How To Survive Separation Anxiety The Right Way

I had read about separation anxiety in my parenting books, but how bad could it really be?

My son was five months old and, frankly, I needed a full night’s sleep!

I was foolish enough then to think I was some super mom doing everything right because my son always seemed content. We were inseparable his first five months, mostly because I was scared to death something would happen to him if I was gone from him for any length of time.

But five months of little sleep were taking its toll on me. He had to be put in his own bed.

After rocking him and singing for several minutes, I decided to see how my new plan was going to go. I laid him down in his crib.

I didn’t have to wonder how this would go for long. His little bottom lip started to quiver as he sucked air into his mouth before letting out the most pitiful scream. I wondered at that moment if I could go through with this at all.

I sat outside of his room on the floor, just out of his sight. Both of us were sobbing. He didn’t know that I was right there, just out of his field of vision. I was distressed over his fear of me not being there. I could hardly bear the thought of my baby thinking I had abandoned him.

Facing the inevitable

My young son was just thirteen months old when I gave birth to his sister. Sure enough, both with her and our third baby who followed two and a half years later, I could come to expect the inevitable. Between the ages of seven and ten months, each of my children invited me into the excruciating world of separation anxiety.

It seemed that each one of them picked a twenty-four hour period to turn from an infant who would go to anyone to a sobbing, hysterical bundle of fear who would cling to me for dear life. What made these episodes so distressing to me was that I could never gauge when they were going to happen. The familiar routine of getting both of us dressed, fed, and putting my child in a car seat became something I began to dread knowing what I was going to have to go through at our destination.

The counterintuitive way to build trust

It was never my intention to be cruel to my babies. My children needed to be able to be by themselves and realize I would return. But it broke my heart to hear their pitiful screams and loud gasps for breath between sobs as I would stand just out of the line of their vision. The only way I could develop trust in me with each of them was to leave them for a short period of time and return when I said I would.

There have been times when I have become hysterical over God’s “absence” in my life. I have been so distraught that I have not been able to settle down and find peace. I have chosen to believe I have been abandoned by Him, even though His promise to me is that He will never leave me or forsake me.

Slowly, so very slowly, I have gained enough trust in His character to know that I am believing a lie when I feel like He is gone. I am beginning to realize, little by little, that although I may not feel His presence today, He is here. My Jesus has never deserted me.

But He has required me to grow in my trust of Him in ways that I do not always like.

I realize that separation anxiety is something every child must go through in order to trust her Daddy. My heavenly Father always reveals that He was there all along, even when I could not see Him.

How to survive separation anxiety the right way

So what do we do when we cannot feel God’s presence, when He is out of sight, and we feel abandoned

Three survival tips:

1) Record His faithfulness to you in the past.

I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. Psalm 77:11 (NIV)

When we are going through a time of feeling separated or abandoned by the Lord, we can easily forget all the ways He has been faithful to us. The time to write down the wonderful things that He has done for us is WHEN THEY HAPPEN.

• Write a note on your smart phone right after He has done something to remind you of His love, provision, or mercy to you.
• Or do it old school and write those times down in a special journal, notebook, or file.
• Keep a file on your desktop on your computer and name it “God’s Faithfulness.”

No matter which way you choose to record His faithfulness, the goal is to keep a record that is easily accessible to remind you that because He was faithful in the past, He will be faithful now–regardless of your emotions.

2) Ask Him to not let you miss what He is trying to teach you.

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11 (NIV)

We must change the question we ask so many times during our season of separation anxiety from, “Why, Lord?” to “What do You want me to learn from this, Lord?”

Romans 8:28 makes this unconditional promise to us:

 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)

 

Eventually, the process got much easier. My children grew to understand that I had not abandoned them during our separations. I would always return. I started noticing that the security of that knowledge allowed them to relax from the anxiety that had made them hysterical at first. I would walk back into the room later on to find them happily playing with no sign of tears, although they hugged my neck as if never to let me go. My middle daughter would do a happy dance in my arms, throw her own arms around me, and lay her head down on my shoulder as she squeezed my neck. Then she’d raise her head up, look me in the eyes, grin widely, and do the whole thing over again.

God is not being cruel! He is trying to change us into becoming more like His Son.

 

And if I feel abandoned today, I will choose to believe the truth: That my Jesus will never leave me or forsake me.

Jesus, thank You that in You is no darkness at all. Thank You that Your intent in a trial I face is always to have me grow in my trust in You. Thank You that You have never left me, even when my eyes have not been able to see You in my situation.