The need for connection dates back to prehistoric times. For our earliest ancestors human emotional connection meant survival. Connection meant a better chance of safety and less stress.
As infants we depend on our caretakers in order to live. We can not feed and protect ourselves yet. Abandonment meant we were not safe. Abandonment is a primal fear. In our little minds if we were abandoned we would die. And even though we didn’t die we perceive it as a traumatic experience and store it that way in our memory, mind, and body.
Abuse doesn’t have to be physical, verbal, or sexual. It can be emotional. Emotional abuse leads to psychological trauma creating anxiety, depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of the time our primary care takers whether it be our mother, father, or grandparents do not realize they are doing this. It’s a pattern. And this type of trauma can be passed down for generations.
People often wonder why they see themselves in the same types of relationships that their parents had. Or why we continue to attract and date the same type of people that we so desperately do not want to attract. It’s because that’s what we are comfortable with. That is the type of relationship we already know how to be in. It feels normal. Often times we attract the same type of person that left us with this abandonment wound in hopes that we can now heal it, and prove we are worthy of love. And then when it doesn’t happen that wound has opened up all over again. We feel alone and rejected once again.
What is abandonment?
When a significant person in your life discards you, dismisses you, devalues, or does not acknowledge you. That is abandonment.I’m going to throw out some feeling words to describe how someone with an abandonment wound might feel.
- NEGLECTED
- IGNORED
- UNLOVABLE
- UNWORTHY
- THAT YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH
- EMPTY
- INVISIBLE
- BEING THROWN AWAY
- NOT BELONGING
- REJECTED
An abandonment wound doesn’t mean that someone had to physically abandon you either. There are many different ways it can be created. Every person is different and we perceive things differently. What one person might think isn’t so bad could be horrifying to the next. No ones wound is more important or powerful over another persons. I’m going to list some different scenarios that can cause an abandonment wound.
TYPES OF ABANDONMENT
- An aloneness not by choice
- An experience from childhood
- A narcissist parent
- A feeling of isolation within a relationship
- An intense feeling of devastation when a relationship ends
- Being put up for adoption
- Adopted or not knowing your birth parents
- A divorce
- A workaholic parent who is never home
- An alcoholic parent or parent that is an addict
- A mother leaving her children
- A father leaving his children
- A child whose pet dies
- Death of a parent
- A little child wanting their mommy to come pick them up from nursery school
- A child who feels replaced by the birth of another sibling
- Emotionally unavailable parents
- A woman who has raised now-grown children feeling empty
- A child with a serious illness watching his friends play and grow up.
- Loss of a job
When a parent is absent or emotionally unavailable/ immature, they are self-preoccupied and uncomfortable with their own needs. They may become nervous and angry if a child becomes upset. Punishing them instead of comforting. A lot of us as children were shown that our BIG EMOTIONS like sadness and anger were not okay. So we learned to hide and suppress them.Which is very unhealthy.
How an abandonment wound can show up in life
- A child who experiences distress will do whatever necessary to get some kind of connection with the parent. Even act out.
- Learn to put other peoples needs before their own.
- Have Anxiety Attachment Issues
- Have Avoidant Attachment Issues
- Are able to convince others they have few emotional needs of their own.
- Eager to grow up fast.
- Often settle for emotional lonliness in relationships because it feels normal to them.
- Those who lacked emotional engagement in childhood often can’t believe someone would want to have a relationship with them just because who they are.
- Breaking up with a person first to avoid being left in the end.
- Believe if they want closeness they have to play a role that puts the other first.
- Grow up expecting to get neglect and rejection from others just as they did in the past.
- A need for love and connection, but never seeming to get it.
- Repeated Patterns in relationships
- Love addiction (its a real thing look it up)
- Resort to quick fixes and the need to satisfy something NOW. Instant gratification
- Addictions to numb out the core feelings (drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, video games, binge watching tv)
- Convinced you would be bothering others if you made your needs known to them
- No boundaries
- Very low self esteem
- Career Issues
- PTSD, Depression, Anxiety
how to heal
If you have an abandonment wound then you are deeply hurt. The only way to get through it is to grieve and feel through those feelings. Sometimes the best time to do this is when that wound has been re-opened from a loss or breakup.I invite you to dig deep and uncover what has been hurting you. Why you numb out your pain or cover it up with distractions and addictions. It isn’t an easy process, but you will be a new person. I leave you with some different methods on dealing and healing the abandonment wound. The majority of people have some kind of abandonment wound. You are not alone.
- Write a letter to the person you are feeling abandoned by. Don’t really give it to them. This is to express and process your feelings, and to let it all out. If you are angry get mad. If you are sad tell them and maybeeven cry a little… or a lot.
- Write in a journal about everything you are feeling. Just notice and feel.
- Do Shadow Work ( I will have a post on this later on)
- Avoid numbing agents… things that make you not feel such as alcohol, marijuana, drugs, video games, tv shows, obsessive eating) At least set a time period that you do this so that you can reflect and really feel how you are feeling.
- Therapy
- Sommatic Experiencing
- Yoga Nidra
- Therapy Groups
- Books: Book List for the Abandonment Wound.
- Inner child talk: This is where you visualize you as an adult and coming up to the inner little you, the child you who was abandoned, to now give them what you did not. To parent them and show them love. Have a conversation with them. It sounds cheesy but it really works.
It's a process. You will get where you need to be but you are where you need to be now. the universe supports you
Mary Fairchild
I’ve been trying to pin point some the emotions that I keep having that turn a moment that I am having with my man into an episode of frustration and hurt and then anger, I just came across this while trying to calm down and I can totally say this fits me deeply to the core. I thank you for writing all this and look forward to more.
THEMINDMUZE
Thanks so much for your comment Mary and I am glad you could find something that relates. I hope that identifying with it will help you heal <3 Sending Good vibes your Way!