There is a picture of me, somewhere out there, probably still on my dad’s phone unless they’ve turned into Christmas Card people, in which case, the picture is most definitely out there in the world for all to see.
I hope it is not.
I didn’t see the picture until I was 5 months sober, staying in the unfinished basement at my parents house, grateful that I was no longer homeless, while I hunted for a job. Before this, I’d been staying there after a stint at a ramshackle, rundown motel, the kind of place you probably could dismantle a dead body, leave the head on the pillow, and no one would think anything of it. But it was my room, and despite the lice they gifted me, I loved it. Until money dried up and suddenly I was, once again, homeless. I’d moved in there after I was discharged from the inpatient psych ward, in which I was able to successfully detox after a suicide attempt. Got some free ECT to boot.
(WINNING)
Despite what you see on the After School Special’s of our childhood, I didn’t take a single Vicodin, fall into a stupor, and become insta-addict – just add narcotics! No, my entry into addiction was a slow and steady downward spiral of which I am deeply ashamed. It’s left my brain full of wreckage and ruin, fragmented bits of my life that don’t follow a single pattern. Between the opiates, the Ketamine, and the ECT, I cannot even be certain that what I am telling you is the truth; what I’ve gathered are bits and pieces of the addict I so desperately hate from other people who are around, fuzzy recollections, and my own social media posts.
About a year and a half before I moved from my yellow house to the apartments by the river, Dave and I had separated; he’d told me that while he cared for me, he no longer loved me. While we lived in the same house, we’d had completely separate lives for years, so he moved to the basement while I stayed upstairs. I’d been miserable before his confession and after? I was nearly broken. Using the Vicodin, then Norco, I was able to numb my pain and get out of my head, which, while remarkably stupid, was effective. For awhile.
Let me stop you, Dear Reader, and ask you to keep what I am about to say in mind as you read through this massive tome. I’m simply trying to make certain that you understand several key things about my addiction and subsequent recovery. I alone was the one who chose to take the drugs. No one forced me to abuse opiates, and even later, (SPOILER ALERT) Ketamine. This isn’t a post about blaming others for my misdoings, rejecting any accountability, nor making any excuses for the stupid, awful things I’ve done. I alone fucked up. My addiction was my own fault. However, in the same vein, no one “saved” me but myself. There was no cheeky interventionist. No room full of people who loved me weeping stoically, telling me how my addiction hurt them. No letters. Nothing. It was just me. I was alone, and I chose to get – and remain – sober.
The delusions started when I moved out, sitting in my empty apartment alone, paralyzed by the thought of getting off the couch to go to the bathroom. Always a night-owl, I’d wake at some ungodly hour of the morning, shaking. It wasn’t withdrawal, no, it was pure unfettered anxiety.
It was the aftermath of using so many pills, all the fun you think you’re having comes back to bite you with crippling anxiety and depression.
Which is why I’d do more.
Yes, opiates are powerful, and yes, I abused them, but things really didn’t become dire until I added Ketamine to my life.
Ketamine, if you’re unaware, is a club drug, a horse tranquilizer, and a date rape drug. You use too much? You may wake up at some hipster coffee bar, trying to sing “You’re Having My Baby” to the dude in the front row who may or may not actually exist. In other words, it’s the best way to forget how fucked you are.
The delusions worsen as time passed. I could see into the future. I could read your mind. I was going to be famous. I was super fucking rich. In this fucked-up world, I could even forget about me, and the life that I’d so carelessly shattered. I remember sitting in Divorce Class at the courthouse, something required of all divorces in Kane County, weeping at all that I’d thrown away – using a total of three boxes of the low-quality, government tissues. I left with a shiny pink face and completely chapped nose and eyes that appeared to be making a break from their sockets. I went home, took some pills, took some Ketamine, and passed out.
I retreated ever-inward. I didn’t talk to many people. I didn’t share my struggles. I was alone, and it was my fault.
