As a child, it’s hard to conceive why a parent isn’t around or doesn’t treat you with love, care, trust and respect. We then determine that for a grownup to behave in this way, we must have done something “really really bad” or been just flat-out “unlovable”.
Once we stop using the same childhood reasoning habits and become more mindful of the destructive coping mechanisms that we originally designed to protect ourselves and to make us “more lovable”, on some level we still struggle to conceive why the abandonment happened. We might get things logically, but emotionally a part of us wonders:
But why didn’t/don’t [my parents] at least try?
Why am I always the one that has to try? How come it’s always me that has to make allowances? To be super understanding? To put aside the past and my own feelings?
The author wants the book deal, not ‘just’ to be self-published. The singer wants an album on a label, not ‘just’ what they’ve created off of their own back. The hard-working person wants the acknowledgement, the awards or perhaps even just a shift in their co-workers behaviour so that they feel more appreciated and validated. The person who’s achieved a lot wants what they deem as their pinnacle of success. For example, to have their ideal romantic relationship and to feel safe and secure.
None of these desires are strange. However, sometimes we don’t stop for long enough to question why they matter and what we think will happen to us [when we get them]. When we experience our desires, we might enjoy them. But sometimes, they don’t take the form we imagine. We thought it would feel so much better or be that much easier, and yet it isn’t.
Since I started writing Baggage Reclaim in 2005 (yay!), my self-exploration has led to regularly reflecting on why an explanation or that love matters that much. What difference would it make?
The explanation, which can often be very light in comparison to the weight we’ve carried, will only really cover so much. This is especially so because much of the pain is self-imposed. Even if we get an explanation for the abandonment, we often analyse that too. We search for more answers as if we’re going to achieve ‘100%’. When the explanation doesn’t cover our experience and we’re still holding out for answers, we look for other inappropriate substitutes to do it. And so the self-blame habit continues.
We want to take away the pain or make the periodical grief feelings, that often catch us off guard, disappear forever. We believe understanding and validation are the solution, even though no matter how much we investigate the past, we can’t change it. What we can change is the narrative, the judgments, about those events so that we change our present and future, because, ultimately, how we judge ourselves for who that person wasn’t is the deciding factor.
The grief feelings won’t ‘vanish’. They show up from time to time no matter how good we feel about ourselves. Why? Because there are times, whether we had our parent around or not, that our younger parts feel vulnerable or when grief shows up as a result of an experience.
Loss reminds us of other losses. This pop-up pain is an opportunity to grieve the loss from a different angle and heal even further, grounding and growing ourselves. It’s too much to expect to be permanently rid of certain feelings. Especially because feelings guide and direct us on what we need at that moment.
We can empathise with our parents (once we’ve cut the proverbial cord instead of seeing them as being reflective of our inadequacies). However, we’ve gotta stop trying to figure them out. On some level, no matter how small, that little kid inside us thinks the key to our peace and validation is our parent’s pocket.
As I said in episode 5 of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, we often understand far more than we give ourselves credit for. The issue is we don’t like what we understand. Especially if we’re judging ourselves for it or acceptance means the end of a fantasy or our having to take action. We need to accept all of what we know and stop guilting and berating ourselves for acknowledging our experience or knowledge. If we don’t, we’ll just keep repeating variations of the experiences.
As a kid, you feel guilty for missing the parent and still loving them in spite of their absence or treatment. Even more so when your other parent is still there. Or you feel bad because you have a step-parent, so ‘surely’ you should be okay.
If the remaining parent is angry or miserable, you take the rap for that too. And then you feel guilty for wanting to be a kid or to express your own feelings. Or you feel bad for no longer caring or for being angry.
By blaming yourself, you wonder if, for instance, sibling pain is your fault too.
Envying your friends and others triggers guilt, but then you feel worthless due to comparison. You feel guilty for feeling sad and lost even though you’re not alone or “bigger problems in the world”. Maybe you associate the confusion and grief of abandonment with a lack of gratitude for being taken in or kept. Then you push down your feelings and wonder why you feel so depressed and lonely. You wonder if there’s something wrong with you for not being more “over it”.
Perhaps you feel guilty for speaking your mind or giving a voice to those feelings. After all, much of society is still very uncomfortable with adult children flagging up their pain or experiences.
You feel guilty for not being able to wipe your memory or for not being okay with the lies everyone else is. And maybe you also feel anger and disappointment about the entourage of people who keep propping up your parent but who never truly empathise with you, often assigning you the responsibility of building bridges.
There is nothing you could have done to change your parent. Your worth has nothing to do with their actions. Inadequate parenting doesn’t equal inadequate child. You can start to consciously choose the direction of your thoughts and the direction of your life. Whatever answers you seek in others, including your parent(s), you are the only one who can give you permission and choices.
Three quarters of my life so far was about abandonment. The last decade has been about reclaiming myself from that story. I’ve learned that you have to consciously redefine yourself after spending a period self-defining on your perception of an experience and/or other people’s behaviour.
I’ve learned that we can be very hard on ourselves and our inner critic is sneaky. Our inner critic goes from busting our chops for not being “good enough” and for still being affected, to giving us a hard time for not being “affected enough” and for not being the Good Daughter/Son/Child. That’s when you realise that the inner critic is nonsensical and to stop giving it so much airtime.
I have scars on my right leg and inner left thigh from a childhood skin graft for a birthmark I was born with that doctors felt had the potential to become cancerous. For a long time, the scars were another indicator of my damaged status. I anticipated the stares, questions and snap judgements. At some point the scars stopped being a focal point. I stopped judging them. Now, I have to go out of my way to notice the scars. In accepting them, I’ve closed off that area of self-rejection. When I do remember the scars, it’s because something else I associate them with, brings them to mind.
Ten years down the road from that summer that woke me up to myself and what the real meaning of my experiences were, that’s where I’ve gotten to with this whole abandonment thang– I’ve stopped judging the scar of abandonment and hating on it and me. I’ve stopped shaping my life around it.
I forgive my younger self for being so tough on me and, as a result, feel less shackled to the past. The parent hunger pangs are fading out.
My parents are my parents, but I am my primary caregiver. The scar fades bit by bit over time and the proximity of the pain, actual or remembered, recedes further into the distance, as long as I take care of my thoughts and my actions right now, which help me take care of myself.
Take care of you.
Your thoughts?
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I haven’t heard from my father in almost 12 years. Most days, I don’t even think about it, but sometimes someone will ask about him, and I have to explain that he is not in my life. The other person will express sadness and disappointment for me, and I’ll wonder if it’s really so bad, if I really did miss out. I think, “No, I didn’t miss out.” I am my own father and caregiver now, and as long as I continue to love, care, trust, and respect myself, all will always be well in my world. Thank you, Natalie, for being a part of my life and my healing process. <3
Jiwan,
I’m finding that I can’t love and support me 24/7 and I think it is that way as (inherent of human beings) I am needing support from others and others are needing support from me. No man is an island and strong people too need just as much love, care, trust, respect and support. Be open and vulnerable to sincere people around you who show aspects of parenting as that way you can get a sense of receiving parental love (and not necessarily/solely from one’s birth father/mother who simply just don’t have it in them to parent).
Gina I think Jiwan has worked it out and seems pretty content and to be growing emotionally. Most people upon losing a parent or both spend their time trying – as you put it to find surrogates – to fill their hole or void with others, because they are too aware that no person is an island – only to be disappointed all over again when the hole is never filled by anyone exterior to themselves.
Jiwan is choosing to fill the hole for themself.
I searched for years for surrogate parents – even choosing abusive boyfriends due to their parent/family life and not only did it not work but resulted in myself being pretty closed and shutting down emotionally – in order to not be an island and different, and to people please.
Be open to yourself first as Jiwan – ie love, care and respect yourself ALWAYS BEFORE OTHERS – otherwise how are you going to know if you can truly trust them – and yourself to be in a positive relationship with them? Do not use others to fill your hole.
Just yesterday I had a discussion with my teenage daughter about physical scars. We both agreed that there are stories that can be told about them, but over time, they heal. The ones that disappear into us are so healed that we have moved past them and really have to look hard to find them. And the ones that are more apparent are not stared at by us at every moment of every day because they have become a part of our tapestry. It is a choice to stare at the healed scars or to change the mental channel to a station with a happier tune that is more befitting the present, the gift of now.
My dad was a depressed alcoholic who left aged 4 then flip flopped in and out of my life seeing me and my brother perhaps once or twice a year. Then he cut us off completely for over a year at age 13/14 after which we suddenly got a phone call telling us he’d died of cancer. He’d decided not to tell us he was ill and made the rest of the family keep it from us. I discovered years later that the house I thought he rented he had in fact owned and he’d given it to his girlfriend in his will instead of us, his children. No one in the family so much as mentions him.
I’m trying to work through how I feel about it now, and angry, hurt, sad, guilty & unlovable all come to mind. This article has come just at the right time for me. I wont let him ruin my life like he did his. It’s not my fault. I will learn to trust and love again.
