Abandonment Issues – Are They Your Real Problem?

Abandonment issues run deep and are inevitably connected to shame, which is kind of the ‘big daddy’ of emotions. So in all honesty abandonment an rejection issues are ones that really do tend to require support to truly navigate. That aside, we do love some good self-help! Journalling, mindfulness meditation, art therapy, we are big fans of it all. And there are great books out there which can be helpful to read – although which one is right for you depends on where your issues stem from. As for the LGBT angle, there are therapists who specialise in LGBT issues, and it can definitely be connected if you felt abandoned or rejected for not living up to your parents’ ideals, for example.

Thanks, glad it has helped!

Thank you Neena, glad to be of help!

Linda, thanks for sharing. How wonderful you are so observant and caring about your daughter. Have you managed to talk to her about this? Are the lines of communication open between you and her? If not, if you find it hard to connect and communicate, would you both want to go speak to a counsellor? (Family counsellors work with any sort of group). If not, then perhaps there is something to be said about leading by example. Sometimes the best thing we can do to care for others is take care of ourselves. Have you considered reaching out for support with your own abandonment issues? Abandonment, as you are aware, leads to life long patterns of behaviour that tend to sabotage all our relationships in adulthood unless we learn how to think and act in ways that don’t come from a core belief ‘I deserve to be abandoned’. But the good news is that these patterns can be changed, and we can learn new ways of getting our needs met. At the very least therapy gives us the support to learn new ways to communicate with our family, which might be another way to reach out to your daughter. Hope that helps, and we wish you courage!

Oh Peter what a lot of courageous sharing this is. Our heart breaks for you on so many levels. First of all, we are sorry that you had to be told about your issues in such a horrific way. We’d point out that for someone to say nothing for 37 years and then turn around and say you wasted their time is neither healthy or fair. You are not responsible for someone else’s choices, and she chose to stay. And she also chose, it appears, to say nothing? You are not a mind reader. You are not all responsible and not all to blame and you should not let anyone make you feel this way I’m afraid. All relationships are 50/50. Here’s another angle to consider – you did the best you could. You managed to arise from that sort of disjointed, difficult childhood without your mother for the most part, and have a family of your own. Yes, you made mistakes, perhaps many! But you had the intention to do your best. And here’s the amazing thing – you now realise that you’d like to be different, to make changes, to let yourself explore all this a bit more. You let yourself break down, and it felt good. A few things to consider. How does not being in a relationship help? It’s one way of seeing things, but another way is that it’s only by trying to love others that we can progress further in love and being loved. And relationships are also one of the best ways to learn about ourselves and grow. This would come from an idea you’ve taken on that you are not worthy of one. We would suggest, if you are brave enough (and after getting through all this, surely you are!) you consider some counselling. Look for a counsellor or therapist you feel a connection with, who you think you could grow to trust. You might want to look into compassion-focussed therapy, schema therapy, person-centred counselling, dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT), cognitive analytical therapy (CAT)…. there are many types, you can read about them on here, but again, perhaps most important is a therapist you feel you can trust, and who has experience working with abandonment issues. With that sort of unbiased support on your side, you might find you can indeed enter a relationship, one where you are open and communicating and growing. The second thing we’d let you know about, assuming you are in the UK, is a great free hotline for people over fifty if you ever feel low or too alone https://www.thesilverline.org.uk/. Hope this helps.

We can understand that, Peter. These are all good things to discuss with a counsellor or therapist. It’s about low self-esteem, which is hardly surprising given what you have been through.

Oh gosh Sarah what a predicament. Six weeks is admittedly a long time for a therapist to become unavailable to clients. On one hand therapists have their own lives and have to set boundaries, and of course they deserve holidays, but on the other hand, if you are in the middle of abandonment issues, such an extensive break would be hard for the client. That said, we don’t know how long you’ve worked with this therapist or what the circumstances were around her needing to go away. If you’ve only begun working together recently and she did inform you that this trip was booked when you began working with her, that is a different story than if you’ve been working together for some time and she suddenly announced a holiday. In summary, we’d assume your therapist didn’t want you to feel abandoned but simply didn’t think things through or fully comprehend how strongly your abandonment issues were acting up. The best thing here is to work to self-soothe as best you can, such as doing a lot of journalling and mindfulness, and raising your self-care routine. Perhaps a new fitness class, a weekly massage, whatever makes you feel cared for (in affect, you are mothering yourself when you take care of yourself). If you really feel at loose ends do seek support elsewhere, such a local support group, online forums, a few sessions with another counsellor, or an online helpline (you can read about UK ones at bit.ly/mentalhelplines). Definitely talk about this with your therapist when she returns and make sure that if there was a next time you did put those mechanisms in place to feel secure. We do note, though, that you didn’t feel comfortable asking about coping mechanisms before she left. Again, that is normal if you recently began working with her. If we have never trusted anyone, we aren’t going to suddenly trust a therapist, either. But over time you do need to work with someone you can trust. And while we deeply hope it works out for you with this therapist, as it sounds like you are making real progress, to let you know that Schema therapy is a type of therapy created for those with deep abandonment issues that involves a closer bond being allowed between the therapist and client. Something for the future, perhaps.

