Emotional Disconnect: Attachment Wounds and Being Ignored / Still Face Experiment

Hello. Thanks for checking out my YouTube channel.

In my videos, I like to talk about Psychology, Healing Attachment Trauma, Relationship Repair, Inner Child Self-Re-Parenting, Love Addiction, Codependency, Grieving Break Ups, Family Programming, Fantasy Relationships, The Romantic Narrative, Primal Panic, Trauma Bonding, Double-Binds, Attachment Styles, Couples Counseling, Better Boundaries, Shame and Self-love, CPTSD Breakthroughs, Emotional Availability, and Body-Focused Psychotherapy for Healing Trauma..

☑️ Heal Your Relationships = #relationships
☑️ Trust Your Intuition = #selfcare
☑️ Repair w/ Counseling = #psychology

Subscribe to my channel to be notified every time I upload a new video.

When you like a video, please click the like button, it helps show support for my channel.

Alan Robarge, LPC, Licensed Professional Counselor,
Attachment-Focused, Trauma-Informed,
Psychotherapist and Relationship Educator

Emotional Connections Matter!

__________

Emotional Disconnect: Attachment Wounds and Being Ignored / Still Face Experiment / Alan Robarge

In this video, I talk about how sometimes inviting talking about emotional connection can sound foreign to us or to others. I share ideas that speak to how we know that something is off and not working when we're talking about emotional connection.

Questions to answer in the comments section:
What is one thing you learned from listening to this video?
What is one takeaway you can apply to your personal healing process?

Remember to leave a comment. What is your takeaway from this video?

__________

☑️ Take The Four Attachment Distress Responses Quiz:

☑️ Learn about Improve Your Relationships Community:

☑️ Learn about Grieving and Pet Loss Course: Coming Soon

☑️ Learn about Healing Heartbreak Course: Coming Soon

☑️ Learn about my new book: Coming Soon

☑️ Follow me on Instagram:
@alan_robarge_psychotherapist

☑️ Check out my website:

☑️ Want to learn more about relationships? Then, sign up for the Everyday Relating Questionnaire.

__________

Emotional Disconnect: Attachment Wounds and Being Ignored / Still Face Experiment / Alan Robarge

[AlanRobargeHealingTrauma]

Hello Subscribers:

Thank you for checking out my videos and posting such thoughtful comments. It's inspiring to read your self-reflections and insights. I love how we grow from each other's sharing.

One thing I have learned after years of reading comments is that we are not alone. Many of us have the same experiences when it comes to relationships. We are all trying to make sense of attachment trauma and learn better skills of relating.

Great job everyone - keep going and keep learning!

As I'm sure you can understand, I'm not able to respond to all the comments and questions here on YouTube. I know this can be disappointing sometimes. Please forgive me. It is challenging to find the time for the careful consideration that is needed in order to respond to your heartfelt reflections. Even so, your vulnerability shines through.

I know behind each comment is a real person with real feelings who's hurting or who’s reporting a triumph. I know you are doing the best you can while trying to make sense of life’s suffering. We are all grappling with what it means to be human. I’m sorry that I’m not always able to respond to your comments directly.

That being said, I'm sharing this post to offer you a few resources in an attempt for us to stay connected. Keep in mind that I do read most comments here on YouTube. Your words are received. I review comments daily, which serves as a way to organize content for future videos.




Many of us want to know how to heal, how to change, how to be more secure in our relationships. This is why I created the course The Four Attachment Distress Responses.

Many of our behaviors in relationships are habitual - meaning we act out of autopilot. Our autopilot Response comes from past conditioning of negative experiences. When attachment injuries go unaddressed, we become insecure in our relationships.

The Four Attachment Distress Responses Course describes each specific type of guardedness, which is how we try to protect ourselves from getting hurt again, while also attempting to get our attachment needs met.

While we cannot change the past, we can change how we respond in the moment and in the future. This course offers you insights and tools as new ways to respond in your relationships. The Four Responses are Poking, Running, Hiding, and Submitting. You’re invited to take the quiz to learn more about your Response.




I created an 8-week program and membership community based on the guiding principle of Self-Directed Healing Work #selfhealers that I want to share with you. The community is called Improve Your Relationships. The focus is about healing attachment injuries in the context of relationship repair in all areas of our lives.

When we look at the big picture of how attachment injuries and attachment trauma occurred in our lives, we are able to begin seeing our relationship choices from a whole new perspective. We gain access to inner resources that shift how we relate and respond to old hurts. It's a process. It's layered. It requires commitment. This is what the community is all about - committing to your healing work.

You are invited to join us. The community members are kind and supportive. We are an established group. The feedback and testimonials have been overwhelmingly positive.




Also, in addition to checking out my course and/or joining us in the Community, please consider becoming a Sustaining Supporter by making a financial contribution.




Thank you for being a channel subscriber and watching my videos.

And remember, we invest in our healing work because “Emotional Connections Matter!”

Best regards,


Alan Robarge
Attachment-Focused Psychotherapist

[ernestinemorrison]

Today I weep deeply for the generations of children who experience the earliest sadness of the unwelcoming face and unwelcoming presence of
the caretaker.

[veronicahaney]

So many people say you just have to deal with this, and it's not normal as an adult to emotionally need another. But most of those people who say this haven't been with a Narcissist and completely emotionally secluded for years. Human interaction is needed. It's nice hearing this be validated.

[tidalashburn]

It is a bit sad that it took me 58 years, 40 years of therapy, and 32 years of medication to find these tools. It just goes to show it is never too late to have a good life.