Sophie, I am convinced by your words. I think whether we sink or swim takes that kind of decisiveness, ‘He ruined his life and a part of my life, and there is no reason why it should be ruined any longer’. Yes you are scarred and will encounter difficult moments and challenges, but there are still no limits on the happiness and satisfaction you can achieve in life, as you clearly already know. Well done for finding your own way instead of taking the more obvious route of self destruction.
By the way, I’m wondering if you or others have tried al anon? I heard the groups vary a lot. I tried it once, and it didn’t work for me, because I left with the sense that in accepting we are all flawed, we should break ourselves down (again) or are not taking the journey properly. This was at a time when I was feeling very strong in myself, but had been left distressed by a visit with my father. I thought, why the hell should I focus on all my flaws when I’ve spent my life doing that, and have not harmed anyone, nor am I responsible for my parents’ behaviour! Why should I break myself again and consider myself powerless when I finally feel in tune with the world? It just didn’t make sense, but I’m considering joining a different group because I’m clearly still affected by alcoholism and would like to examine co-dependence without diminishing my own progress. I wonder if there’s a fundamental clash with the BR way of understanding things, or if it’s just what I got from that group.
Sounds like an active alcoholic with resentments against his family. Al-anon and ACA helps me deal with anger towards my father and family. Alcoholism is a dirty, rotten, stinking disease that has a ripple effect. I read this article today after feelings of abandonment popped up today. It’s good to know I’m not alone in feeling this.
Thank you Nat for such insight.
My abandonment wasn’t when I was a child, but it was done to me and to realise that the linear leap from abandonment – guilt – comparison is a real thing… well, it feels… good. Truthful.
Insightful and came at just the right time for me. I was abandoned by my partner, not a parent. But I think some of the impacts are similar. In the last week I haven’t been able to stop thinking how he holds the key to my happiness. In fact, he is the source of my misery now but my brain can’t accept it yet. Maybe it never will. Why is it so hard to let go of people who disappear, when they seem to be able to do it so easily?
@Claire,
For people who can seemingly disappear… I wonder if they were ever ‘real’.
“the one who has achieved a lot wants what they deem as their pinnacle of success— to have their ideal romantic relationship and to feel safe and secure.”
I’m not sure I’ve achieved alot, but if we’re talking check boxes, then yes, I have the one big unchecked item. Also, I haven’t really focused on abandonment, because I didn’t equate happenings in my life with this term. I thought my childhood was *normal*. But I’ve been reading and crying for over year now (although its been 4 days in a row of not crying for the first time this year)
I grew up middle class. I never feared poverty. I had a home, food, clothes, basic needs.
I never heard my parents say “I love you” to each other. I never saw them kiss each other. I remember yelling and fighting.
My mother was always present. People liked her. She was helpful. Yet she’s NEVER been emotionally available. AT ALL. I didn’t know any differently then. I do now. I’d wished my grandmother could have been my mother. I wished for an older sister.
My parents didn’t divorce. My father died. Sometimes I’d wished it was my mother instead.
Crying was unacceptable and called manipulative and crocodile years, except in the case of a physical injury. And then sometimes that too was downplayed. Crying meant banishment.
I received praise for my grades. I did well and it was easy when I was young. I don’t remember praise for much else. That was “my job”- be smart, work hard, get good grades. Done.
I was married long-term to a person I met as a teenager. Over the dating years, we broke up… Often. For a day or two, a week, six months, Whatever. And EVERYTIME we did, he had someone else. Immediately. And even when we were together, I received hang up calls, taunting from his harem, reports of him in a car with someone. And more. And then I had to “win” him back each time. I married him anyway. Why? I hadn’t met anyone “better” and he knew my father. Nobody else would ever have that quality, because my father was dead. Who bases a relationship on that criteria? Umm, me. And the bad behavior morphed, and continued, with me feeling that someone else was always lurking and waiting for me to mis-step. Based on past behavior, the threat was real.
And when I was pregnant and we already had 2 toddlers, right after I’d finished graduate school, he wanted to leave. I begged him not to. I BEGGED. I was eight months pregnant and about to have three children under the age of 5. Talk about vulnerable. He eventually decided to stay. I remember exactly how that felt. And I promised myself I would never give into him again. I didn’t. We divorced over 10 years later.
And then with BGE, I felt that pain again, but even worse. Magnified off the scale. He was different. And nothing like my ex. Or my mother. WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME? Still I don’t know. And it still haunts me.
I came to acceptance years ago that I never had the mother I needed. I accept that my ex husband and I had a bad marriage. And armed with this knowledge, I’d not settle for anyone like either of them. I was so picky. And careful. But in the end, he abandoned me too. He presented as the BGE. And kept up the facade for months, future faking, and promising. Smiling, and encouraging. And then he was cold and dismissive. Done.
I’m enrolled in Natalie’s pattern breaker course. I really didn’t think having EU parents and a sucky marriage had anything to do with how I feel now, but I’m keeping an open mind because I know I’ve experienced suffering like I’ve never thought possible. And yes, it DOES feel like abandonment. I wanted ONE PERSON to love me. Just ONE good person I could count on. And he left. Even though I did everything ‘right’ this time. Rejection-abandonment- replacement. That’s where I’ve been living. I’m only in week 2 of the course, but this post fits right in.
I’m also thinking that abandonment and betrayal go hand-in-hand. When my very first boyfriend in high school broke up with me, I was devastated. I had liked him for years. I didn’t want anyone to really know how upset I was, so mostly I kept the feelings to myself. Really, I don’t know WHY he left either, just because he could I guess. I’d asked one of my best friends for support, and to accompany me to a church related event where I’d have to see him. Instead of supporting me, she flirted with him and started dating him behind my
back. It was the first time I remember asking a friend for emotional support. I received a double dose of pain, abandonment, rejection, betrayal. I think maybe I learned that this behavior was normal and to be expected. The beginning pattern of believing that people will leave and betray no matter what. No matter how well we get along, or how long we’ve been friends, or how much they appear to like me, or how many good times and secrets we’ve shared. Please break my heart, betray my trust, smile, and walk away. Maybe this happens to everyone? I don’t know, but I’ve carried it with me, and still do, for all these years. Maybe others aren’t so affected and don’t internalize and personalize.
@Sofia, you told me a time would come when I’d start to shift. I’m hoping that now, 16 months later, that is what I’m doing. I enjoy reading your progress, and your sensible comments. I don’t want to backslide, and I know most likely that WILL happen, as you’ve also stated. I measure this change by saying oh, I didn’t cry today. I’ve discontinued my counseling. Gave up my online dating account months ago. And it’s been a year now since I sent him my final thoughts. The “sent” letter. Sometimes I think I feel my feelings too much, and I have to tell myself now NOT to cry. It’s difficult but I couldn’t do that until recently. I think THAT is the shift I can acknowledge.
Say Something, what you have written struck many chords with me and I just want to say that I have cried and cried and cried for long periods for years!Sometimes uncontrollably, I think maybe some friends thought I was peculiar at how much torrents of tears I could release. Still now they often flow freely! I lost my father when I was 6, and there after faced quite a bit of abandonment from my family, although, like you too, I was never starving or homeless and everything was very middle class. The death and subsequent abandonment though, has been a pinnacle aspect of all my emotional growth and difficult relationships, and maybe that is the same for you?. Crying/being emotional is definately nothing to be ashamed of, I think we need to let our feelings out! And it is very important part of the healing process.
Sofia was right, there will be a shift for you, it is probably happening now. At the time it doesn’t all seem recognisable, like if you walk for a long distance and don’t realise how much ground you’ve covered until you look back and see all the miles behind you!
Hi Growingwings,
Finding out about the circumstances of your father’s death just recently had to be difficult to process. It’s amazing how so many different pathways can bring us all *here*. I am ready to not cry anymore. Kinda. It was becoming routine. I have to work hard to remain where I am. Being conscious and focused. I wasn’t able to do it until now. I don’t feel “good” yet and I’m still “missing” the guy, which is messed up. I don’t know what comes next. I will be forever thankful for this site in helping me work through it.
Say Something,
I sense you are experiencing the shift in what you describe and saying you still “miss” the guy. It’s good you recognize you are not missing him actually but something/someone else on another level. From what you wrote about yourself, I am thinking, like many of us here, you are missing the love and care you didn’t get when growing up, and hence finding the target of “love” in this case in “BGE,” who didn’t chose you. That all feels familiar to us, doesn’t it, because that’s how we grew up and most of us on here don’t know any better.
I cry too sometimes still. Not because I miss him. I don’t miss him. I miss what I thought he was. For me and to me, initially. The potential of partnership in the beginning. I miss being loved in my childhood and having secure, positive, emotional available and physical available, affectionate relationship with my parents and relatives. I have recognized all of these issues only in the last 1-2 years and work on the healing and processing it all. It is great that you are digging deeper. I think you are getting somewhere understanding not him (that will never happen) but yourself and your life and what happened and has been happening all your life to lead you where you are.
