Amelia Lichtenberg 7/10/23 Amelia Lichtenberg 7/10/23

Burnouts leading to Breakups: Getting Caught in the Web of Dysregulation

The past few months have been such a struggle for me: moving, full-time grad school, full-time job, complicated relationship dynamics. It’s no wonder I found myself caught in a web of dysregulation. My dysfunction looks like social over-functioning, losing control of my filters, and feeling like it’s impossible to slow down. When I get into this state it can have some harsh impacts on my relationships with others, and recently it has….

I use writing these blog posts as one strategy of processing my experiences. I am someone who thinks and communicates much more clearly through written word than verbal, even with myself. I’ve been struggling to write about my experiences over the last year because I hold expectations around what I ‘should’ be writing about, how my personal commentary about Relationship Anarchy and authentic relating ‘should’ come across, and what sort of vibe I ‘ought’ to portray for those reading. Also, this has been a very confusing time for me with the start of grad school and the way my program asks me to deeply reflect on and question myself all the time.

This piece is a little different. This time, I’m not here to give advice or insight. I’m here to share an experience where my cycle of over-functioning gifted me with hard lessons to sit with. This piece is a reflection of me sitting with these lessons.

I’m exposing myself for the flawed individual that I am. I don’t have it all together, and this process isn’t complete… but then again, is it ever?

What happened?

I lost my sense of intention in important relationships, and I took my beloveds for granted. I leaned on them for more support than I leaned on myself for, and essentially asked them to bear the weight of my stress and anxiety with me. I especially did this to my core partner. I didn’t mean to do this. It happened because I found myself activated from old trauma, struggling with a lot of big adjustments (as a neurodiverse person who struggles with the smallest adjustment), and I forgot to take moments to breathe and check in with myself.

Essentially, I hit severe burnout, and I stayed there for about 2 months.

This looked like me falling into reactive patterns regarding a metamour, expressing self-negativity, bringing my partners into the fold of my mental back-and-forth between my desire to be in ethically non-monogamous, intentional relationships and retreating to monogamy out of fear, insecurity, and activation. It looked like me calling my core partner almost daily to process my stress when they had other things going on. It looked like me using them as a distraction from sitting with my own discomfort and addressing my burnout.

What a mess, right?

I try to hold myself with some compassion around this, though. When school and work lives demand so much intense output, it’s hard to shut one’s brain off in personal time. When there’s no personal time, it’s hard to process and re-regulate before interfacing with others. This cycle put strain on my core partner to the point where a rift formed. They chose to take back space for themself, and I don’t blame them for their choice.

“Don’t Forget Me After the Sun Sets” 2018

I’m grieving so much from this turn of events. Not only the loss of a beautiful relationship that had so much potential, but to see in hindsight all the ways I could’ve made a different choice. Instead of jumping into reactivity, I could’ve taken a moment to slow down and use mindfulness to re-contextualize the situation. I could’ve asked for more time to process something. I could’ve been writing for Love is the Action and reminding myself of all that I believe in relationally through that simple practice.

How to move forward?

The consequences are hard to sit with. The lessons are humbling. What I find the hardest part of this all is to accept myself for all of these choices I made with deep love, compassion, and understanding. Whenever I am in conflict, I try my best to learn from my mistakes and grow. I reframe the situation in a way that allows me to foster acceptance and gratitude. This time it has been really hard.

Instead of saying to myself: “I regret every time I made a sarcastic comment about waiting for them to leave me,” (which, let’s be real, I totally do regret), I’m trying to say “I am grateful for this deep lesson the consequences of my choice is gifting me.” Instead of falling victim to the stress of my life, I’m using this experience as a wake-up call to shift things around and create more space and time for myself and for spontaneity in my life, something which I’ve learned is extremely important for my mental health.

I’m also recognizing that I’m at a place in my life where things are just harder. I’m putting myself through a rigorous grad school program that demands a lot of introspective and creative reflection and output. I am also working to support myself through it. It makes sense why I’d get caught in the web of my dysfunction, and it’s okay that I did.

It doesn’t make the grief and loss easier, but I am so glad for all the lessons that came from this. The ways to gauge myself and my regulatory state, new ways of communicating boundaries with myself and others, learning what’s important to me and what my personal needs are while being a grad student. This experience finally helped me solidify the morning routine I’ve been trying to nail down for years. These lessons will all serve me greatly when I become an eco-art therapist.