The hallucinations started soon after Divorce Class ended and my ex and I split up. He’d left my house in a rage after a fight and went to live with his sister. I got scared. His temper, magnified by the drugs, the hallucinations, and the delusions, grew increasingly frightening. Once he’d moved out, the attacks began. I’d wake up naked in my bedroom, my body sore and bruised, and my brain put the two unrelated events together as one – he was attacking me. It happened every few days, these “attacks,” until I found myself at the police station, reporting them. I was dangerously sick and I had no idea.
My friends on the Internet (those whom I had left), sent me money for surveillance cameras. I bought them, installed them – trying to capture the culprit – and when I saw what I saw, I immediately called the police and told them the culprit.
The videos in my bedroom captured an incredibly stoned, dead-eyed, version of myself, violently attacking myself, brutally tearing at my flesh. In particular, THAT me liked to beat my face with one of my prized possessions – a candlestick set from our wedding, take another pill or hit up some Ketamine, then violating myself with the candlestick. It lasted hours. I’d wake up with no memory of events, sore and tired and unsure of how I’d gotten there.
I’d never engaged in self-injury before – not once – so the very idea that I’d hurt myself was unbelievable, but right there, on my grainy old laptop, was proof of how unhinged I’d become. Charged with filing a false report, I plead guilty.
In early September of 2015, I decided to get fixed, and made arrangements with work to take a few weeks off to do an inpatient detox, and, for the first time in a long time, I woke up happily, rather than cursing the gods that I was still alive.
It was to be short-lived.
Several days later, sober, I was idly chatting with my neighbor about her upcoming vacation (funny the things your brain remembers and what it does not), standing by my screen door, when karma came calling. It sounded like the shucking noise of an ear of corn, or maybe the sound that a huge thing of broccoli makes when you rip it apart – hard. It felt like a bullet to the femur. I crumpled on top of my neighbor and began screaming wildly about calling an ambulance, yelling over and over like some perverse, yet truthful, Chicken Little: “my leg is broken, my LEG is broken!”
I don’t remember much after that. I woke up in (physical rehab) and learned that my femur (hereafter to be called my “Blasfemur,”) had broken, fairly high up on the bone, where the biggest, strongest bone in your body is at its peak of strength. Whaaaa?
The doctors and nurses shrugged it off my questions, with a flippant “It just happens” and sent me home, armed with a Norco prescription, in November, to heal. I added the Ketamine, just to make sure.
A couple of weeks later at the end of November, I was putting up the Christmas tree with the kids and my mother. It was all merry and fucking bright until I sat down on the couch and felt that familiar crunch. Screams came out of me I didn’t know were possible, but I’d lost my actual words. My mother stood over me yelling “what’s wrong? what’s wrong?” and I couldn’t find the words. I overheard her telling my babies that I was “probably just faking it” as she walked out the door, my screams fading into an ice cold silence. They left me alone in that apartment where I screamed and cried and screamed. Finally, I managed to call 911 and when they asked me questions, all I could scream was my address.
I woke up in January in a nursing home. When I woke up, I found myself sitting at a table in a vast dining room, full of old people. For weeks to come, I thought that I’d died and gone…wherever it is that you go.
This time, I learned, my (blas)femur and it’s associated hardware had become infected after the first surgery, which weakened the bone, causing it to snap like a tree. They put me all back together like the bionic woman, but the surgery had introduced the wee colony of Strep D in the bone into my bloodstream, creating an infection on meth. I’d been in a coma for weeks. Once again, I learned to walk, and once again, I was sent home in late January with another Norco prescription. The nursing home really wanted me to have someone stay with me to help out, but I insisted that I was fine alone. In truth, I had nobody to help me out, but was far too ashamed to tell them.
The picture I referenced above was taken some time in May, as far as my fuzzy memory allows me to remember, after my third femur fracture in March. This time, I’d been so high that I fell asleep on the toilet and rolled off. Glamorous, no? Just like Fat Elvis. Luckily, my eldest son was there and he called 911 and my parents to whisk him away. I remember my father on the phone, telling Ben that I was a liar and I was faking it. I was swept away in the ambulance for even more hardware, and finally? A diagnosis:
HypoPARAthyroidism.