Backsliding will happen. You will feel like you are back to square one. And that’s ok too although very scary and depressing in itself because you will think that all the work has been useless and you are back to where you started. Healing is a slow and frustrating but essential process for our emotional health.
As time goes by you will notice the shift getting more pronounced. The break between crying more prolonged. It will not be a linear change. Rather sporadic and in non-predictable manner. There is no pattern. It is individual. But there is an overall, long-term pattern. Overtime, the pain will dull. The moments of feeling good or at least indifferent, will increase. The painful, sad moments, will decrease. Anniversaries, bdays, holidays are bad triggers, be ready for that, and know it will pass too.
You are healing, there is no doubt. Good idea to abandon therapy that was not helping. BR is the best therapy along with all the educational material you have been reading. Someone mentioned here that we have a group therapy here. Absolutely! And please know above all, time will naturally dull the pain, but also know that it will stay with you on some level. I don’t think it will ever go away and if you accept that, that the scar, the dull nudging pain will stay there on and off and you can live with that, that’s ok. You will have moved forward and built a new life by the time the pain subsides so at that point its existence won’t even matter. You will be used to its presence but it won’t bother you any longer. That’s what I think acceptance is.
Hi Sofia,
Thank you for your thoughts. I think I do still miss him/ who he presented to be as well as missing having someone who cares about me and whom I can count on. And in him, I thought I had all that (a future) so I miss both: what I THOUGHT I had, and specifically him (being the person I THOUGHT he was- I guess I don’t know if he really IS the BGE, or he just isn’t FOR ME, and that’s where I feel the rejection component.). And right, he didn’t CHOOSE me. Well, he DID and then he left.
Nothing is ever linear with me, so seeing my pattern has been difficult, but this sadness, pain, and suffering has been something that I can’t shake. It has become part of who I am, absorbed more like the rays of the sun hopefully, rather than some permanent change agent. But yes, the hurt will always be with me. It still is, I am just not crying every single day. I still wake up at night. I still question why he left, who he was, and how he was even capable to pull it off. I am fighting tears right now, so if I can stop them from rolling down my face, then that is a victory for me. The shift is oh so slight. It’s been 16 months. My heart remains heavy, the loneliness is real, but the tears have slowed.
“or he just isn’t FOR ME” – It took me more than a year to stop thinking about this and that’s something wrong with me because someone rejected me. I still feel the rejection even though I don’t want him and don’t respect him. It’s really contradictory. Why we feel rejected and abandoned by a person we don’t want back in our lives. I speak for myself. I don’t want the last ex back. It’s an utter impossibility. I just don’t like him as a human being, but rejection still stings. It’s odd. I am still working on it.
No, there is no permanent damage. You will live again and smile and feel happy. You have your own time frame and accept that. Don’t count days and months any longer. Just accept this as some shade/background you have to feel for now until it subsides. Meanwhile put your own life upfront. Treat this background of pain as some kind of shadow that will disappear or at least become very vague with time once you gradually replace that shadow with more and more front life and light. Don’t be harsh on yourself, take it step by step. Your life will unfold again and you will feel full again and will experience joy and content. It’s a dark phase. It will pass and you will remember it with a sad smile and a bit of dull, quiet pain, but it will be your past and you will have a new life. Hang in there and believe you will be You again.
Thank you Sofia,
Yes thinking that he is the BGE, but just not FOR ME is hurtful, and reinforces that something must be wrong with me in order for him to leave so abruptly. So in the end, as I opened up completely, thinking maybe I’d been unclear to him, he responded by shutting everything down. The more I tried, the more I offered, the more I questioned, pleaded, tried to reason and make sense of what was happening, the more cold and distant he became, like a timed systematic shut down.
So I watched with Brené Brown’s Ted talk, and now I wonder, how do people maintain positive feelings of self-worth? I must have handed everything over to him with unspoken directions of please destroy me because I remember feeling happy, feeling gratitude, feeling comfortable, feeling like I was right where I was supposed to be. Thinking it was real. So his leaving/ abandoning/ sabotaging resulted in me abandoning every good thing I believed about myself. But I continued to believe all good things about him, EVEN THOUGH part of me knows he lied and manipulated. Was it so horrible being with me, that was the only sure escape for him? I’ve thought maybe.
I know Brené Brown has come up in previous comments. I know Mary Jane has quoted her. I’m getting ready to order some of her books. Here is the link to her Ted talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability
I found her video to be complimentary of this post and align with NML’s pattern breaker course. I’m good at reading and watching the videos, but not so good at doing all the written activities.
Anyhow, I think of NML’s phrase of *he’s just not that special* and then I logically apply that same thinking to myself. So stuckness. And I can remember asking my therapist, skeptic that I can be, ‘Why should I believe “good” things about myself just because negative things are not helpful?’ Because just believing them/ buying into them doesn’t make them true either. Logic derived from “just because you believe something doesn’t mean it’s true or a fact”. I’m pretty sure I frustrated her.
I’m working hard to not give up on myself. I really am, even though I pretty much did last year. Connections ARE to be made with other people, and when someone completely disconnects via pulling the plug, it can be like trying to find your way back along an unknown path, alone in the dark.
Thank you for link, Say Something. I must have missed the link/author name before. I liked what she has to say. The bottom line is we are all worthy, with our good and bad sides. Because one person doesn’t think we are worthy does not change the fact that we are worthy. I too put too much connection and investment in one person. I had done it with all my relationships, the last one was the most investment and perhaps I had the biggest emptiness to fill at the time. I have learned now to never invest my entirety in one person and give my life to him/her. There is no human that can give us the love, care, and respect that we want and deserve. Mine is a Christian perspective and like I said before my faith heals me and helps me growing. I don’t feel that I can grow if I expect someone to love me back, or love myself only and concentrate solely on me. Neither proves satisfactory in the long-term. It is really, the Universe, like someone would say here. We are all interconnected and our growth and recovery will happen when we find our meaning in life and connections with others, without investing in one single person or just oneself (important pre-requisite but not the single source of growth).
Sofia – bingo!
Thanks Say Something. Sounds like you’re a strong person and that feeling ‘good’ will arrive slowly but surely, probably sporadically at first and then more. I always keep trying to focus on the little things, simple happy things in life which make me feel happy to be alive (i.e first cup of coffee in the morning, how the sky looks today, friendly words with strangers in a shop)just momentary sensations and then these small things build up to a larger, far-reaching, intricate tapestry, of positive things which becomes your life..ideally
Have been trying this and yet often found it difficult with the destructive, awkward relationship with my Mum hanging in the background. But I think I have a hold on it now, I can still be in touch with her, but I have learnt to maintain an emotional distance – self-preservation for me and benefits her too, we don’t need to try so hard with our relationship, trying to put the past right, it’s ok to just let it be.
This made me cry. As part of my quest to track down the roots of my codependency and picker problems, I traced feelings of abandonment back to age 4 or 5 when the next door neighbor would molest me between the hours of 2 and 4 when my older siblings were still at school and I was home alone. After the pedophile was caught and sent to prison, my parents still left me home alone in the afternoon. I hid under the bed every afternoon until my sibs got home. I guess a babysitter would have been asking too much.
@karen; that is a very difficult experience to have gone through. The fear of that and of feeling alone, at age 5, I can’t imagine. I hope you can find then resources to find a new way through it, Karen. Therapy can help because a good therapist models non judgment and acceptance. Of yourself and your experiences. Yes we might be abandoned but we often blame ourselves for it.
The part where Natalie mentions feeling guilty when we feel affected by it. I find i have a hard time sometimes when i feel a serious of challenging events and then struggle with giving myself a hard time for being affected by things. I know i am human and deserve to feel my feelings but sometimes after a series of events without measured improvement i default to questioning maybe my feeling affected by them is the problem and try to figure out how to make it (me) better. I definitely am a work in progress and need to self soothe more.
Thank you Natalie. You are so gifted in your understanding and communication. I swept my abandonment feelings under the rug as a teenager and forgave my father and forged a new relationship with him – which I initiated. For that he was truly grateful, as was I. But despite the healing that took place I see that I was still that child acting as the one to make everything alright, desperate to make him happy and living in fear that people would see something wasn’t quite right. He cast a very dark shadow over me – he was angry and hurt – I absorbed his sadness. Nonetheless, I tried to make everything look perfect when it was far from it. SO much shame and feelings of worthlessness and comparisons that still exist to this day. It’s deeply hurtful when a parent’s actions translate to a child that they aren’t worth loving. And as I don’t want to end on a down note: we CAN heal and being able to have access to supportive and educational sites like yours is extremely helpful.
I feel like I shouldn’t have abandonment issues because my father let me live with him when I was broke in my early 20s, and he has never been nasty towards me. I see him as unable to help himself, a depressive alcoholic, possibly with other forms of mental illness, who had a miserable childhood. But as Nat identified a few years ago, this self-abuse of alcoholism inadvertently abuses others around them, and means that it has an impact on the way we see ourselves. I walk a tightrope between anger and compassion, but one thing I do know, is that I have an awful lot of anger, whether I want to or not.