[lynnromenesko]

This makes so much sense to me. My early experiences include having a mother who was always depressed who could not give me emotional security as well as having a father who was abusive. Emotional connection was denied. Extremely painful & has effected so many aspects of my life. No wonder I have issues with self confidence & trusting others. My life has been a journey of trying to heal & trust myself.

[tashilongthorp]

I feel that people have emotionally checked-out on me my whole life and I didn't know what was going on. I am almost at the end of a 29-year relationship with my partner, a relationship in which I continually believed that "things would get better" (without having any idea how because my partner did not believe in marriage counselling). I'm very familiar with "the still face" and am somehow angry at myself that it's taken me this long (I'll be 70 in a couple of weeks) to start to wake up to my illusions. Thank you, Alan. What you have been sharing in your videos is helping to relieve my sense of despair, loss and feeling of utter abandonment.

[Doin_Life]

I love that he touched on empaths being highly sensitive to reading cues I also love that he doesn’t make us feel wrong or bad for being hurt during emotional disconnect.

[SelfLoveU]

"Unless you have been trained to have the tolerance for non-interaction then you say, I'm fine, I'm fine..." But deep inside you know the connection never happened and you can't figure out where the missing link is. Thank you for intricately discussing this missing part.

[alaysiakayebutler]

Alan; what is breaking my heart and pissing me off is being witness to a WORLD of still faces: Mothers and parents, caregiver's devices taking their attention, babies and young children NOT responded to, and they see parents with blank faces turned to their screens not mirroring child

[jangandy]

Really eye opening. My Mother was totally disinterested in us as Kids. Feeding and buying us clothes she liked was as much as a Mother she could drag up. I don't think she ever checked in. I am a totally different Mother to my Kids and learned from my past. Blessings.

[celticsoul]

12 minuets in I had a gut wrenching breakdown. I want to vomit. Thanks for helping me find this wound so I can heal it. Once I stopped breathing as an infant and mom thought I was dead. I think I was and this is why. My inner child work needs to go back to this. I begged God to help me heal completely from all of this codependent wrongness and I got this. I’m hurt to my marrow right now! Thanks for the lesson of attachment disorder, now I release it completely. My parents didn’t know how they were failing me because they would have been there doing what I needed if they knew. I forgive them and release any resentment and all energy associated with this wound. Just, WOW!

[luminariasanctuaryofficial]

Thank you so much for this brilliant video. As a person who suffers from CPTSD and a history of abuse and resulting disorganized attachment, I find that I can easily be triggered into fearing for my life when connecting with a person who is emotionally guarded or unavailable. It can take hours, days or even weeks to fully recover from those states of triggering. However I am aware that the relationship doesn't necessarily recover. Overtime I've become very wary of people like that. Your explanation of tolerance being built up over time to untenable relationship paradigms is very helpful. It helps to remind me that I have a right to feel connected and that continuing to expose myself to people who struggle with staying attuned is not healthy for me.

[MsLegaC]

I just came home from my Grandpas funeral which involved all of my 5 siblings and my divorced parents. I was shocked at how obvious it was that our parents don’t really notice us and we all have struggled with depression, addiction, and criminal lifestyles. I was so depressed. I cried on the entire flight home because I felt so yucky about myself. I started researching and found your channel. Thank you so much for these videos and helping me realize that I AM good enough and also learning to recognize the dynamics that have led to me feeling this way. Thank you. ❤️

[cprime]

This is what's been happening in my relationship. My boyfriend is constantly working, sleeps when he can, and is not always in a service area to get my calls and texts promptly. Because I have an attachment wound and have largely been ignored by my parents/ family my nervous system goes off, I use protest behavior which pushes him away more. I apologize later. But I'm still not ok. This relationship stress and life stress, (work, kids, etc.) knocks me down to where I'm so depressed I don't get out of bed. I've been through ALOT in my life and it feels like the stress has been cumulative to the point that any new stress trips a circuit breaker and I'm out. I sleep and sleep. I've been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and I think this whole process you've explained in this video may be why.

[marshaabrady]

I experienced a subtle form of the “still face” my entire childhood. My mom would avoid me, not have conversations with me, and only really spoke to me to criticize or shame me. If it wasn’t for a neighbor in the early part of my life who was nice and had conversations with me here and there I would have definitely committed suicide at a young age. I’m almost 30 and still picking up the pieces. Thank you for your validation.

[MagicMakeover]

Painful stuff. To realize this is how I've been living is painful - First with a parent and then a spouse. Thank you for helping me understand it and hopefully not repeat it.

[momtosouls]

Just found your channel 24 hrs ago, and have laughed, cried, said “YES” to the television too many times to count as I have viewed your videos. THANK YOU for presenting this important content is such an authentic, engaging way! 🌷
Ps.. just tried the test with my dog. 7 seconds and he was jumping on me to “wake me up” WOW!

[eaumartineau]

I find your style of SEEK TO UNDERSTAND instead of demonizing the emotionally unavailable so refreshing. Whether the case involves narcissistic abusers or wounds you lift us to a higher realm to see and understand. Empowering!!!

[lollylula]

Ellie Goulding song The Writer "I try out a smile, and I aim it at you, you must have missed it, you always do".

[ivibrown]

I feel like I am always lacking real emotional connection in almost every relationship. I always feel isolated despite how hard I try.. in the beginning Mom seemed like she cared... but by the time I was starting school she stopped engaging much. Thank you for your work. You are a godsend