“Pervading Loveliness & Exquisite Jubilation” *2020*

The loss of my core partner means I gain opportunities to practice radical self-reliance. As much as I will miss the beauty of our walks and spontaneous trips to go stargazing, and as much as I grieve for all the plans we made that may not ever come to fruition, I also know that these are still things that I enjoy as an individual. I can continue to enjoy walks, stopping to smell the roses, and talking to all the plants in the old growth forest on my own. The sense of freedom and empowerment that comes from this is so deep, and now when I go to do these things, I will think of them and the ways they re-sparked so many things for me in our time together … and who knows? Maybe someday we will be able to do all these things together again, in whatever context makes sense.

I will hold the lessons with deep gratitude and humility, and vow to never forget them so that next time I cross paths with a connection as rare and valuable as the one I just lost, I will not take it for granted regardless of how crazy my life becomes. Thank you so much, beloved, for the beauty you’ve brought to my life in so many ways.

Thank you for reading.

— Emily Lichtenberg

Amelia Lichtenberg 12/4/22 Amelia Lichtenberg 12/4/22

Existential-Humanism, the RA Counseling Theory

As I’m wrapping up my final few weeks of my first semester of graduate school, I wanted to write a reflection on what I’ve been learning. In my program, our first year is focused on finding our counseling theoretical orientation. Existential-Humanism (EH) is the one that has really lit my fire…

What I love about EH art therapy (EHAT) so much is how well it blends with my pre-existing Relationship Anarchy (RA)- inspired worldview and the Intentional Peer Support (IPS) model I use at work. As part of my final project for my Theories of Counseling course, I decided to write a piece about these intersections.

From Existential Philosophy to Existential Psychotherapy

EH pulls from existential philosophy for its theoretical underpinnings. Specifically, it works with existential phenomenology and considers its historical pioneers to be philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. From my understanding, EH draws predominantly from the ideas of Kierkegaard and Heidegger as its foundation. Kierkegaard believed that angst, or anxiety and dread, was imperative for becoming fully human, and Heidegger believed that living a meaningful and authentic life was the best way for someone to cope with their angst (Story, 2007).

Existential psychotherapy was born from existential philosophy, largely due to the work of Frankl, May, Bugenthal, and Yalom (Story, 2007). Each of these psychotherapists played a significant role in developing the Existential psychotherapy model.

Both existential psychotherapy and EH share an assumption that there are 4 universal concerns of life:

1. Death – angst is a natural part of being aware of our mortality

2. Meaninglessness – life is without meaning until we give it meaning

3. Isolation – we are, in the existential sense, always alone

4. Freedom – the weight of our freedom can create angst

What sets EH apart from existential philosophy/psychotherapy is the added assumption that people are capable of healing and knowing themselves (Moon, 2009; Story, 2007).

The reason I think EH and RA work so well together is because of the strong emphasis on each person finding the meaning of their own life. Through this process of finding meaning, a person can heal and know themselves. When I think about the self-reflection that goes into an RA lifestyle, it feels like a similar process. Finding meaning for one’s life is like identifying one’s core relationship values.

Finding Meaning Through Adversity

EH is largely influenced by the work of Viktor Frankl, who is someone I greatly admire. A Holocaust survivor, Frankl created a school of therapy based off his experiences in the concentration camps, called logotherapy. ‘Logotherapy’ means ‘therapy through meaning,’ and operates from the assumption that finding meaning in one’s life and through one’s struggles is the path to freedom (Frankl, 1962). From my own experiences of growth-through-adversity, I find this worldview deeply moving.

My values and RA-lifestyle are a result of my own process of finding meaning through adversity. Wanting a life filled with authentic connections and intentional relationships came from painful experiences of trying to fit in the status quo and getting burned. Having experienced what it’s like to be disregarded and unseen is what motivates me to do my best to see and regard others in their authentic truth.

‘Finding meaning’ is like the final task of IPS, ‘moving toward.’ After the other tasks of ‘connection,’ ‘worldview,’ and ‘mutuality’ have been explored, a person is encouraged to find what they’re moving towards. This approach emphasizes the need to look forward at what is next, rather than looking backward or ‘away’ from. An example would be instead of saying ‘I want to stop being lazy,’ saying, ‘I want to be more productive.’

The Therapeutic Alliance – Authentic Connection

Bruce Moon, a prominent existential art therapist, uses logotherapy as the foundation for his work and expands upon it with creative action. Something I admire about his therapeutic style is how seemingly hands-off he is. His sessions are organic and fluid. There is no agenda for his clients, and he is a mutual participant in the exchange. In his book Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror (3rd ed.), he uses several case studies to describe the chapter concepts. He talks about 3 ways to be genuinely attentive with clients: (1) doing with, (2) being open to, and (3) honoring pain.