As I wrote in earlier posts, it makes me angry that to others, he will seem to ‘own’ what I have achieved, while he has never encouraged or supported me and is detached from my emotional development. From life-threatening eating disorders to assclown encounters to great achievements, the response is blank. I know that’s a big reason why I felt so worthless and unloveable as an adult. Then I feel guilt, he wants to support me but doesn’t have the tools, he’s trapped in his own abused head, he let me stay with him and other parents wouldn’t do that for their children. But more and more, I see he’s not as harmless and passive as he makes out. I fear that he is actually abusing his partner, with violent outbursts and a blatant lack of respect for her, and that even if he wasn’t violent towards me, he was always full of rage, enough to pacify me. Is he really that helpless?
@happy b. Your post made me remember something I read in a book… I quote from ‘Family Secrets’ by John Bradshaw (p. 49).
“AMBIGUOUS LOSS. Shirley’s father was always a mystery to her. She never knew what he thought about things, and she always had the feeling that he was preoccupied with something other than what was going on in the family.”
[… He had had another wife in another state for decades until he died …]
“This revelation helped explain Shirley’s feeling that her father was physically present but emotionally absent.[…]”
“Keeping a dark secret requires chronic deception and a certain amount of defensive evasion. Such an energetic facade creates emotional distance and inhibits spontaneous communication.”
“The secret-keeper is experienced by the outsiders as never being fully present. Something is missing, but it is hard to say exactly what it is.”
I argue that a bottle of liquor is no different than a hidden second wife or family. V.
PS: I have no idea if citing things this way is ok by law or NML; PPS: I do not endorse every opinion of the author or the book.
V, that put a chill through me, in an eye-opening way, a very accurate description.
Chronic deception, a lack of authentic and spontaneous conversation. Makes me wonder if alcohol becomes that first love on a day-to-day basis, and children, family, become something that interrupts it, an unwanted reality check to get through and cope with as well as possible. Hence the inane talk and emotional absence, while others are not so duty-bound and leave in person as well as spirit.
Hmmmm… I haven’t seen my biological father since I was 6 months old (my mother later revealed that we bumped into him when I was 10, but she managed to evade him), and my step father and I have had a turbulent relationship to say the least.
I guess you could say I felt abandoned/unloved when my Mum always sided with my step dad instead of me (he had a hot temper and she swears blind to this day that she “has always had my back”), but I never witnessed this because she would say they spoke privately. I was also criticised a lot as a child which lends itself to my feelings of inadequacy as an adult. I was brought up being told I was “ungrateful, spoilt, a selfish little brat, too lippy, too quiet, antisocial” and everything else in between – mostly by my stepfather who never had kids of his own and was a bit of a bully. In retrospect, I guess that’s why I can be very sensitive to criticism (personal not professional mind), because I always associate it with never being enough. Even at 31, when I’m old enough to tell myself otherwise, there’s still a deep-rooted belief that I’ll never be good enough, and I tend to carry this belief into my career (colleagues say I’m a perfectionist) and my love life (or lack thereof).
I told my mum that I’d like to look for my real dad and she gave me his name and date of birth… Not sure if I should open that box at the moment. I figured that if he really wanted to find me over the last 30 years, he could’ve done so easily. Maybe he just doesn’t give a damn? Why should I care? I know that having contact with him won’t right the wrongs of the past, or make me love myself more… I’m scared it could backfire on me.
As I am nearing my 1,5 anniversary on BR and the healing, I am realizing that I am healing from my past much more than the breakup. I have been having one of those phases again of recycling. They are very short now. The experience of “why, anger, madness, sadness, and acceptance” all within one day! I recognize the pattern and accept it as the diminishing vortex of grieving. More than anything I recognize my feelings each time, acknowledge them and tell myself it’s okay to feel this way and it will pass. I love the feeling of being compassionate to myself and being with me during these times. Not shaming and not being scared of my own feelings. I just sit through them.
I am being my parent, which I never had, emotionally or physically, like many of us here. This post made me cry 1/4 through reading it. I have been grieving the abandonment and emotional unavailability of my parents. One was an alcoholic from early on and kept disappearing and returning until he went away for good. Then my mother, who was depressed from as long as I remember and emotionally absent, started drinking and I lost her to alcohol as well in my early teens. There are great comments on this post how all these feelings we accumulated as children built up in us for years, and we couldn’t process them or let them out. We couldn’t understand anything, of course, we were children, and children take responsibility and guilt for everything. No wonder we feel unlovable, not good enough, worthless, compare ourselves to others, and try to win a person who has the closest resemblance to either or both of our parents. And when we “lose,” the built up tsunami of abandonment from the past starting from childhood, crushes us and we finally begin repairing ourselves, healing, processing, owning our feelings, and hopefully forgiving ourselves for not healing fast enough or never healing.
Yesterday, as I read the post and cried nodding my head, I said to myself, yes, I agree that there will be some pain always on some level. It will never go away. The important thing is we recognize it’s there and treat it. It’s a continuous care and part of it is retelling, reconsidering what we think about it and how the pain from the past affects us now. What I am working on now and what helps me is recognizing and accepting that my parents were messed up people themselves like all of us were/are. They made a load of bad choices and didn’t have the tools or capability to figure themselves out and repair their lives. My only choice is to forgive them and understand them they did what they could because they are humans too. There was no intention to harm. Not everybody is strong and willing to work on themselves to help oneself. Not everybody is aware and most people, I guess, don’t change. On BR here it seems that a lot of people change, but that’s us, people who come here with an open heart to figure out what we need to do to become healthy people. I don’t think many people do it. They just keep on going without much introspection and processing. It’s less painful that way. Denial and shutdown. Short-term anyway.
Thus, forgiving the parents and everyone else who abandoned me and triggered the original pain of abandonment, which is really the source of it all. And finding the source of love in other places by giving love, seeing love and having faith and knowing that you are a lovable and worthy person. For me both come from my faith, and that’s the only way I see myself healing, and I am grateful it comes naturally to me but although it’s a work in progress as well.
So we continue living with abandonment. It will not be magically erased. I accept it will always be there. The deep scar. I like Phoenix’ analogy. It’s how we deal with it and how we relate to it in our present and moving forward.
Brilliant post, Natalie. A tremendous insight, thought provoking, wise, and inspirational. Thank you.
Sofia,
This is the part i struggle with. How to accept the pain will be there and feel my feelings but not let it affect me when it does affect me. I try my best to build my life the way i would like not just for me but for my son too. Im not sure how to deal with it in some moments. Im usually pretty good about being optimistic and kinder to me but sometimes after a series of difficult experiences especially i would just like a hug or really just be able to turn to someone who isnt myself. This is when i find myself struggle with abandonment issues more.
HappyAgain,
I see it as embracing the pain in life as we embrace the joy. Life is inevitably constructed of hurt and positive moments. I find myself more comfortable now with letting the pain and hurt affect me and just sit through it without worrying that it affects me. I just know it will pass too and next day/week/month will be better.
I think we hurt ourselves extra and unnecessarily because we try too hard to be optimistic, joyful, and happy. I think especially people in the Western society have the mentality that being sad and depressed is some sort of weakness that needs to be fixed. In severe cases, yes, there should be an intervention, but otherwise, on a regular basis, it’s just a normal flow of life. Sad, happy, neutral, depressed, joyful, pensive, melancholic, thrilled, laughing, crying… It’s just all normal feelings.
I understand about needing a hug . . . I have almost a physical craving for it sometimes, for an adult’s caring hug. Loneliness does bring out the abandonment issues. I have spoken about this before but have not made an actual step to get out into the world, so to speak, and help others, connect to people in need. There are so many lonely and sad people out there. I think when we are lonely and scared, feel abandoned and unloved, it’s easy to make a conclusion we must be the only ones feeling that way. Everyone else is coupled and have someone. That’s what I think during my lonely moments. Reaching out to others and offering our kindness and love is essential, I think, to our growth and healing. It could be becoming a part of the organization that is important to us, associating oneself with some cause that it’s important, and dedicating some of our free time to the cause. We are humans and intuitively drawn to other people. I think an action, an active engagement might be a key to alleviate our sense of being left behind, unworthy, and not good enough. By giving our warmth to someone else, to the community. That’s of course after we have done the initial healing work on ourselves and have learned to love and respect ourselves. There comes the time, I notice, that self-focus is not helpful in a big picture, and as you say, we feel the need to turn to someone else. Being highly tuned into oneself and concentrated on oneself is good to an extent and due to a certain event in life when this focus is integral and imperative to one’s life reorganization and healing; however, staying self-absorbed continuously keeps the attention resolving around one and those issues of loneliness, abandonment, and being not good enough will continue resurfacing, I think. So a part of our healing includes getting back out there. I don’t mean dating. I mean finding places, people, organizations who could benefit from our company, conversations, actions, or whatever else we could do to turn our focus from ourselves to others, while of course, being present and aware of ourselves. That’s why I am saying it’s important to initially process and heal on one’s own first before becoming vulnerable again. I feel that my remaining issues of lowered self-esteem, anxiety, and abandonment are related to my isolation and too much self-focus. Switching the focus on to someone else, in a healthy way, could be something that will help our healing.