It’s an autoimmune disease that leaches calcium from the bones, resulting in brittle bones. It is managed, not treated. There is no cure.
But, I had the answer. Finally.
After my third fracture, I once again was sent to the nursing home, and quickly discharged with even higher doses of Norco, when my insurance balked, I’d used up all my rehab days for the year. By this time, I’d lost my apartment, my stuff was in storage (except the things that we’re thrown away, which my father gloated about while I was flat on my back) and my parents let me stay with them, which was about the only option I had. They couldn’t really kick me out if my leg was only freshly attached. I feel deeper into a depression, self-loathing, and drug abuse as I realized what a mess I’d made with my life. How many bad choices I’d made. How many people I’d hurt. How much I’d hurt myself. How much I loathed myself. How I once had a life that in no way resembled sleeping in my parents dining room. How I’d been a home owner. How I’d been married. How lucky I’d been. How I threw it all away. My life turned into a series of “once did” and “used to.”
The only one who hated me more was my father.
While we were once close confidants, in the years after my marriage to Dave, his disdain had become palpable. My uncle had to intervene one Christmas, after my father mocked me incessantly for taking a temp job filling out gift cards while I was pregnant with Alex. It may seem normal to some of you, this behavior, but in THEIR house, NO ONE was EVER SAD and NOTHING was EVER WRONG. WASPs to the core, my family is.
When I moved back in, broken, dejected, and high, our fights became epic. For the first time in my life, I stood UP to one of my parents. Then, I was promptly kicked out.
Guess I’m not so WASPy after all.
I want to say that the picture was taken around May of 2016, but my estimate may be thoroughly skewed, so if you’re counting on dates being correct and cohesive, you’ve got the wrong girl.
This is a picture of me, though you probably wouldn’t recognize me. I am wearing the blue scrubs that you associate with a hospital: not exactly sky blue, not teal, not navy, just generic blue hospital scrubs. These are, I remember, the only clothes I have to my name. I was given them in both the hospital and the nursing home, a gift, I suppose, of being a frequent flier, tinged with a bit of pity – this girl has no clothes, we can help. Whomever gave them to me, know that you gave me a bit of dignity, which I will never forget. Thank you.
I am wearing scrubs, the light of the refrigerator is slowly bleaching out half of my now-enormous body, as opposed to the darkness outside. There is a tube of fat around my neck, nearly destroying any evidence of my face, but if you look closely, you can make out my glasses, my nostrils, my hair cascading down. My neck is stretched back at nearly a 90 degree angle from my body, my head listlessly resting on the back of my wheelchair. My mouth gaped wide, which, should I been engaging in fly catching, would have netted far more than the average Venus flytrap. I am clearly, unmistakably, and without a single shred of doubt, passed the fuck out.
It is both me and not me.
High as i was, I don’t remember a thing about the photo being taken. But there I was, in all my pixelated glory.
By the time I saw the photo, I was once again in my “will do” and “can do” space. I’d kicked drugs in September 2016 and had found a job that I enjoyed. I stayed with my parents while I began to sort out my medical debt and save toward a new car and an apartment of my own. My spirits were high, my depression finally abated to the background, and I was tentatively happy. I’d apologized until my throat was sore, but my fragmented memory saved me from the worst of it, but I was not forgiven. I don’t think I ever expected to be. And now, I never will.
It’s okay. I can’t expect this. I know I fucked up.
My father, who’d actually grown increasingly disdainful of me, the more sober and well I became, confronted me when I came home one day after work, preparing to do my AFTER work, work.
My mother shuffled along behind him, Ben, the caboose. All three of them were in hysterics, tears rolling down their cheeks as I sat down in my normal spot on the couch. After showing them a video of two turtles humping a couple of days before, I eagerly waited to see what they were showing me.
What it was was that picture. Of the not me, me.
They could hardly contain their laughter, my father happier than ever, braying, “Isn’t this the best picture of you?” and “You PASSED OUT, (heave, heave) IN FRONT OF THE FRIDGE!” punctuated, with “I’m going to frame this picture!” The tears welled in my eyes while my teeth clenched, they laughed even harder at my reaction.
