Withholding

Withholding

Withdrawal and projection are the natural outcomes of withholding. When you withhold, you keep inside yourself things that should be expressed. The very act of hiding these things takes you one step back from the relationship. A result of this withdrawal is that you will begin to project. In other words, you will begin to attribute to other people things that are actually issues of your own. -Gay and Katie Hendricks

I will not withhold from me

When those I love withhold from me, I all too often take it very personally. I wonder, "why don't they want to give to me, why are they making me feel small, needy, and undernourished?" But today I understand that this is exactly what they are experiencing inside themselves. It is they who feel small, needy, and undernourished, they who feel unseen and unvalued. They are acting out a state within themselves that they find unbearable, that they cannot allow themselves to feel. They are projecting that state onto me, unconsciously wanting me to feel helpless, needy, and unseen. Something must have happened to them when they were very, very small to be so withholding. Not a big trauma, but perhaps the ongoing trauma of feeling un-held, immobile, and alone in a crib, left to wonder if anyone knew they were there. Waiting to be picked up, waiting to be remembered, waiting to feel alive and connected. This can happen in the most privileged and affluent homes, in underprivileged homes, and everything in between. It reflects a lack of awareness of what a baby needs to develop emotional strength and resilience; it's a parenting problem.