Sofia,
I find so much of what you replied to be familiar to me especially the part about trying to hard to be optimistic, happy, etc.. I try to be that just because i want to be normally but i have found there are times im not that and while i sm ok with it at the beginning i find i can start questioning how long is it ok to be like this which i am not sure is healthy in itself just because im talking days here not weeks and months. I have found feeling my feelings comes in stops and flows and sometimes takes a longer time for me to process feelings then i say to myself should it take this long. Lol. I never really considered those things until your comment. I really appreciate everything you shared in your reply, it has increased my perspective.
HappyAgain, I have periods of “meh”, sad, and indifferent kind of days. I used to dwell on those, now I take them as they are and go with the flow. I always know that the energy and lighter days phase will come back. We are like oceans, like nature. It’s a constant change. Surge, slow down, storm, still calmness. These feelings are all fine as long as there is nothing drastic and prolonged (like indifference to everything for weeks and not being able to do basic tasks). Our society pressures us too hard to cheer up (do not like this “advice” – so not helpful – it has an opposite effect on me) and get over it and erase the past. No. We have to own our feelings and feel all of them while being gentle and caring for ourselves and forgiving our sad moments and embracing our own humanity. I think once we accept that sadness/hurt is a part of our humanity makeup, just like happy feelings too, we can be forgiving to ourselves and take it naturally and go with the flow (not to borrow EU cliche phrase but to express self-acceptance). I read somewhere that even suffering has its meaning in our lives. Many people suffer from the existential vacuum. Once we find the meaning even in the suffering that we have to endure, however small or big, our life will never feel lost and void. All our feelings are okay. We just need to learn to embrace all of our entirety, good and bad, happy and sad.
Sofia,
I think you are right. Oddly enough today I was online doing some reading on a american fashion magazine website and there was an article that noted the following “The point is that thoughts tend to be reactions to feelings. While our inclination is to get to the root of a problem and change our feelings (trying to be happy when we feel sad, for example), not only is this counterproductive, it can make the situation worse. (Indeed, some have attributed the recent uptick in suicide among college undergraduates to the pressure to appear happy all the time on Instagram.)”. I had never really considered that until you said it the other day and I recognize it to be true. I am working on these things.
Another thing that helps me big time, I think, although seemingly trivial: I don’t own TV, don’t listen to the radio, don’t have Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. I have eliminated quite a lot of sources of distraction and pressure to be and feel a certain way. It is freeing.
Accepting sadness is accepting being a human. I don’t know about other countries in Western Europe or UK, but in the United States, particularly in the southern portion, you are expected to be friendly, smiling and happy. If your face is neutral, you must be mad or unhappy. Talking about pressure. I am originally from a different culture, from Eastern Europe. I have a different mentality, but I can imagine that people who are born and raised in the United States go through . . . I can see it from raising my daughter. The societal norms and expectations of success is that you smile and be happy all the time. Expressing sadness means losing the competition and the entrepreneurial spirit of winning in life. Pretty sad indeed. I imagine it’s hard for some people to reconcile being human and the pressure to have to be happy and “get over it,” “move on,” “erase the past,” etc. It is no surprise that so many people are on antidepressants. It seems like 1/2 of people at my work are on something. And I don’t think that many would qualify for such medication, really. It seems a lot of times people want to shut down the painful feelings and not feel. Of course I am not speaking for those who really need the medication, and I respect that such medication is available in the cases when it’s needed. I feel though that most people I know who take it, need to just cry it all out, feel, and own their feelings, and just be ok with being down, lonely, feeling abandoned, unloved and parent themselves instead of running away from themselves and numbing.
Accepting suffering as a part of human condition is an integral part of living and will lead to the acceptance of oneself with all the ups and lows.
I am glad my ideas based on my experience and the readings are helping you, HappyAgain. We really just need to be easier on ourselves and forgiving us for being . . . well us, however imperfect and depressed at times.
@Sofia. What an interesting thing you say… I too am an immigrant from an Eastern country, and in the integration process had to abandon my ‘normal’ face for a perpetually smiling one. Your post made me remember how much I resented this. I am going to mull this over, I have a feeling the cost of that type of cultural adaptation has been much greater than I have acknowledged till now. V.
V, I understand! The first year I came to the United States, my facial muscles hurt because I had to smile all the time. When I didn’t people thought something bad happened to me, I am grumpy, or just an unhappy overall person. A neutral face here is suspicious. After almost 18 years living here, I am still not used to it, but the muscles work automatically now, so I guess I have adapted on the outside anyway. The mentality though is formed by the time you are a young adult and I came here around when I was 20, so I still have my mentality and cultural perception of everything. That has not changed, so at times I still feel awkward here, but oh well.
For years I didn’t understand what it meant when someone would say “stop abandoning yourself”. My childhood was filled with parents abandoning me as well as peers and lovers in my adulthood. It literally was until last week that I got a stark wake-up call how I abandon myself. A cute guy had asked what kind of books I read. I read a lot of self-help books and anything that makes you think. It’s what I enjoy most. But I was too preoccupied with how I would appear if I said what I truly read. So I just said “non-fiction”. I became very aware how I’d abandoned myself in that moment when I wasn’t truthful about me. His approval was more important which has been a running force most my life. Other people’s approval while abandoning myself to become whatever I thought they wanted/needed me to be. I ditched myself over and over again. Now I see it plainly. And it gives me more to work with. More of a way to show up in relation to people. To be who I am. Thank you for this post, Nat.
@colororange: and the people who judge you for reading self-help are anyway not good for you and I would say for anyone — because judgment esp of those trying to improve their lives is a red flag. So it’s important to speak your truth.
I get that, colororange. Recognizing that we spend so much time/energy being loyal to others (and/or figuring out what will please them) and abandoning/rejecting ourselves in the process. I’m working on being relentlessly loyal to me, first and foremost.
Thank you for this. This is my story. I am worthy and good enough to be loved.
Colororange, I totally agree, I often feel inauthentic & maybe it’s because I’m abandoning me?
I just had an Aha moment…(As Oprah would say)
Some of you may know that I had a massive meltdown over an incident with my brother last week.
Since then I have had an awful few days whilst moving up the country to start something new.
So I am sat here now in a new place with an awful earache, a streaming nose and a slight ache in my joints.
I wont be getting home to my new place tonight for at least another 5 hours and I am desperately looking forward to the next few days when I will finally get the chance to switch off and sleep.
This post came at such the right time.
My dad left when I was 4. I didn’t seem him for years after that and then only sporadically until he died.
I have grown up with a deep sense of abandonment and guilt.
I have excelled in many areas of my life and continue to do so but often feel bad for doing well in comparison to my siblings and others around me.
When my bro put me down the other night I was floored as a large part of me felt like I deserved it. That I deserved to be put down, that I didn’t deserve all the good things that are happening to me because obviously my dad left me and so obviously I am not worthy 🙁
As Nat says, intellectually I know this is not true but the four year old girl in me still believes it. I believed it when I was bullied at school, I believed it when I was abused by my ex and last week took me right back down there.
I see that now.
I also see that I can come back from this with greater awareness of how I feel and who I am.
Thank you all.
Bx
I think most of my childhood trauma comes from school bullying rather than any family issues – did the rejection by my peer group from ages 11-16 contribute to me constantly trying to dodge rejection/abandonment. I believe it has definitely led to my poor self image and placing a lot of value on my appearance and on being in a relationship – like if I can get someone to love me then this will be proof that I am beautiful and worthwhile.
Hi Marie
I am the same. I was bullied from 16-18 by a group of boys whilst at boarding school despite having friends and being a strong person. I always remember thinking its fine I’ll get out of here, meet someone wonderful and show them I’m loveable and worthy. 14 years later I’m still hoping one day that will happen 🙁
Thanks Nat. As always this is so completely significant and meaningful and well-written. Thankyou, I really needed to read that right now. I have a very difficult relationship with my Mother and Stepfather. At the age of 6 my biological Dad died, a year later my Mum remarried my stepdad, who I was told to call Dad from that moment, a year on from that I was sent to boarding school at the other end of the country. I was 8 and still missing my real Daddy – the money he had left me paid for my expensive education. The 1st summer holidays back from boarding school, nearing the time to go back I remember crying to my Mum and pleading for me not go back and please stay at home with her forever, she said why not give it another try? I never asked her again and gradually developed my own life with my friends at boarding school and sort of lost interest in home life. My parents moved around a lot and also shifted me around to different boarding schools, the second one being closer to their new house, but I still only saw them as much as when I had been 300 miles away.