Like I said, if they’ve become Christmas Card sending people, this will be the picture of me they show, expecting others to laugh uproariously. Before I moved out, in fact, my father made certain to show the picture to anyone who came over. “Wanna see something hilarious?” he’d ask. Expecting memes or a funny cat playing the piano, they’d agree. I could see it when they saw it, my dad chortling with laughter, nearly choking on his giggles, the looks on their faces: a mixture of confusion and pity. Even in my drug-hazed “glory,” I’d never felt so low.
Maybe that picture is splashed all over the internet, in the dark recesses I don’t explore, and maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s hung on their wall, replacing all of the other pictures. Maybe it’s not.
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Many people struggling with intense feelings of unmet needs are experiencing emotional abandonment, which is something that stems from a dysfunctional childhood. While most people consider “abandonment” to be the physical act of leaving someone or something behind, emotional abandonment is a more nebulous feeling of things being not-quite-right.
It should be noted that emotional abandonment has very little to do with proximity to another person – someone sitting next to you can very easily abandon you emotionally when you’re not connecting and getting your needs met.
Those who struggle with abandonment are afraid of being alone and may believe they are destined to be alone. Their unfulfilled relationships are often filled with insecurity and fear. Further, fear of abandonment often leads to actual abandonment through a self-fulfilling prophesy. Insecurity and self-doubt are often just symptoms of deeper-seated issues.
When children are raised with chronic loss, without the psychological or physical protection they need and certainly deserve, it is most natural for them to internalize incredible fear. Not receiving the necessary psychological or physical protection equals abandonment. And, living with repeated abandonment experiences creates toxic shame. Shame arises from the painful message implied in abandonment: “You are not important. You are not of value.” This is the pain from which people need to heal.
For some children abandonment is primarily physical.
Physical abandonment occurs when the physical conditions necessary for thriving have been replaced by:
lack of appropriate supervision
inadequate provision of nutrition and meals
inadequate clothing, housing, heat, or shelter
physical and/or sexual abuse
Children are totally dependent on caretakers to provide safety in their environment. When they do not, they grow up believing that the world is an unsafe place, that people are not to be trusted, and that they do not deserve positive attention and adequate care.
What Are The Types of Abandonment?
Emotional abandonment occurs when parents do not provide the emotional conditions and the emotional environment necessary for healthy development. Emotional abandonment is defined as “occurring when a child has to hide a part of who he or she is in order to be accepted, or to not be rejected.”
It is easier to talk about family relationships now than it used to be. However, when you’ve had to cope with an absent parent who abandoned the family home for whatever reason, you also have to contend with a definition of something which is indescribable.
Often, when someone is asked about their parent they can only hesitate, lower their gaze and respond vaguely with excuses. This clearly demonstrates the difficulty in defining the emotional vacuum and dealing with the scars left in us by abandonment.
In this regard we should highlight that there are many types of abandonment. In fact, we could speak of as many types as there are cases in the world. These are some of the most common ones:
1)) The emotionally absent but physically present parent. If we pay attention to the socio-emotional reality of our environment, we will understand that this type of upbringing has been very common over the years.
2) The parent that abandoned us before, during and after childhood. The pain of being physically and emotionally abandoned by choice by our reference figures sows significant seeds in our process of growing up. It is difficult to handle the reality you have to live with in this case. Because… how do you assimilate the fact that someone who should accompany you for many years of your life chooses to distance him/herself from you in some way?
3) The parent who abandoned us physically or emotionally during our youth or adulthood. This type of abandonment will most probably be branded as betrayal. It therefore needs to be processed verbally with a lot of awareness.
4) The almost total absence of a parental figure. In this case there are several possibilities:
The parent who died early and didn’t have the opportunity to play their role in our life.
The parent who died but who we knew first. In this scenario, longing and idealization will create a characteristic hole.
What Is The Difference Between Physical And Emotional Abandonment?