Doing With

When Moon (2009) talks about how he participates in his art therapy sessions, it sounds like how I hope to conduct mine. He stresses the importance of the art therapist maintaining their own artistic practice, and modeling therapeutic art-making from the moment the client walks into the studio. He often works on his own projects during sessions and invites conversation about his work.

I believe that it’s unethical to ask someone to do something we aren’t willing to do ourselves. The best leaders and guides are those who have gone through the depths of themselves; they are people who pull from their own experiences to provide insight and wisdom to another.

In ‘Relationships are Like Gardens,” relationships are likened to the process of creating and maintaining a garden. We are responsible for tending our own garden and if working in a community garden bed, we work alongside other gardeners. We ask what they’re planting, how their bed is developing and share our experience. We don’t tell them what to plant or how to plant it, and if someone asks our advice, we pull from our experiences of past seasons. Honoring autonomy like this is how I advocate for folks to engage with their relationships, it is how I approach my consultation and peer-support work, and this is the type of therapeutic alliance I plan to model in my practice.

Within the EH model is the belief that meaning and healing can only be found in relationship with others. This truth constantly reveals itself to me with my own struggles, and when I’m engaged with callers on the peer-support line I work with. I hear so many stories about folks feeling ‘stuck’ until a particular call or interaction with another person. Connection brings growth and can guide change or new perspective.

Being Open

Moon’s openness with his clients about the meaning and experience of his own artwork is the kind of Radical Transparency I discuss when writing about RA. I believe a professionally appropriate amount of self-disclosure is imperative to the therapeutic alliance between client and counselor, and I try to embody this in my relationship consultation and peer-support work.

In these relationship dynamics there is always a power differential. Even in my peer-support work, although the IPS model holds ‘mutuality’ as one of its 4 tasks, I am still in the paid position and am the one with the training. Being radically transparent about these dynamics is the first step toward establishing mutuality. In the art therapy setting, following the ‘seldom initiate, always respond’ model can help find balance between sharing too much and too little and allows the client to lead the discussion.

Moon (2009) says that the success of the client’s journey ultimately depends on their willingness to share their story with the counselor. By being open and responding to, the counselor allows space for the client to grow in trust. By allowing for self-disclosure, the power-differential becomes less-so. This model provides non-judgmental acceptance and honors the client’s autonomous self by avoiding agendas.

Honoring Pain

*“The Patriarchy Has Major Side Effects” (2021)*

I think this may be the most important of the three ways to reach authentic connection in EH. Suffering is a universal experience among humans, although it looks and feels different for each person. Those who’ve experienced significant pain (and healed from it) tend to be the most empathetic toward others’ suffering. In order to truly honor another’s pain, one must honor their own pain first.

IPS talks about ‘sitting with the discomfort’ when providing support. This means that when someone comes to us with their pain, we don’t try to diminish it or fix it. We sit with them in it. Moon (2009) talks about a similar process in EHAT, saying that less pain is a side effect of therapy, not the goal. Instead of trying to make the client feel better, the art therapist’s task is to help them understand their pain and discover the meanings of their suffering.

My ‘Theories of Counseling’ professor is an EH therapist. When discussing this part of the process, he said: “I can’t take your pain away, but I’m here with you every step through it,” (J. Rock, existential-humanism, October 18, 2022). To me, this is compassion in its highest form and is what I strive to embody in every relationship I have.

I think about the sometimes-uncomfortable space when honoring another’s autonomy and honoring my boundaries may cause conflict. In rule-based relationship structures, one might hold another accountable for solving their discomfort by forcing them into action or inaction. In RA, each person is held accountable for their feelings, and action falls on each person to do what they need for their wellness and safety in a way that doesn’t impede another’s autonomy. Sometimes that means changing relationship agreements, sometimes it means changing an internal belief. Similarly, in EHAT, the therapist doesn’t take on the client’s pain, but sits with them while they work through it themselves.

EHAT Across Cultures

One of the most beautiful things about EHAT is how adaptable it is across various cultures. Something I’ve noticed in my studies is how most counseling theories are difficult to adapt outside the Western-European ideology.

Although EHAT originates from the ideas of Western-European, cishet men, the open-ended views of this perspective encourage adaptation from other backgrounds. Across different cultures who use EH/EHAT, the methods look very different, but the core beliefs are still the same. There is not one right way to ‘be with’ a client, just as there’s not one specific definition of what ‘suffering’ is or what the meaning of one’s suffering is meant to look like. Embedded in this theory is the idea that everyone must decide these details for themselves.