There’s a lot of shaky feelings coming to the surface as I write this. A lot of abandonment and since I became an adult my Mum has tried to rebuild her relationship in her own half-hearted way and so have I, but it has been too painful for me over the years, especially as she won’t accept me as an adult and has beat herself up a lot about how she feels she wasn’t a good enough Mother. And now at the age of 35, my aunty her sister said I deserve to know the truth about my real Father, that he killed himself, just after my 6th birthday after he had been to visit me.
Wow……well, that explains an awful lot of the peculiar behaviour I have had to put up with over the years from the ‘grown ups’. It was, such a long time ago, but I have always loved him and missed him and now knowing the truth about his death, the pain felt quite overwhelming. But I have a very wonderful man friend and partner in my life and he has let me talk it over with him. He say’s I need to allow me to feel my feelings. I don’t know if the relationship with my Mum will ever change, but now I know the truth I feel a new found freedom and I have forgiven her, and think she has put herself through enough. But what about me? ‘Forgiving me for Abandonment’, Natalie, is what it’s all about…thankyou for giving me that extra little reassurance I need right now, as I only found out what I have just told you a couple of weeks ago. All I want now is to soothe the hurting little girl, hold my Dad close in my heart and move forward with strength and love, and hopefully help others along the way.
As an after thought… there is so much more to it than what I wrote earlier, and even if no one is reading it is good to get it off my chest and helps me to put myself out there…it’s group therapy isn’t it?…. so, I am only just beginning to like/Love me! and thanks again Nat for your helpful words on Baggage Reclaim, which have been helping along the way. I really have been very messed up – feelings of worthlessness pervaded my life from a very early age and only got worse really. Until I was Totally out-of-control in my 20s!…well not that Bad, I survived and I came out the other side, so. Right now I am feeling strong and like I’m moving forward like never before, especially with new truths coming out about my Dad, a lot of who he was has been kept secret from me; he was a musician, a drinker, and he died from pneumonia apparently and that is all I was really allowed to know about him from the age of 6 to 35 finally when my Aunt realised I was maybe strong enough now to handle the truth. and that I needed to know it. My Mum always shies away from the subject, I understand why now, but so much has been left closed to me, that I don’t think I ever truly felt like a real person, and I did feel Enormous guilt about everything and nobody came forward to help me. But friends have helped me and I have helped myself and done a lot of work, and now want to be able to help others to help themselves! Now, after this revelation, I still haven’t told my Mother that I now know that my Dad committed Suicide and really, it is all so long ago, I don’t want to hurt her, as she is seemingly so fragile, so I will tell her the next time I see her, in a way that makes her hopefully realise that as a young woman I can cope with this (and I only see her a couple of times a year now). I feel a lot stronger, I am actually accepting myself and not letting the inner critic have the last word anymore!… it is perhaps a precarious feeling of keeping balance, whilst surging forward and trusting in the future. I also make a point to be mindful and appreciative of the present which we live in, appreciate all the small things, and try to get close to nature when I can.
More than anything I am learning that once we can feel this strength and self-acceptance in ourselves, we can support eachother more, which we all really need to do.
GrowingWings, the Enormous Guilt you feel is not yours, is other people’s. The people who surrounded you in your childhood, they either projected their own guilt on you, or you simply picked it up from them when you were little.
What can be the guilt of a child who loses her father? None.
If you want to verify this theory, you can think of how you feel when you speak about your father’s suicide to somebody who doesn’t consider this topic taboo, somebody who passes no judgment whatsoever on the facts. Do you feel guilty then? V.
Thanks V. Very true words.
I think my Mum has let her guilt overwhelm her for years and to think that I’ve tried to be there for her and didn’t fully realise what it was that was hurting her so much.
She left my Dad when I was 2 and took me with her, but I saw him quite a lot when they were separated before he died, I used to go and stay with him, he got a new wife quite quickly and we used to have nice days out together, he spoilt me a lot and I thought he was the most wonderful person.
But he was very unhappy and now I know what happened to him I feel sad for my Mum too, she has carried this around with her and blocked me out, basically depriving herself of having a daughter, or of having any happiness in life at all. An I have seen this for many years and felt bad for her and worried and tried to help, but ultimately have felt useless and redundant as she wouldn’t let me in.
This posting hit home to me, but my father summarily abandoned me 8 years ago, when I was in my 30’s. He has always been dysfunctional when it comes to conflict; he cuts people out of his life on a regular basis, often without even telling them what they have done to offend him. He had stopped speaking to me for 2.5 years in my 20’s, but I was able to bridge that gap and reconnect. This time, he is very resolute that I will never have the chance to hurt him again. My crime is that I failed to return a phone call and firm up plans that we had for lunch. This was proof of my ongoing selfish behaviour, and I was dispatched forthwith.
Even though I was not a child when it happened, I always idolized my father in many ways, and I really felt that he was a wonderful parent despite his issues. I guess his love always felt more unconditional than my mother’s, as my mother is a control freak and a bully on her bad days (my parents have been divorced for decades). She still speaks to me like I’m dirt whenever I annoy her. My dad made mistakes, but I always knew that his actions came from a place of love…my mother was always more self-serving in her actions and justifications. Anyway, he is gone from my life now, and I have really struggled with trying to reconcile the man I thought he was and how he has treated me as completely dispensable. Having had 8 years to think about it, I have grown accustomed to thinking of him as dead, even though he still speaks with my brother and mother; however, the rejection is still very hard for me to process. How can I be so utterly unlovable that my own father, whom I loved dearly and who was a good father for many years, can be content to cut me out of his life completely? Unfortunately, I have replayed this dynamic in my relationships, which is not surprising. Loving men who reject me has been my “normal” for a long time, and I need to find a way to reconcile what has happened with what I want for myself going forward. My brother, in kind, treats me as a non-entity aside from birthdays and Xmas’, and this does not help.
Hmm…this post revealed a few things to me. I never recognized my sense of abandonment ostensibly derived from being adopted and raised by EU parents for whom I could never do anything remotely orbiting “good enough”, never mind “right”. Being isolated in a 17-year relationship/marriage with a non-English-speaking abusive alcoholic head case kept me permanently distracted and run off my deeply codependent feet with the drama du jour, so now I get to finally unpack and dismantle this one. Thankfully during the past year+ that I have been going through the process of extricating myself from the marriage, I have had periodic episodes of feeling happy and at peace and energized to rebuild and move forward, guided by what I have been learning from BR during that time, as I learn how to function as a “normal” person.
“… Envying your friends and others triggers guilt but then you feel worthless due to comparison. You feel guilty for feeling sad and lost even though you’re not alone or there are “bigger problems in the world”. You might associate the confusion and grief of abandonment with a lack of gratitude for being taken in or kept, so you push down feelings and then wonder why you feel so depressed and lonely. You wonder if there’s something wrong with you for not being more ‘over it’…“
I often wondered why my “normal” was feeling alone and swimming against the tide, always at odds with the world around me. Was I just “born under a bad sign”? No, I have abandonment issues that have strongly influenced my behaviour and choices. No más!
Hello Brenda – after my painful childhood experiences – my non relationships with my ex’s was my childhood way of keeping myself safe from feeling the pain I felt as a child from being abandoned until I was ready – forgive yourself – you cannot know what you did not know or never learned from experience – now you actually know and are growing trust you know! you can use it to move on and grow.
Just found it has a name – dissociative coping mechanisms.
Wow Oona, you hit it bang-on the head again! Thank you very much for that! I looked it up and immediately recognized that I am deeply and habitually dissociative. That explains a lot. My memories of when I was younger are quite fragmentary, and I am aware that I have spent the majority of this lifetime mentally and emotionally checked out, just forcing myself to jump through the required hoops and slog through whatever I have to in order to survive my day. How does one undo that? This gives me a good target to keep in sight as I go through the process of “rebuilding me”.
It has been a while since I left a post, primarily because I have been busy just trying to keep my life afloat. Well, I have taken the blue bill (matrix analogy)….Oprah refers to it as the lighbulb moment…Whatever, you call it, it is painful as hell.
I took the blue pill November 2014, while visiting my mother. We live about 4 hours away from each other. While visitng her, she stood over me (mind you, I was 47 years old at the time, she stood over me, screaming at me, actually just basically bullying me…about something trival. But, my reaction was similar to that of a child, I actually felt scared, my voice trembled as I tried to defend myself. Then just as easily as she used bullying, she started speaking to me nicely, as if I was supposed to forget just how outrageously mean she had just been about 15 minutes ago.
I went upstairs, just like I used to, and cried. But in that moment, I realized everything, everything became crystal clear. My mother is a bully, a narcissist. Our relationship has not been the same since I had that revelation….And it never will be.
Natalie, you speak of guilt. If I dont impose the guilt factor on myself, my mother will gladly do it for me.