Children are completely dependent upon their caretakers to provide a save environment, and if their caretakers fail to provide such an environment, they grow up believing the following:
The world is an unsafe place
Nobody should be trusted
They do not deserve love or care.
Some children grow in a primarily physically abandoned state; which happens when the physical needs for growth and survival are replaced by the following:
Lack of appropriate supervision
Physical and/sexual child abuse
Improper food, clothing, house, heat or shelter.
Improper providing of food, nutrition and meals.
Emotional Abandonment, on the other hand, occurs when caretakers don’t provide the emotional support and environment needed for a child to grow and thrive. This is often described as being raised in an environment in which a child has to hide part of him or herself to be accepted; to not be rejected. This means that the child learns:
Making mistakes is NOT okay.
It’s NOT okay to show their feelings.
Being told that their feelings aren’t true.
Not everyone is allowed needs.
Everyone else’s needs are more important.
Accomplishments and successes are discounted.
Other types of abandonment happen when children:
Can’t live up to parental expectations; which are both unrealistic and age inappropriate.
Are held responsible for the behavior of others; especially the actions and feelings of their parents.
Are disapproved for their entire being, rather than a specific type of behavior.
What Causes Fear Of Abandonment?
According to psychotherapist Sue Anderson, “The origin of abandonment issues often begins very early in life.”
When children are raised with chronic loss, or without the emotional or physical protection that a parent or guardian should be providing, it’s natural that these children turn their fears inward. Infants or children become afraid that they will be left uncared for, which leads to a cumulative fear of abandonment. By not getting the physical or emotional protection of a parent, the child becomes abandoned. Living with repeated abandonment creates a toxic shame in children, as they learn this brutal message: “You don’t matter. You have no value.”
Sometimes, abandonment occurs when parents cannot recognize the boundaries between themselves and their child. This can occur when:
Parents cannot see their children as separate beings from themselves.
Parental self-esteem is derived from the child’s behavior.
Parents are unwilling to take any responsibility for their feelings, behaviors, thoughts. Instead, they expect their children to take responsibility.
Emotional and physical abandonment with distorted boundaries are not actually indications that the child is bad; instead the entire perception is based upon false beliefs and values of the caregiver who repeatedly hurt them.
Still, this pain can persist a lifetime, the wounds unhealed, the feelings of shame overwhelming. The pain of abandonment is exceptionally challenging to heal.
What Are Emotional Needs?
For a child who grows up in a constant state of fear of abandonment, it can be very challenging, as an adult, to understand their own emotional needs, after being told for so many years that their needs “don’t matter,” because the child is “worthless.” Emotional needs can include:
The need to be nurtured
The need to be listened to
The need to be understood
The need to feel valued
The need of acceptance
The need for love
The need for companionship.
While this list may look a little silly to some, these are extremely foreign concepts to children who grew in a home where abandonment and child neglect was present.
What Are The Scars Of Emotional Abandonment?
The imprint left in a child by the experience of being abandoned by a parent leaves a huge emotional gap. This enormous hole ends up isolating us, depressing us and causing emotional breakdown in our personal reality on all levels.
Thanks to decades of attachment studies, we know that healthy affective bonds guarantee the development of a fulfilling life filled with healthy relationships, healthy self-esteem, and the security and trust of others. On the other hand, insecure attachment sets us on a path towards insecurity, low self-esteem and lack of trust towards those around us.
Negative affective bonds between parents and children create destructive behaviors and great anguish. Going through an exercise of introspection and subsequently distancing ourselves from this experience will help us to understand it and work on it to reach greater emotional freedom and, as a result, to organize our personality better (that is to say, our way of behaving with ourselves and our environment), our insecurity, low self-esteem and lack of trust towards those around us.
Because children who are abandoned have the erroneous belief that they do not matter and that their needs do not matter, they can easily grow into adults who feel the same: feeling worthless, lonely, and sad.
The fear of abandonment becomes a consistent theme in the interpersonal relationships of those who were abandoned as children, which can lead to troubled interpersonal relationships. Fears of abandonment may be triggered by rejection, a lack of validation, and feelings of inadequacy. These feelings are further compounded by feelings of loneliness, rejection, and in some cases, betrayal.
