Laura, Shh and Tracy,

Beautiful support and stories of recovery efforts!

PTC,

Courageous and determined exploration of your process, even when it's frustrating.

Creating structure gives you stability and helps you cope with disruptive separations.

In addition, you can eplore the many benefits of transitional objects - without, of course, going over the top with them.

We all know about "bankies" and teddy bears foryoung  children as they cope with going to sleep at night and deaing with the separation from light to dark and separation from caregivers to being alone in bed.

But adults have transitional objects to help them cope with separation.  In fact, a case can be made that every item in your life is a transitional object because it connects you to something else.

Gifts from people or photos of them are transitional objects.  So are songs they liked or a favorite food of their that you notice on the shelves in the grocery store. 

We create a kind of lattice network that connects us emotionally or spiritually or intellectually to what has meaning for us.

I remember man years ago, clearing out my garage that was packed like an old attic with furniture I didn't use anymore.  I came to the realization that these large objects were all transitional objects and that was why I stored them instead of passing them on. 

That was a great realization. Now I make an effort to keep my transitional objects small.  :)
A piece of jewelry or photgraph or book or crystal works just as well as a chair, as long as I can feel the connection that comes through the object.

How about you?