Hi Andreea, we are sorry to hear all this. It sounds like you have had a very lonely existence where you could never trust the adults around you to be there for you. One parent was alcoholic, the other was distracted. If you had no siblings, you might have not learned to trust anyone. Which would perhaps be a reason you felt uncomfortable in therapy and ran from it. Therapy is very intimate! You are stuck in a room with someone asking you questions. So you’d have to accept that therapy is never going to be easy at first. It would basically become your first ‘real’ relationship where you are yourself with someone, in this case, the therapist. So what if you tried again with the realisation that it would be hard and uncomfortable at first? But also with the understanding that it is a chance to learn how to relate to someone that can then help you learn to make real friends, if you can accept it will be a challenge and stick it out? Is that not worth giving a go, faced with all this loneliness and despair? We think you just need a chance. We are sure that within you is a person who has tons to offer others, it’s just you have never learned how to let others in. If you were brave enough to try, we’d highly recommend Schema therapy, where the therapist does what is called ‘limited reparenting’ and develops a strong bond of trust with you. You might also find compassion-based therapy useful. There is also cognitive based therapy (CBT), a short term sort of therapy which can be good for helping you learn to hear and change negative thought patterns (because it seems your self-esteem is low, which comes from negative thinking). CBT doesn’t go in to the past a lot and is less intimate than other forms of therapy, so you might feel less threatened by it. We wish you courage.

Childhood trauma can mean we are left with a very deep rooted belief that everyone is out to get us. So even if someone is nice to us, we are sure there is a double meaning, or they are not on our side. Let’s just play the ‘what if’ game for a moment. What if the second therapist was actually trying to help you see that things were not your fault in order to make you feel better, not to judge you? What if when they said ‘surely you realised it was not your fault’ they meant, ‘poor you, how could any person thing such terrible things were their fault?”. We don’t know, we weren’t there, but we do know that no professional counsellor would spend years training to help people and then purposely try to make them feel bad. We would say that if you try therapy again, consider schema therapy. If you did have BPD, it’s been proven to help, and it puts a really big emphasis on developing a bond of trust between you and the therapist. Unfortunately, another side of effect of severe childhood trauma, which you have experienced, is that trust is something we don’t know how to do. So of course you won’t naturally trust or like a therapist. You have been ‘trained’ by your childhood to trust nobody! So you have to keep that in mind and give it time. It is not a magic wand or easy. But it is proven to help, and you deserve help and to feel better about yourself.

Amy, we are so touched this article helped, and we really honour your courage to reach out and find support. It definitely sounds like you had a really hard time growing up, and we are sorry to hear it. The support you needed wasn’t there, you were left to fend for yourself, and there was nobody to trust. We just want to say that therapy can really help with this. Try to find a therapist you feel comfortable with and think you can grow to trust, over time. Good luck!

There can be and is.Many people with BPD do find and stay in relationships.We have an article on here about the specific kinds of therapy geared just toward BPD. http://bit.ly/BPDtreatment . The most popular kind of therapy for BPD which produces excellent results is dialectical therapy, and the creator, Marsha Linehan, has admitted to having BPD herself. Also, BPD tends to lessen with age, particularly after 40. Of course waiting until one is older is not the best tactic when there is so much help available nowadays. Also note that the information on the internet has such a focus on the negative it overlooks that underneath a BPD sufferer’s fear of abandonment is often an immense capacity to love and a gift for understanding others and showing empathy.

Hi Alison, it’s kind you want to help. Unfortunately we can’t diagnose someone over the internet which just a few details, particularly as these are the details he’s chosen to tell you. The real story might be more complex or even less complex. And even more unfortunately, the only person who can help your friend really is himself. Does he want help with this issue? Did he want to read this article himself, or seek therapy himself? Has he done research, or is it just you trying to ‘figure him out’ and ‘fix him’? If he doesn’t want to read the article or do the research himself, then are you willing to accept that and accept him the way he is? And accept he’ll seek help and to change when he is ready?