Forgive and forget….yeah it would be easy, if the behavior had stopped maybe 10 or 15 years ago…but it continued all the way up to the point that I was 47 effing years old!…And I am mad as hell about it….I just did not want to fully accept that my mother was abusive…But it explains why, I have accepted bosses yelling at me, boyfriends, girlfriends, it didnt matter, I accepted disrespect…I had absolutely no boundaries….My own mother groomed me to accept boundary busting behavior.
I am mad at myself for a varity of reasons, lost of my youth, the anger that I cannot shake, mad at the way that I talk to my mother now, it feels unnatural…I dont want to talk to her..thats the honest truth, but I feel guilty about it…this is horrible.
Everytime,I make an attempt at forgiveness, she shows me why that is not in my best interst. She starts with the guilt and shame, it is so automatic with her, Now, I am the one dismissing her…I can not let her enter my mind in order for her to take control. Especially, now that I know that her actions are deliberate.
Life is funny, her golden child, my bother passed away 5 years ago. She has elevated him to saint status. But, my bother passing did not pull her closer to me. She did not make any attempts to move closer to me until after I had my lightbulb moment and started being unavailable for phone conversations or visits.
I am preparing to leave the country. I plan to go overseas and teach English. I need a change….a fresh start.
This is the hardest thing I have ever faced, my primary caregiver, has emotionally abused and abandoned me all my life, and now I will have to abandon her in order to save myself….
.Narcissitic mothers…apparently she was abused in order for her to get to this point (absolutely no empathy, selfish, golden child-brother, etc), but I need to save my empathy and forgiveness for myself. She is never going to change…And I will be detroyed in the process of trying to be the good daughter….
@aboutme. You have indeed taken the pill, and so have I. I still feel like sh*t most of the time, but I would never, ever, ever go back to the way it was before. What you say in your post, 100% truth. Thanks for that. V.
@about me = totally true, now the exciting stuff can happen…
Yes, I already feel better. I feel like a cloud has lifted…it is hard to explain, but I feel better and things make sense. I truly believe its now my turn for a shot a happiness….
Thankyou GrowingWings for sharing your story. I really think that for me the next step is to do something for wider good, especially when I see so many women getting exploited in all sorts of way. Something especially for teenage girls and young college women, I dont know what it would be , but that is what my heart speaks.
Why keep my love reserved only for romance, why not with wider humanity?
The challenge I see, is to how to first love myself unconditionally. I see my lack of motivation, the complacent attitude, the disinterest in life which has become more apparent after the recent breakup.
So what do you people do to “self love”, what explicit small actions you take every day to appreciate yourself. I I have started with Lousie Hay’s mirror work, but it is not consistent,any suggestions?
Hi Wiser2. The mirror work has been trans-formative for me. I now say I love you, to myself, every morning. I’ve also found saying my regular affirmations in the mirror is very helpful.
I’ve found that when I ask myself what I need/want throughout the day, it helps me to figure what nice things to do for myself.
If I’m tired, a nap or just lying down with a book.
I treat myself to dark chocolate every day…it’s good for me!
A nice soak in the tub with Epsom Salt.
Coffee with my kitty in the morning.
Making time every day for doings things I enjoy.
Replacing the critical inner voice with a loving, supportive voice.
Giving myself permission to just be and not having to be doing something.
So my suggestion to you would be to pay close attention to yourself/your thoughts and feelings. It’s helpful on many levels because when you are paying attention you’ll learn all sorts of things about yourself and be more aware in general. Then use what you learn to make your life better.
Some of the best ways I am showing love for myself is by all the things I have stopped doing!
Hope this is helpful for you.
Veracity
@Veracity, I like the list you wrote here, I am trying to teach myself those sorts of things too. And I have tried doing that mirror thing too, I find that difficult, I need to work on that!
@Wiser2, I agree with what you say about doing something for the greater good. I find painting and being creative very therapeutic and I really believe people can be creative in many ways and group painting/art is a good way to help people gain confidence and a sense of ownership for something they have done. Many say but I am no good at art, but I think pick up a paintbrush and just go for it, it is quite a scary thing to do the first time, if you have low confidence and self-esteem, but gradually it becomes more exciting and freeing.
Any kind of creativity is good; cooking; what clothes you’re going to wear; how you’re going to find the resolve to deal with what the day has to throw at you, they’re all freeing and empowering, I find.
Also “explicit small actions every day to appreciate yourself”, for me I would say gratitude, lots of gratitude for the small things and everything really, and also treat yourself like you would treat a really good friend who you care about a lot. Hope this helps!
writing my journal, bath everyday with essential oils, bbc radio 6/personal music, switch off tele, radio, net when it isn’t sustaining me and find something that will, making things, doing things I’ve always wanted to do but never allowed myself to, occasional hot chocolate, and cake, or take away, holidays away, working towards things I want to achieve one step at a time…reading a book I’m really engaged in, wearing something that makes me feel good, changing my sheets, hot water bottle in cold weather, having my nails done, going to nice places…this is our list whatever yours will be – start small and build up – what ever motivates you, have fun finding out and trying new things or old things you know you like but don’t treat yourself to.
More true words couldn’t have been written! I too have had my share of childhood trama,after hiding behind other people’s Problems and pain(for many years) I realized I was hiding from myself. The fight to reclaim what’s mine(myself) has been rough ! But worth it. I’ve learn to have the little scared girl(inside of me) back! Sometimes someone will say,or do something that triggers the pain like no tomorrow! But in real life i’m a advocate for other people i just learned to be that for myself. Nat this post is downright refreshing! You give hope to wounded souls like me that It’s okay! Make peace& keep it moving!
Had to read this one over several days as its a bit raw at the minute.
Yep abandonment by others has resulted I believe in my worst abandonment ever = abandoning myself – in favour of others narrative of myself throughout my childhood and well into adulthood – without actually coming face to face with it and dealing with it/challenging it. I mirrored their behaviour of abandonment towards myself and didn’t voice concerns fully to myself, let alone assert myself with people abusing their positions/place within my life – convinced it was survival and learning how not to be abandoned ever again – only – I did it over and over and over again…..
At the time it was the best I could do. I had minimal help, support, though I know many saw what was going on and that I was unaware of what was fully happening/evolving. Were they in denial themselves? They didn’t want to get involved for their own reasons – just as I had my own.
Forgiving myself for my own abandonment? – where I am able to fully recognise and connect with feeling that others abandonment of me doesn’t mean that I wasn’t good enough but that they had their own problems I had no control over is still really hard to feel but it is getting easier the more I recognise and acknowledge my own feelings about what ever is going on in my life, in the moment and act on them. And recognise I can and DO have control over my own reactions and can act to keep myself safe, happy, engaged and loved in life when I choose to use them and act with love towards myself.
Easier said than done when emotions are on full/bombarded with them AND my subconscious is reminding me of abuses I have been through in the past but slowly this is getting less and less the more I allow myself to face the reality of how I healthily feel and act on it.
A man can shout at me in the street over a non parking issue – just because he’s an angry man and can see I’m on my own and poss. a good easy target for him – ie he won’t face much responsibility for his actions/ feels he can get away with them possibly? – and I sit there for days taking responsibility for his anger – whilst NOW also recognising he had a problem easily signified by his very red face and extreme behaviour which wasn’t really in perspective to any possible crime I may have been perceived to have committed – which wasn’t actually a crime at all in reality.
Others have often shown no sense of perspective when dealing with me and I have done the same to myself, which led to me feeling I had to be perfect or I couldn’t forgive myself for things because I wasn’t. The good thing is – it used to be weeks or months I would go through these feelings of guilt and shame – affecting me in my present – and I found people would reuse intimidation/passive aggression during this period to reopen those wounds they had already made and stop me from fully healing from them in the timely manner I would have if left to my own devices, so that I would effectively real from wound reopening to wound reopening over and over again until something truly dreadful happened that would finally mean I had to assert something that would get me a little bit of safety again.
This is the grooming I had, over forty years, so its very difficult to really accept that it is not all my fault and responsibility – in the moment – I’ve had training – it takes me a little time but I’m getting quicker at portioning out whats their’s and what is my go to strategy, if it happens again. I find writing it out, openly about it to myself is the way to start to unravel this but I have also needed exterior support that has helped to point out where I am being over responsible for others – essential as an exterior mirror to myself to add confidence to my growing self and feelings – only this won’t work I found if I am trusting someone who I have had flags that actually I shouldn’t and am in denial about it, for what ever reason, fear of abandonment usually.
The only responsibility I have I understand now – is to listen to myself and act on it – the caring nurturing healthy happy self – and act on it as much as I can realistically and forgive myself when I don’t and stop myself quicker when I don’t by recognising it quicker…
In the very beginning I gave it a name of – critic – so I could name what I was actually doing to myself at a point and gradually this has evolved into an understanding of oh…
Ok I am recognising what I am doing and…
perspective – I’m doing this alot all of a sudden, is this really fair judgement for my actual general behaviour? the person I am? the good things I have done?