This may sound very individualistic, and in some ways because of its Western-European roots I think it does, but the emphasis on growth through relationship with others opens these ideas up to collectivist interpretations. EHAT is about the process rather than the techniques, making it very open for adaptation (Story, 2007).

Translating EHAT into my RA work feels like a seamless process given these intersections between the two worldviews. For me, RA is based in Radical Transparency, Radical Acceptance, honoring autonomy, authentic relating, and personal accountability. EHAT bolsters these beliefs by emphasizing mutuality and authenticity in the therapeutic alliance.

EHAT encourages a client-led practice where the therapist responds more than they initiate; the therapist is there to facilitate a process, not implement a program or series of techniques. The word ‘existential,’ can make this orientation seem unappealing to some, but I find it to be the most natural therapeutic orientation I’ve learned about so far.

Helpful Resources:

Frankl, V. E. (1962). Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mikayla. (2018, September 11). Relationships are like gardens. Medium. https://medium.com/@mmmikayla/relationships-can-be-like-gardens-98827d8dfdfa

Moon, B. L. (2009). Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror (3rd. ed.). C. C. Thomas.

Story, M. L. (2007). Existential art therapy. Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal, 20(2), 22-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/08322473.2007.11434771

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Intentional Peer Support (IPS) official website

The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy — Andie Nordgren

— written by Emily Lichtenberg

Amelia Lichtenberg 4/29/22 Amelia Lichtenberg 4/29/22

Re-learning Trust as Someone With C-PTSD

Trigger Warning: Discussing C-PTSD & trauma triggers from a firsthand perspective.

Trust is such an important facet of any healthy relationship – especially in relationships that practice Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM). As I further my own practice in cultivating long-term partnerships while simultaneously retaining Relationship Anarchy ideals, I regularly come back to the concept of trust and how it fits in to various aspects of authentic relating.

Trigger Warning: Discussing C-PTSD & trauma triggers from a firsthand perspective.

I find one of the hardest parts about building and maintaining healthy, lasting relationships is my hypervigilance around betrayal. Throughout my life I experienced “betrayal trauma,” which is specific trauma that is caused by another person, typically by someone we are close to. For me, it was a combination of growing up learning that trusting others was dangerous, and experiences in adulthood I had with deception and betrayal in close, intimate relationships.

These past traumas find their way into my system at various moments in my core partnership, sometimes triggered by an external circumstance, but often they show up unannounced, unwelcomed, and without context.

For me, this makes it hard to uphold the Relationship Anarchy Manifesto’s principle: “Trust is Better.”

What is Trust?

I decided to research how trauma affects one’s ability to trust, and provide strategies for navigating healing from relational trauma, learning to trust again, and re-building skills to branch trust outward.

I started by examining the definition of “trust,” and looked at some studies that focused on the relationship between one’s level of betrayal trauma and one’s ability to trust.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), trust can be defined as:

“(n) reliance on or confidence in the dependability of someone or something.”

APA defines trust further in a relational context as:

“…the confidence that a person or group of people has in the reliability of another person or group; specifically, it is the degree to which each party feels they can depend on the other party to do what they say they will do...”

I find it important to acknowledge that by this definition, trust does not refer to a person’s inherent goodness, but refers to the consistency of a person’s behavior patterns. For me, taking ethics out of the equation and focusing on behavior helps me navigate my own patterns and issues with trusting without a lot of self-judgment.

When Trust is Damaged

In a 2013 study at the University of Oregon, Gobin & Freyd examined how betrayal trauma might impact a person’s ability to trust in a “Trust Game” environment. In the Trust Game, participants were asked to transfer money to another person, in exchange for getting the same amount of money back. The recipient was actually a computer system which was programmed to return $1 regardless of the amount received. The study used self-report survey measures to gauge the participants’ general and relational trust, and the Trust Game task measured differences in choices between those with and without betrayal trauma.

The study found that the more severe the betrayal trauma was, the less likely a person was to report high measures of general or relational trust. The researchers were surprised to find that participants with high betrayal trauma were no less likely to participate in the Trust Game than the participants with low betrayal trauma.

Another 2018 study examined the relationship between trust and participants with PTSD, using a similar “Trust Game” set up. In this study, Bell et al. noticed that the participants who suffered from PTSD made lower-risk choices than the control group, but still made effort to participate, nonetheless.