Hi Harold, people are so unique that even with this information we can’t tell you ‘what affect it has had’. Two people can live the same experience and one can react one way, another entirely differently. Does it sound like she lived through difficult experiences, sure. Did she feel abandoned, we can’t say. Her mother was at least a consistent presence, and many children have one parent leave without experiencing a sense of abandonment if they were not close to that parent. Of course 17 is young to lose a parent. In summary, we would have to meet her and know her to give any other diagnosis. If she is unhappy or has issues she wants to work on, then therapy would be a great idea. But she’d have to want to go herself. If your relationship is suffering, and you want to work on it together, we would suggest couples therapy. It is rarely just one person’s childhood that is the problem but rather would come from both of you with each person having things they could work on to improve the relationship.

Marie, thanks so much for bravely reaching out. Given this history it’s no surprise you’d have a brain programmed to feel rejected and abandoned every time your husband goes away. So first things first, don’t judge yourself. We think you might find research into borderline personality disorder (BPD) interesting. http://bit.ly/2kzwotH It’s a horrible word and totally incorrect (there is nothing ‘borderline’ about it, they tried to change the name but the original misnomer stuck). And we are not a huge fan of mental health labels here, unless they help people feel better. So read about it while keeping in mind it’s just to help possibly understand yourself, not that there is anything ‘wrong’ with you or that you should be labelled or would meet the criteria in the end. But these things you mention are very in line with the group of people who fall under BPD suffer with so tactics used to control BPD would help you http://bit.ly/BPDtreatment. Things that really help are mindfulness (see our free guide, http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallabout it’s easy to learn), and also consistent exercise, actually, it seems to even out the overreacting for some. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) http://bit.ly/CBTTherapy really helps get the dramatic thoughts under control, which helps us to not overreact, and you can learn some on our site such as here https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/balanced-thinking-benefits.htm. Also look into dialectical behaviour therapy and schema therapy if you are brave enough to give some support a go (it can really help with abandonment issues to have support, articles on both are on our site). It’s never too late to make adjustments and try new ways of behaving, it’s great that you are finally reaching out. We wish you courage!

Hi Mary, here’s the questions we have for you. Do YOU feel you are a hard person to love? Do YOU want to love yourself, or do you want to consistently hate yourself, berate yourself, see yourself as less worthy? Because this is what will change your relationship. Focusing on your deep rooted beliefs about yourself. Behaviour actually doesn’t change through concentrated effort, that’s why we end up so frustrated. It changes by deep committed work to change the negative core beliefs hidden in our unconscious that drive all our behaviours in the first place. We’d highly, highly suggest counselling or therapy. This is way too much to navigate alone, you are mired in self blame here. If you are nervous about therapy, CBT would be a great start. It places a heavy focus on learning to shift your severely negative thinking to a more balanced place, and to stop impulsivity. As a short term therapy, it doesn’t even dive too much into your past but focuses on the present, so can feel less intimidating for new users of therapy. As for whether to stay or leave your partner, you are working on a self punishing agenda here. “I must leave him as I am such a bad terrible person who destroys others’. What about HIS decision? You are actually trying to control the partnership. Talk to him about how you feel and make informed decisions together. All the best.

Hi Jules, counselling would be a GREAT idea. That is a whole lot of trauma for one child to go through, it sounds terrifically lonely. It makes absolute sense you’d have abandonment issues and be clingy, and therapy would definitely help! Choose a therapist you think you can grow to trust and makes you feel comfortable. We wish you courage!

Annette, this sounds like a lightbulb moment where you realise that you are indeed trapped in a pattern. Those are more than enough reasons to have abandonment issues ,and we are sorry to hear you went through that. It’s brave that you are taking the courage to see all this now. Would you consider counselling? These issues can truly benefit and you could see real changes in your relating. You might want to read our article on therapies designed just to help with relating http://bit.ly/findlovetherapy. We really hope you take this next step, and wish you luck!

Hi Ela, we are glad that our site is useful to you. We don’t run a branch in Australia, although our online counsellors can work with people from anywhere in the world. Otherwise read our articles about finding and working with a therapist (there are several, use the search bar) and look into therapists near you. It can take time to find the right fit, but a therapist you are comfortable with can really help with abandonment issues. All the best.

