- Acoustic -

A child's perception of a parent leaving is typically traumatic at first as they have to adjust their understanding that the parent is in fact coming back. As a pattern develops, the child matures in their understanding that when a parent leaves, they are indeed coming back. When you hear people reference separation anxiety, this would be an example of how a child is forced to rationalize this, and it can appear very traumatic.

Speaking from first hand experience, when I would deploy in the Marine Corps, I might be gone for a week or a month. Upon my return, my wife and I were happy to see each other. My absence from my wife and my wife from me certainly made our hearts long for one another. But this is a more mature version of pleasure and pain, and the way in which we cope with the pain of absence is having what I term as perspective (or understanding) that the loved one is coming back.

I do not know if I explained this very eloquently, but hope this helps explain my perspective.

Pleasure can bring its own pain though. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. The pain of absence is as a direct result of the cessation of pleasure. Could not change be brought about by this pain, caused through pleasure being experienced in the first instance?

I can see several avenues to change by this agent, that may be as radical as change brought about through pain alone.

Catchya later