The self-fulfilling prophecy exists when individuals are filled with fear and insecurity, and attract those who may abandon them, thus leading to a validation of their fear.
Further, a healthy romantic relationship may become dysfunctional or fall apart altogether because the individual is not fully available to them for fear that the partner will leave. These relationships revolve around fear.
What Are Common Beliefs of Those With Abandonment Issues?
People who have scars from abandonment during childhood often self-report as suffering from many false beliefs (beliefs they think are real). In order to correct this negative self-talk, we must first be aware of the beliefs of those of us who suffer abandonment issues:
I have no support
People and relationships are exhausting
I am invisible
I am unlovable
I can’t trust others
My needs are not met
I am insecure
I need approval from others
I cannot do anything right
I am rejected and betrayed by others
What Are Some Common Feelings Associated With Abandonment?
Many people struggle with abandonment issues in their lives, and until they realize that these feelings are both natural, but based in untrue realities, healing from abandonment may be a challenge. These are some of the more common feelings associated with abandonment:
Anxiety – especially surrounding fears of living life alone and the expectation that one will ALWAYS be alone.
“I feel anxious when I like someone because I know they’ll look behind the mask and see that I’m worthless.”
Depression – depression is common among people who have abandonment issues as they’ve grown up feeling as though they do not matter to anyone.
“I don’t matter to anyone. I wish I mattered to someone.”
Loneliness – because children who experience abandonment are taught that they do not matter; they never learn to express their feelings or open up to others, which can lead to intense feelings of
“No one will understand how I feel, so I’m not going to open up about it – they’ll think I’m crazy.”
Fear – people who suffered from abandonment during childhood spend much of their time feeling afraid that they will, once again, be abandoned by friends, partners, and other people in their lives.
“I’m so afraid to date because I don’t want to be left.”
Defeat – because overcoming abandonment is a process, not an event, people who experience abandonment issues often feel defeated by their negative self-talk.
“Why bother if no one is going to care about me anyway?”
What Are The Causes of Emotional Abandonment In Romantic Relationships?
Almost everyone who has had an interpersonal relationship has been abandoned at some point by his or her partner. For adult children who have been raised with the erroneous belief that they deserve to be abandoned, fears of abandonment may be huge.
While these situations (and many more) can lead a person who has deep-rooted fears of abandonment, with proper communication and individual and couple’s therapy, these fears can be addressed and the relationship can be mended, with both partners on the same page. The individual who suffers from abandonment must deal with his or her issues with the help of a therapist.
“Leaving a marriage” doesn’t always occur when one partner moves out of the shared living quarters and files paperwork. Emotional abandonment occurs when one or both parties stops investing in the marriage, leaving their partner feeling unwanted and detached. How does this happen? How do two formerly happy people fall into such a pattern? And furthermore, what causes emotional abandonment between spouses?
Here are some of the most common causes for emotional abandonment in a marriage or partnership:
1) Being unable to forgive. If our partner has hurt us and we refuse to forgive them, we find ways to protect ourselves from being hurt again. The most simple way to prevent being hurt by your partner is to close off our hearts to them. Not practicing forgiveness leads to isolation, and overcoming unforgiveness requires that we are humble and seek forgiveness from our partner, as well as a willingness to forgive our partner when he or she has hurt us.
2) Being Unkind – when one partner is unkind to the other, it starts a seed of hurt that can build to become a deep resentment of the other. This can be fixed by each partner reminding themselves to treat our partners as we would like to be treated.
3) Not Bothering – putting very little into a marriage can happen very slowly and over time, especially when we feel our partnership is just fine. This, unfortunately can cause us to take our partner for granted and not treat them as though they are important, leading to our partners isolating themselves.
4) Fears Of Discussing Problems – if one of the partners in a marriage is unable to bring up their problems in the partnership because they’re afraid, this can lead to a disconnection between partners.