Hi Emma, we are sorry to hear you are finding life tough. Being a teen is seriously hard. You are at a point you are smart enough to know what you want but your life is controlled by the adults around you and it can feel infuriating. It’s also the age that we realise that adults are just people who make tons of mistakes, and it can feel a massive letdown. If it makes you feel better, we don’t know anyone who had a ‘golden childhood’. Everyone has struggles, all families hit hard times, it’s just that many people don’t talk about it. What we do see are some positives here. You have a mother and a stepfather you like, which is pretty huge, and what’s more you like your siblings. They might not understand you, but seems there is love to be had there and that is a gift that not every teen has. Here’s what we would say. You can’t control the adults around you, and it’s frustrating you, but what you can control is your own thoughts and reactions – well, you can learn to, it’s a long process. But a good way to start might be to learn about gratitude and mindfulness. Gratitude means you train your mind to not let upsets block you from seeing what IS going right http://bit.ly/gratitudepractise. It’s not that getting upset isn’t valuable – it’s just about finding a balanced perspective. And mindfulness helps you stay focused in the present moment instead of being tortured by thoughts of the past and worries about the future. https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/mindfulness-help-guide.htm These are both tools therapists use with clients but you can learn them yourself and use them. One of the things about becoming an adult is deciding how YOU want to see life and how YOU want to be. These two tools can help you see how much control you have over these things, even if your life itself is out of control. We wish you courage!.

Hi Deena, glad you enjoyed the article! We don’t allow promotions in our comments so have taken out your links to other sites, but thanks for the comment. Best, HT

Hi John, it is possible. Each person is unique. But it does seem to be coming to light more and more how connected the emotions and the body is. If you did have a difficult childhood, seeking help over it could only benefit you. Did you know there is also something called ‘body psychotherapy’ where the therapist effectively ‘listens’ to how your body responds and works the therapy around that? Might be interesting for you to look into. You might find our article on Medically Unexplained Symptoms interesting https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/medically-unexplained-symptoms-counselling.htm

Hi Catherine, it’s Andrea, the editor and lead writer who also wrote the article. To be honest, the last few thousand comments have been answered by me personally.I’m not a practicing therapist with the company, I am trained in person centred counselling and coaching, I do coach under a different name, but my work with the company is limited to running this blog. Glad you enjoyed the article. We do provide online therapists worldwide either through our main site or on our other platform, https://harleytherapy.com/. Best, Andrea.

Hi Catherine, I am non-practicing, unfortunately. But I deeply appreciate the interest! Best, Andrea

Hi Maria, thanks for this very honest share. Whether or not these issues arise from your family, there is clearly a problem here that is causing you difficulties feeling good about yourself and your life. So we’d say take this seriously. Would you consider reaching out for support? A counsellor or psychotherapist could help you address where this all stemmed from, and would be able to recognise if it was an issue of anxious attachment or emotional intensity disorder. On a good note, there are therapies designed just to help with this sort of difficulty with relating and fear of rejection, such as dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). We suggest you read our article on therapies that help with emotional intensity, as all these therapies also help with simple fear of rejection and anxiety in relationships https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/borderline-personality-disorder-treatment-therapy.htm. As you’ll see from our other comments, even though we are a therapy company, this blog is made as a free resource and we don’t just tell anyone to seek therapy. But issues with rejection are very deep and are some of the trickiest to navigate alone, because we can’t see the wood from the trees, so to speak. Our fear of rejection makes us too reactive. So self-help is better than nothing, but tends to not be enough in this situation. The loneliness caused by fear of rejection and abandonment is very serious, and can lead to a host of other issues, too, like addictions and self-harm. So the sooner we seek support the better. Best, HT.

Cimarron, it’s not your fault. You haven’t failed as a person. The very fact that you are brave enough to be researching things like this and want to evolve as a person shows the opposite. Life is messy. And being adopted is hard. Abandonment and rejection can affect the way our brain evolves, we end up very sensitive, often with trust issues. But our brains also have what is called ‘plasticity’, which means we can retrain our brains and learn how to relate in different ways. And that starts with cutting ourselves some slack and being compassionate with ourselves, when we are doing the best we can. One day at a time! Best, HT.

