggressivity, these emotions are sensed and reinforce the conditioned reaction that the other may have to what one is putting forward. One insecurity reinforces another, since if you are apologizing for yourself, or attacking them, the other will naturally assume that there is a reason.
When this has been a pattern for a long time, breaking it is not easy. It is only possible when we have dealt with the fear that is at its root. Then we can become a light to the other and help them overcome their insecurities too. Until then, misunderstandings may be inevitable, but realizing their inevitability will already help. Even if energy continues to be diverted into apparently wasteful and tiring confrontations, the situation may be prevented from getting out of control, and sufficient space reclaimed for each to give time to the process that the emotional confrontation has engendered.
In all this, we should follow our heart, and accept that we may get it wrong and may think differently about our experiences afterwards than before. Afford ourselves the luxury of being human. This is the only way to self-knowledge, self-awareness and freedom, and only self-aware persons can truly interact with each other in a way which consistently brings joy and healing.
Ultimately, our fears are not the substance of our experiences as human beings in relation to each other. We should not let them get the upper hand. They are not the best of us, not the vision we share, not how we want to be perceived nor what we strive towards. We should defend our relationships from being taken over by unconscious fears, because we know they are about much more.