L'ABBANDONO IN AMORE (178)

So today I'd like to talk about abandonment in love. I believe it's a topic dear to many, and if it isn't, it has been dear to many right now. Besides, love today lasts longer, not in terms of time but in terms of the age at which it begins. That is, once upon a time, it was inappropriate to fall in love after 40; today, people fall in love at 60 and even 70, rightly so. Also because people have gotten older, and therefore, obviously, life has gotten longer, so time is getting longer. So, abandonment in love is one of the things that hurts the most . Some people commit suicide because they've been abandoned in love, and some people commit murder because they've been abandoned in love. Femicides are a consequence of a woman's abandonment, which men often can't stand. So he can't imagine her living away from him, so he kills her and the problem is solved, which also shows how dependent men are on women, something women often ignore. Besides, you have to consider that men took a long time to make women dependent because, to prevent them from abandoning them, they took away their ability to study and work, so that they were unable to support themselves and had to necessarily shift from paternal authority to marital authority. They shouldn't have been able to live alone . This shows how much men feared women's freedom and how much they still fear it today. Why are men more afraid of women's abandonment than women are of men's abandonment? It's not because women are stronger than men, or men are more fragile than women, or so on; it has nothing to do with it. It's because a man sees his first partner in a woman, his mother, while a woman sees her first partner in a man, her father, and the importance of father and mother for children is very different. For children, the mother is the one who loves them, or will love them if all goes well, while the father is the one who, above all, will protect them if all goes well. So a son expects love from his mother, and therefore his expectation of love is that, a daughter expects above all from her father... she expects to be loved too, but above all she expects protection, and protection can be interchangeable, love cannot. That is, by inventing this formula whereby a woman shouldn't work and should depend on him, he then made her, in a certain sense, even more independent. One man was as good as another because he could supplant the man she loved with another as long as he protected her, therefore, gave her the means to live. While a man needs a specific love, that of his mother, which is a unique love. This is why men depend more on women than women do on men. But you also see it when old age sets in. When women find themselves widowed, they hang out with friends, go for coffee, take short trips, do things, and so on. You rarely see men like this; they shut themselves away or go to a restaurant if they can, and have lunch prepared, because they're incapable of it . Of course, it's not that they're stupid or incapable, because they need someone to take care of them; they need the illusion of someone taking care of them, looking out for them; it's a substitute for affection, so to speak. A woman would never go to a restaurant because someone has to serve her; she's very comfortable serving herself; she's even used to it. Let's not forget that women were forced to marry. It's well explained in the myth of the Danaids. They wanted the 50 Danaids to marry, the Greek myth, and they didn't want to marry because they said, "If we marry, we'll become slaves." Which is true. Then the myth says that Juno was also forced by Jupiter to marry because Juno didn't want to marry either. Besides, in an archaic Etruscan mirror I saw the figure of Juno breastfeeding the infant Jupiter , so evidently in ancient times she was a great mother who then became a Wife. And the woman ultimately depended on the man because the man did everything for her, even went to the bank and did everything. And even when they gave women jobs , they struggled a lot, both in giving them jobs. In Italy , women were given jobs especially during the last war because there were no longer any men in the offices who went to the front, so they had to hire women otherwise no one would have taken over the administration. Then many died there too, and they were replaced, and so on. But in every European country—we're talking about Europe— women are always paid less than men for the same jobs, because men are bothered by this kind of emancipation. So the fear of abandonment is felt mostly by men, but it's felt by women too, let's be clear. Why is the fear of abandonment so strong, so great? I mean, when a person is dumped, they think they'll never find someone like that again... but it's not so much that, they think they'll never find a person again, that is, they won't find a person who will love them. They think they'll never be able to fall in love again, which isn't true because after a certain period of time, the libido returns to the person and comes into play again. But even if this happens several times, it's a tragedy . Narcissists who take multiple women or men know this well , but narcissists are generally more men than women, out of fear... precisely because of the fear of being left, abandoned. In the matriarchy, the woman joined whoever she wanted, she wasn't afraid of being abandoned, unwanted... she didn't