5) Denial, denial, denial – when our relationship begins to falter, so many of us choose to deny the existence of the problem, rather than confront it head-on. Unfortunately, this only leads to further deterioration and emotional abandonment.
6) Busy Bees – many of us pack our days so full that we do not make time for our partner. Schedule some “us” time with your partner every day, even if it’s just having dinner or watching television together.
How To Work Through Emotional Abandonment In Romantic Relationships:
The first thing you must do when attempting to bridge the gap between you and your partner is to figure out the cause for the emotional detachment. Here are some of the ways to reconnect with your partner after emotional abandonment:
1) Agree to have an honest conversation with your partner about your problems. Sometimes, when they’re brought out into the light of day, the problems in our relationships don’t seem nearly as scary.
2) Before your talk, take some time to yourself and think about the unresolved issues you’ll be discussing with your partner. Figure out your concerns, what areas you want to improve, and what areas you’d like your spouse to improve in.
3) Don’t beat around the bush – but be kind. This discussion is intended to bring the issues in your partnership out without blaming one another for the emotional abandonment. Use “I feel” statements and do not inject guilt into the conversation. Remember, you two are going to have to work together to fix your problems.
4) Start meeting those unmet needs – find out what needs you can be meeting for your spouse and be sure to start meeting those needs. In turn, tell your partner what needs you feel are unmet.
5) Figure yourself out – find out what’s at the root of the problem, what your role in the problem is, and how you can best work together to fix things. In the meantime, try some therapy or writing to get your feelings out and work on your own issues.
6) Make it a point to be there for your spouse so that you can work toward emotional reconnection.
7) Be kind to each other. Be warm, loving, do things that makes your partner happy because you can, not because you have to.
Five Stages To Working Through Abandonment Issues:
It’s vital to know that those of us who have been abandoned as children do not need to live our lives in such fear. We need to learn to love ourselves and that child who was loved by no one. We must heal from our wounds, but never forget the scars – they’re a part of who we are, but they do not have to define us. The following are the five stages of working through abandonment issues:
Shattering: An intense fear of devastation after a severed relationship.
Withdrawal: The individual pulls away, but feels yearning, obsession, and longing.
Internalizing: The ex-partner may be “placed on a pedestal” and the failure becomes a source of self-blame.
Rage: Anger and thoughts of retaliation at those who did not protect you, or left you.
Lifting: Life begins to distract you, love becomes a possibility.
Overall, love becomes defined by fear and anxiety, rather than safety and security. These conflicting emotions create negative patterns that are expressed in relationships.
Abandonment is also a form of grief, in that the individual is mourning the loss of a relationship. However, feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and fear lead to a recurring negative pattern. Further, the feelings of disappointment and anger are often turned inward and become a “truth” about ourselves.
How Are Issues of Abandonment Treated?
Abandonment issues are treatable through a variety of methods. Most people who have problems with abandonment attend therapy. Fears surrounding abandonment are common; although the degree of intensity depends upon a number of factors, including childhood experience, peer acceptance, familial support, lack of a support system.
Generally, fear of abandonment stems from a loss sustained during childhood, whether it was a loss due to parentification, death of a parent, divorce, or childhood abuse.
Talking about these fears with a trusted therapist is a great way to begin to heal the wounds from abandonment. The therapist must show a connection to his or her client so as to prove that he or she will not abandon her client. A therapist will have his or her client focus upon treating themselves in a positive, compassionate way to the scars of abandonment.
A therapist will help overcome fears of abandonment by changing the emotional reaction associated with abandonment. This can help the person separate the past from present day and work toward correcting their negative and false beliefs. It also helps the person by teaching him or her to develop more positive and realistic reactions to events in his or her life.
True healing from abandonment occurs when a person who has fears of abandonment leans that the fear is in the past and cannot control the present-day relationships providing he or she maintains healthy perspectives about life.
Because of a lack of validation and security as a child, the abandonment issues grow. However, by addressing these feelings, it is possible to break the cycle.
Additional Abandonment Resources:
Abandonment and Recovery– Resource and information page about abandonment, the impact of it, and ways to resolve the issues within yourself.