These studies reflect aspects of my own experience as a person living with C-PTSD. I struggle to trust deeply, but my desire to try and build trust is also strong.

PTSD and Interpersonal Trauma

Betrayal Trauma Theory (BTT), first coined by Jennifer Freyd in 1994, states that those who suffer from betrayal trauma are likely to dissociate from the trauma in order to preserve the relationship, usually for survival purposes. When betrayal trauma happens in childhood, usually with a caregiver, this dissociation is likely to affect adulthood relationship choices. Those with more severe childhood betrayal trauma are more likely to struggle with recognizing trustworthiness or -unworthiness in others. This causes the survivor to experience more trauma in adulthood.

As someone who lives with C-PTSD, trust is one of the hardest things for me to navigate. In earlier years, I struggled with trusting the right people. My sense of “safe” and “unsafe” were so skewed by years of adapting to dangerous environments that I continued choosing friends and partners who reflected this instability. This only led to more traumatic experiences.

When I finally decided to take my healing seriously, I allowed myself to recognize that I could not trust myself when it came to knowing who was healthy or not. I dedicated time to reflect on past friendships and relationships to find threads and signals I could have recognized earlier in getting to know them. I started paying attention to how my body reacted around certain cues and situations.

I came to the revelation that more times than not, my body knew the right choice about someone right away. It was my mind that stopped trusting my intuition. When I started intentionally listening to my gut reactions, I noticed that I started making better choices in friends and beloveds. Seeing this change in my community inspired me to feel safe enough to begin exploring deeper levels of trust with others again.

Rebuilding Trust

After “recalibrating my sensors,” I began developing loving, healthy relationships with trustworthy people. During this time, I discovered Relationship Anarchy and began internalizing it as a core part of my relating philosophy.

I started this practice with a Solo-Poly structure because I needed to focus on myself as “primary.” Even though I am now cohabiting with a partner, I still believe that I am my own first priority. Taking on this perspective, and living alone at the time, helped me learn how to trust and confide in myself, first.

This went well for a while, and I felt strong and secure in my ability to trust and love until I began cohabiting with my core partner. For me, cohabitation is a huge source of trauma triggers as my most traumatic events happened with people I lived with.

Although my core partner is an amazing and trustworthy person, my nervous system activated at the slightest things. This is one reason we have taken a “time out” on outer relationships, to stabilize and ground together without extra distraction or activation.

This experience is teaching me that trust has many layers. I can completely trust my partner to be transparent with me, to treat me with respect and love, however, I still struggle to fully trust that my home is stable and safe, now that I’m not in full control of that environment.

So, this is where my next area of trust focus is. Again, I am starting with myself – feeling safe in my space within the home, feeling safe within myself in our shared spaces, and feeling that this is *my* home, too. Only after fortifying myself, do I then lean into trust exercises about my partner.

Helpful Strategies to Re-learn Trust

Something I’m learning as I continue to deepen with my core partner is that rebuilding trust skills takes a lot of time and work. I must teach my nerves that I’m safe in my new home. Safety outside of aloneness is an unfamiliar sensation for me, so it takes constant reminding for myself, a lot of transparency, and co-regulation with my core partner.

Rebuilding trust after betrayal trauma requires community and safe space. Here is a list of things that help me during this process:

Guided Meditation – Tara Brach
Taking time to learn someone’s patterns (instead of decided to fully give or deny trust immediately)
Learning how to recognize and trust my intuition (for me, it’s a body feeling)
Learning how to reflect on where I have been right and wrong in trust-giving in the past WITHOUT JUDGMENT
Healthy co-regulation with my core partner and/or trusted friends/beloveds
Safe space to be transparent about feelings that are coming up for me in a moment
- Ex: my bedroom is a safe space
Seeing a therapist who specializes in PTSD/C-PTSD treatment
- For me, EMDR therapy specifically
“Quieting” the environment by taking away extra factors that cause triggering
- Listening to a 24/7 Meditation Music channel in the background can also help
Developing solo rituals that I enjoy to calm my nerves
- Ex: taking a bath, drinking tea & reading a good book, etc.
Allowing my process to take its time (not rushing things)

Healthy co-regulation with my core partner or trusted friends helps me learn skills to internalize into self-regulation during moments of activation. Sometimes I find it helpful to think of myself as a friend or client that I’m giving advice to.

Hopefully some of these strategies and insights are helpful for you, or someone you love. Sending wishes to you all!

— written by Amelia Lichtenberg