care . Nor did the men of that time care about being dumped, that is, they were all peaceful and calm. Everyone made love to whoever they wanted. After all, the children belonged to everyone and were certainly better off than those of today. The fear of abandonment is terrible; it can lead to suicide, because behind it lies the abandonment of a parent. So let's write it in capital letters: "The fear of being abandoned by one's love is the fear of being abandoned by the parent; that is, in that abandonment we relive the abandonment of the parent." Of course, people might say, "And have we all been abandoned by our parents?" Of course not, but often yes. Those most afraid of being abandoned in love are usually those who were abused as children, and here we return to the issue of abuse, the abuse that is rampant in the world, the abuse of children. Which we don't want to see, which we don't want known, because the Oedipus complex was invented by Freud to cover up what he discovered in his patients, but poor thing, they told him, "Look, if you keep saying this, not only will we kick you out of the neurosurgeon's office" at the hospital where he worked, "we'll also close down your analytic practice. That means you won't work anymore." And he was... he says it: "I was abandoned by everyone. Everyone closed their doors in my face." He says it because he dared to say he had patients who had been sexually abused by their fathers; it shouldn't have been said that abuse existed. There was a fight between Mason and the others there because some argued that Freud had been honest because he had realized the Oedipus complex, he had retracted what he had said because he had realized he was wrong and had been honest enough to admit his mistake. In reality, he hadn't realized he was wrong; he had to save his own skin. He had a family, he had to work, he couldn't starve, it's also understandable. So he wrote it to his friend Fliess, a doctor with whom he had corresponded... I think for about fifteen years, a great friend, and he wrote this to him in two letters that the Freudian society has and which it still doesn't intend to release because it doesn't like it. Because the abuse must not be known. Because as I wrote about 40 years ago, I was at the... I worked at the clinic... at the fourth psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome and we did Research... scientific research, and we were publishing research in a scientific society, and at a certain point I said to my colleagues: psychiatrists, biologists, psychologists, etc., etc., I said, "But why don't we do more serious research, on abuse?" And they said, "What are you talking about... etc." And in the end, here I'll cut to the chase. I took all the medical records because we were required to keep patient medical records, because we wanted to demonstrate that we treated patients for free. I remember the newspaper La Repubblica advertising us and telling the Roman people, "Look , they're treating you for free." They came to us, we treated depression, we first checked their immune defenses and then their lymphocytes. In short, we were able to demonstrate how the lymphocyte populations increased, therefore the immune defenses increased when the depression subsided. But this is something everyone knew, though; it wasn't proven, but they knew it, so I said, "Let's try to make people understand how frequent abuse is." And when the others said to me, "What are you talking about, etc.," I said, "Everyone here is abused." Because I've always been the one who saw the abuse. And so I took the medical records we were required to keep, I showed them, I had them read, I read them, I read the dreams and I read my interpretation of the dreams and I said, "If you interpret them differently, tell me." And of course, faced with that, they couldn't say no and in the end they told me clearly, "Look, Gabriella, if we say it, we'll close tomorrow..." And faced with that, there was nothing to say because people don't like to know these things, and it's not just news, it's a question of protecting children or not. That is, if we don't want to know how many abuse children, how many families, especially because it mostly happens in families, abuse children, we don't protect our children. So, what does abuse have to do with abandonment? Because so many people tell me you're rambling and you're missing everything and maybe we don't understand anything. No, this makes sense because when abandonment is extreme, when it's extremely scary , there's almost always—I say almost always so as not to always say no, because there's never absolute certainty—abuse is behind it, and I'll explain why. Because when a child is abused, there are three phases: one is horror and terror, when the child feels the terrible disgust, the violent fear, the panic of what's being done to him, then later covers it up and enjoys it . Also because usually the parents, the abuser, say it's a manifestation of love and the abuser believes it, and sometimes there are even abusers who are almost in love with their children... it's a type of abuse. Third phase: the abused child has grown up, the father or mother doesn't like him anymore, and he leaves him. There's abandonment there, which is devastating because even though the child has adapted to the worst things, he's abandoned; what he did was worthless. I remember an abused patient of mine who