Hi Dee. You’ve gone through some tough times. But do notice your courage and resilience. You’ve had the courage to seek therapy and stick it out to find one you seem to like, you’ve managed to find a good job, you have a good group of friends, and you’ve had a long term relationship. (Many people with tough childhoods can’t get past three months in a relationship let alone years, so we think you need to give yourself some kudos here.) On the other hand you seem to see yourself as flawed, not good enough, and not ‘getting better’ fast enough. There does seem a tendency to have very high expectations of yourself, or a belief that others are out there feeling perfectly happy and confidence and you are terribly flawed. In reality, many people feel a fraud at work, struggle with relating, have loneliness, and are scared of falling in love. So we’d say really notice each time you compare yourself to others unfavourably, or to some ‘ideal’ of some perfectly healed, happy person with a perfect relationship (in our experience, that person doesn’t exist). Brutal depression thrives if we are setting ourselves up to fail with such unrealistic comparison and have to resort to fake positivity as we attempt to be perfect. The more we learn to let go of some false ideal of ‘better’ and ‘happy’, the more we accept our moods and our sad self, our angry self, all our sides, the more, ironically, we start to feel at peace with ourselves and start to feel more even. You say you need to be everyone’s friend. We’d suggest that the person who really needs your friendship might be yourself. There is a therapy focussed on self-compassion that suggests we look at how we talk to ourselves vs how we speak to friends. What we expect of ourselves vs what we expect of ours friends. It can be eye opening. And be harder than we realise to attempt to then be our own friend. In summary, there is nothing wrong with feeling a fraud, feeling sad, insecure, lonely. Making these things ‘bad’ means that when they arrive, we judge ourselves so much we raise our chances of deep depression. Otherwise, we’d say we do hope these are all things you are discussing with your therapist. It’s important you be honest and open and not try to please him or her. Try to not censor yourself around them. Also note that there is no ‘destination’ with therapy. We don’t wake up one day and go ‘aha! I am healed and happy now!’. Therapy is a journey and process. Sometimes we hit a wall. It feels like hell, like walking through sand. We have to stick it out to have the next breakthrough. We can’t control therapy or our therapist. we can only show up, be as honest as we can, and keep going. As for taking drugs, it’s a personal choice. It can create a window where symptoms lower so you can have more focus and clarity for learning tools that work as a longer term solution, and meds are recommended particularly if there is any suicidal thinking or self harm. But if meds are not for you, and any therapist should respect that. Some people prefer to focus on a new dietary and exercise regime and self care, such as a stronger sleep routine, in order to support themselves in their time in therapy.

Hi Stephen. The rise of TV shows reuniting family members has created a really false idea that it’s always fairytale like, when the reality is often far from this. But the one person who you can control over whether they abandon you or not? Is yourself. Unfortunately, if our childhood was full of feeling abandoned, we take on the message that is what we deserve, and without realising it, we do it to ourselves. We promise ourselves to do something then don’t, we don’t take care of our health, we don’t go after a career we want, we don’t deal with our anger and rage and sadness. These are all forms of self abandoment. Learning to address them and to start, bit by bit, to be someone we ourselves can rely on, and to develop compassion for ourselves, can be a good first step to starting to feel stronger and better. Because as a child we couldn’t control who abandoned us. As an adult we can. Once we learn to not abondon ourselves, we start sending out the message to others we deserve respect. And we can learn to choose those who don’t perpetuate the cycle and move into a differnt kind of future. No matter what hell we lived through, we can choose a different future. Have you worked with a therapist at any point? If you could gather up your courage and seek proper support, it would be a great idea, even crucial given that you seem to be feeling very despondent. Note that here in the UK there are also many free help lines you can call confidentially with friendly listeners ready to help we have a list of them here http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines. Best, HT.

It would be the way you relate that is the problem. The way you now, as an adult, communicate, express emotions, and act in relationships. While it is easy to blame our parents, and say all our problems are their fault, that takes away our personal power and just leaves us stuck in our anger and victimhood, so not the most helpful path. Yes, as a child you had parents who didn’t know how to parent well, perhaps they themselves weren’t parented well. Perhaps it was their best effort, perhaps not, we simply don’t know, we are only getting your side of the story. And yes, it didn’t set you up well for being an adult. And here you are, with learned ways of relating that do not work. But now, as an adult, it’s up to you to change those patterns as nobody else can now fix this for you but you. So yes, again, sounds like your childhood had real issues. Many families do. And you’ll need to process how angry this makes you feel, and for awhile you will be very angry at your parents, that’s normal. But the culprit is the way you relate and the ways you communicate and deal with your emotions, and you need to take the initiative to seek help with these by finding a counsellor you can learn to trust and processing both all your rage and upset about your childhood while also learning new ways of relating that work. As for abandonment issues, we can’t say, they could come from elsewhere, as from this limited info doesn’t sound like you were abandoned by either parent. But we simply don’t know, we can’t figure out someone’s life by a comment ;). You spent your whole life to become this complicated being, it will take time and commitment to work it all out. And in fact in therapy a therapist isn’t there to figure out your life for you. They are there to support you to figure that out for yourself. Best, HT.