Hope everything is nifty on your end. Here? Things are quiet ’round these here parts and while I’d like to HOPE that the silence is due to the fact that our writers are all doing amazingly; sitting on a white sandy beach, watching the tide roll in, day after blissful day, not a care in the world. Just listening to that tide crashing into the shore.
But I fear I am incorrect – see, when *I* get quiet? It means that there is something very VERY serious going on; something SO serious that I’m totally unable to process it without being quiet and still.
It’s been quite awhile since we’ve done a State of the Band address, so I figured it was time for us to check in with YOU, The Band. How are things? I am so laughably far off base with my white sandy beach fantasy?
There’s no time like the present to let it all out. I know I’m about to – I’ve got about a gazillion ninety posts percolating in my brain, just WAITING to be let out. And yeah, sure I have a therapist I see on a weekly basis, but personally, I prefer a blank box urging me to use my words. BY FAR (for me), there is no better therapy than using my words to write something, then taking a long, aimless country road drive.
So I urge you to use your words and tell us how you’re doing. Your trials and tribulations. Things that make you feel defeated and things that make you feel ebullient.
See, I’ve been running this show for nearly 6 (SIX!!) years, and I’ve the luxury of reading your stories for as long. I’ve the perspective to see that what once was, at best, slippery pile of uncertainty to the elegant library of stories that I’d known it would.
But there are still ever-increasing scads of people – survivors looking for themselves in your words, for people like you to find a connection with. Looking to see themselves in your words. This system only works if you can share a bit of yourself, let us in, and help us see what your world looks like.
I know I’ve seen many requests for stories written by Adult Children of Narcissistic Parents (ACONs), baby loss, miscarriage, and a TON for mental illness.
I’m going to provide you some writing prompts, but please, don’t limit yourselves by these topics:
What makes you feel defeated?
What demons are rattling your closet?
What demons have you beaten?
What have you survived?
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What are some topics that you’d like explored in greater detail, The Band? What type of posts would help YOU through the hard times?
If’n you DON’T feel comfortable asking for a particular topic in the comments, don’t hesitate to email me: becky.harks@gmail.com
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This August, we are officially bringing back the I Am Me Project that was started back in 2011.
The premise is simple: define yourself. Can be easy as simple declarative sentences or as challenging as eye opening revelations. This is an ongoing project here at The Band and we’ve found this can be an incredibly healing premise. I do hope you’ll join us.
What makes you, well, YOU?
How are we alike?
How are we different?
How are you unique?
I’m personally challenging myself to rewrite my own – my initial submission is here.
Pretty much everything in my life has changed, so I’ll be interested (and slightly scared) to complete my I Am Me Project post.
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Do you have free time? No, seriously. OKAY so maybe “free time” is a quote-unquote.
Rather than ask that, I’m asking for those of you who can eke out a few hours a day/week to help keep The Band running. Off the top of my (very addled) head, I know that we need…
A photo editor
Someone(s) to run our Pinterest account
Someone(s) to run our G+ page
People to help brainstorm new ideas for The Band
— among a great many others.
Please, OH PLEASE, let me know if’n you can make some time to help us out!
That would be SO freaking Full of the Awesome. Even the littlest bit of time would be SUPER rad!
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Don’t know if you know this, The Band, but we also have social media accounts! (I will warn you that some of them, naturally, have been quietly moldering away) I’d be more enthusiastic but even my brand of paper towel has its’ own Twitter feed.
To all of our lurkers out there, we’d LOVE to meet you! Stop by and leave us a comment just saying “howdy!” and, if you’re brave (which ALL of you are), we’d love a post or three from you!
Time to step out of the shadows. No more hiding in the darkness. C’mon out – the light you see around you? It’s a healing one.
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I do apologize for my prolonged absence and I promise to STOP going radio silent when shit gets real.
There is a picture of me, somewhere out there, probably still on my dad’s phone unless they’ve turned into Christmas Card people, in which case, the picture is most definitely out there in the world for all to see.