dreamed of lying on the floor with her legs spread, naked, and people passing by and not paying attention, and she said, "No one wants to have anything to do with me... I'm worthless," and that was what she'd gone through as a child, obviously. So, even though the child has adapted to the worst things, he or she is abandoned by the parent and suffers enormous, terrible pain . But even this is then erased because the mind helps children erase, not adults, mind you. When they ask me, "Do adults know they've abused?" Yes, always, there's no erasure, there's pretending not to see it and not to know, but the memory is there, it's in the child that it's erased. And then abandonment leaves a terrible memory that isn't the memory of what happened but of the feeling, namely: "I'm worthless, I'll be abandoned because I'm worthless." And this is often the case... we often have people who torment their partners with unfounded jealousy. "Did you look at that in the window, did you put on makeup?" Because you want to win someone over. Why did you change your clothes to go to work? Because you want to go out with that friend of yours? Who will you meet then?" And she thinks, "Oh my God, what a torture!" So often the cases of, I repeat, I say often, not to say always, the cases of unmotivated jealousy are derived from abuse. That person will have the fear of being abandoned or betrayed all his life. If he is abandoned, even then, things are terrible. For example, the abandoned narcissist, the narcissist is demonized in a shocking way... he feels terrible, because he finds as many women as possible to avoid suffering abandonment , which for him is totally devastating. I repeat, it's him, but women are too , but especially men. When abandonment occurs again, for whatever reason, suddenly a file reopens for the abandoned person, that of childhood, and it's terrible. He remains alone, abandoned by everyone, forever, he has no escape and thinks of suicide. Often, when the narcissist is abandoned, he thinks of suicide even if there is another, but it's not because he is bad at heart, simply because he is trying to put up a shield against something that It devastated him as a child. Every now and then there's someone, usually a woman, who says to me, "Why do you portray narcissists this way when they're bloodthirsty beasts who hurt their children, etc., humiliate their wives and children?" And I feel like saying, "Then why are you with them?" I've met good narcissists and terrible people; it's not the mental disorder that changes the person. There are psychotics who are good people, there are psychotics who are delinquents, who could kill. The illness doesn't make the person bad or good, it depends on the person as it is . So when there's a devastating abandonment, and keep in mind that sometimes the person who abandons us isn't the one we loved. I've had cases of people who were fed up with their partner, in fact they said, "Listen, I think we have to break up, etc.." Suddenly, the partner wakes up and says, "Listen, you know what I say? I'm leaving!" That's where God's wrath comes in. That's where the one who wanted to abandon feels abandoned and the world falls apart, he feels terrible, suddenly very attached to the other. Why? Because he sees the abandonment of the parent in it, this is very common. That's why when I say "I'm talking about love..." love isn't always an illness but it often is , love is a beautiful thing, it exists too, but love with butterflies in the stomach isn't love, it's something else . Healthy love is a calm love, which trusts the other on both sides. Healthy, true love gives trust, the other doesn't think that the other will betray him. However, when the abandonment that recalls childhood abandonment recurs, God's wrath comes in. Suddenly the person has experienced the worst abandonment of his life. He feels like dying. He wants to commit suicide. He can't live anymore, regardless of the relationship he had with this person, because he is reliving the abandonment of the parent. Abandonment The loss of a parent is serious, both because they are a parent and one of the two pillars of their life and the child needs them, and because they gave everything to the parent, sacrificed themselves completely for this parent, according to the parent's wishes, and yet nothing came of it; the parent abandons them anyway. That is, the same thing happens again as before. The pain is immense and intense, so when you notice that if the other person leaves you, and it wasn't this great love, you suddenly feel devastated, it means there's something behind it, and then you go back to your childhood and see which parent abandoned you. Go and see why they abandoned you, go and see what happened to you in childhood because that thing will devastate you, even the next time someone else abandons you, it will be the same tragedy. That is, you You'll think no one will ever love you again. Like losing a parent, the parent is irreplaceable, and therefore it's a true tragedy because the person cannot be replaced . While in love, we know that love is a commodity that travels— today it's for me, tomorrow it's for you—that people lose each other and leave each other, it hurts at the time, certainly, but then everything falls back into place. Instead, it causes a terrible, uncontrollable tragedy, which in some cases even leads to suicide. Goodbye to everyone, goodbye.