I don’t need to do this – can I be good to myself now?
and stopping reacting to a surge of emotional stimulation, by suppressing important information/actions that might keep me safe in the present or future.
Once I had cracked it once I thought that that was it! only… abandonment seems to be a part of life – its good in some ways that it is – so that we can mature, grow as people, learn what we need about ourselves and our true resilience, move on and have an individual life within communities – otherwise we’d all still be tied to our parents in our forties – tied to their petty coats – and unable to do the things we value etc.
When I allow my abandonment by my parents and family to over run my life – really it keeps my parents tied to me in a doubly destructive emotional way – that I then act out physically – without actually needing their presence. I didn’t need to be told ‘NO’ disapprovingly or mockingly for trying something new that will be good for me – I already had it in my head from their overly fearful, insecure, reactive training of me that I had mistaken for strength as a child and feared.
The same with friends and romantic relationships. I was living a script I thought I knew with constant bad endings over and over again thinking – this time….
Dealing with abandonment of myself is now my life’s work but its taking some doing and forgiving to break the habit of a lifetime.
Skin graft 😉
Feeling an urge to write to AC how his behaviour hurts women, how is future faking is destructive. Feel I need to do this for the sake of women he picks up after me, thoughts? Btw I am over him now, and have absolutely no interest in him, but somehow do feel the need the convey that I now see through him, that although he professes to be spiritual and Buddhist he is actually the opposite. Should not we speak up sometimes when we are over the emotional stuff.?
@Wiser, I usually sit on things for awhile and ask myself why I feel the need to ‘school’ someone – is it REALLY because I want to try and save someone else from harm? Or is it because I’m expecting an apology, etc? If I feel deep in my bones that I am going to tell something something because I genuinely feel I have the right to, and because it MAY make some difference (certainly no guarantee) then I go ahead and do it. I did this recently with a guy that I had a fling with while on vacation. He did a huge amount of future faking (he wanted me to come back to his country in September and go traveling w him, etc) and as soon as I got back to the states he cooled down via email and acted like he didn’t know me. I was REALLY mad about the future faking, though by then I had calmed down and realized traveling around Central America with some guy I just met was probably not the best idea …. fast forward 6 months later, this was STILL bugging me. So I sent him an email. I was very firm. I told him he had NO right to tell me such nonsense and then when I got back to my country, act like he hardly knew me. I told him if he wanted to get laid, that was his prerogative, but do it like an adult and don’t say a bunch of crap you don’t mean…. anyway, I surprisingly got back an email from him saying that I was absolutely correct, he was really sorry, and he hadn’t emailed me because he realized he couldn’t do the things he had promised (he had no money for one). I appreciated the email. I did not respond. I said my part, he said his, end of.
So I say go ahead and do it if you want to.
As for ‘spiritual’ guys they can often be the worst! I have noticed that if a guy says he’s spiritual right off the bat, he’s often using that to try and cover up a wide array of shady behavior.
@Wiser, I should only add that if you are in the middle of trying to keep NC this might open up a whole can of worms and disrupt your healing process. There is every chance he might get back to you and say something to push your buttons and trigger a downward spiral. So enter with caution…
@wiser: should we not speak up sometime? For the sake of the women? And for to expose the spiritualists among us? And…
No. Especially if there are all these reasons and justifications because that means you might be over wanting to date him, but not over how you yourself were in the relationship or him having (in your mind) pulled a fast one on you.
I agree w what Diane did because she was still pissed at this guy and needed to get if off her chest. She wanted no apology or validation. She wanted to call him out. ‘I want you to know you hurt me’ is straight up honest. But ‘I want you to know your spiritualism is a sham and will damage future partners, don’t you want to stop being such a louse’ isn’t doing the same work. And you’re striking at the core of his personality as a shaman of love so he will strike back w aggression or hooking or justification or word salad or…blaming you. Yeah, you could come out of this type of conversation or email exchange apologising to HIM! That’s what narcs that want to avoid self reflection and responsibility do.
Yes, I have to wonder why there is such a compelling need to save the “next” woman from this “shaman of love”. BR is teaching us to save ourselves. It is up to each woman to save herself. If all woman began saving themselves, these “charlatans of love” would have fewer victims. Men would have to offer more fulfilling choices because men would learn that their fake relationships don’t fly with anyone.
Wiser,
I believe that people come to the true understanding what they have done to someone only by themselves and at the time that is right for them. I speak from my own experience and the stories I have heard from others. They were things about my behavior that if I had been told back then to correct it and consider the impact, it would have not made any difference because I was not even close to comprehending what I was doing. I have had to go through my own path, karma, spiritual laws, you name it, to reach where I am now to realize the extent of damage I had done to one person in my life. In the past I was clueless what I was doing and how my behavior was affecting someone. That’s my take on this. He might never get to that point. Either way, I think people mend their ways only when they are ready and maybe that never happens for some people. I would say just sit on it and let it pass. I understand the urge though, believe me. Have been there myself . . .
Wiser it depends on what your true intentions are – often when its been a while it can really be about revenge/ validation needs dressed up as education for their or others benefit – not a good intention to through into the mix of karma ie what goes around eventually comes around. Focus on what is good for YOUR real benefit and you can’t go far wrong.
Wiser, I am glad YOU see him so clearly but you are not his therapist and it is not your job to point out these revelations. They belong to you. Let him pay someone to tell him this. Don’t do this for free. He doesn’t deserve a scrap of your attention.
I have just started to make the connection between my relationship pain and my fears of abandonment. My father is polygamous , impaitent and exacting my mother is very submissive and aggreable as her public self her private self replays all her emotional injuries and connects them to every slight… Drama has been huge in my home and childhood, to the point that as an adult i found myself folding rather then dealing with problems … squirreling hurts and pain into a private place so that i did not draw attention to myself.Hiding from my best friends that i lived in nearly two decades of a zero intimacy marriage…. All this just because my childhood fears of abandonment expanded into adult fears turned my ability to healthily articulate my needs invisible… What a mess!.
Thanks a lot Diane just a kind of mature response I needed, I have slim chance of relapse as we live in different countries and I have seen his real side, so not sure if there is any attraction left for me. I have drafted my email, but will sit on it. It’s nearly 2 months of NC, I am stronger now, but have the urge to state clearly that I see through his BS and hopefully someone is prevented from getting hurt. Also on occasions he is open to improving himself but he has a huge ego.
“Also on occasions he is open to improving himself but he has a huge ego.” And that’s his responsibility to fix and figure out. I think you might regret later that you contacted him. But of course trust your instinct and do what feels right for You! 2 months of NC is still an emotionally volatile phase. Even if you say emotions are over, they are obviously not if you still want to tell him about him. Just be careful and take care of you. He will have to take care of his own issues. It’s his life to live. However, I BET it feels good to tell him that he is a jerk!!! 🙂 NC rules don’t allow that, but I imagine how great that would feel even if temporarily. Maybe it is therapeutic and cathartic. I don’t think telling him will fix anything for him, but if it will make you feel better, just go for it!
@Wiser, good luck!
I am here to give a big warning about projecting your need for closure regarding abandonment on those that hurt you. Recently, I let three men in my family into my life in a close way (none of them have ever proved deserving) but part of me wanted to see if all the prompting about forgiveness had merit. No. Forgiveness, no. Neutrality yes. Both are not the same. Forgiveness implies positive feelings, neutrality necessitates no feelings. One by one each of these men made empty promises or tried to control or use me. It was horrific. I spoke to my father after three years against my better judgement. He said all the things I wanted to hear and I got all those warm fuzzy feelings and just when I thought I had closure, he flips the switch and became cruel, insensitive and strange. I strongly recommend anyone who has been so strangely hurt by someone read up on the latest literature on sociopathy. I never truly accepted the fact that some people are just truly evil and that these people were definitely in my family (both sides). No Contact is the best gift in the world you could give yourself. And there is such a thing as being way too empathetic. I didn’t listen to what I had learned at BR for a time and now I am both physically and mentally ill because I let undeserving people into my life. I will pick myself up. And the only person I ever need to forgive is me.
Peanut,
I am very sorry you are going through this painful period.
I totally agree with your point: do not seek closure with people who hurt you. Unless you are 100% sure they have changed and that’s impossible to verify/know when we stay no contact with them. To be safe, do not seek closure. It’s important to find the closure within yourself. Reconcile within yourself and let them go. People high in empathy (most of us here), who come to BR, heal and grow, think that others have seen the light too and have been working on themselves to correct their past ways and understand how they have affected others.
Interesting experience today: I “stalked” (his bday just passed and I got curious if he is still alive, one of those brief nostalgia moments) a very long time ago ex on Twitter. I haven’t talked to him almost in two years and have no feelings left for him whatsoever. He did hurt me back then but not even a bit close to the extent of the last ex’s experience. I forgot and forgave him a long time ago. We talked on the phone and met afterwards. What I realized is that with time all of his negative sides have gotten worse. I noticed it after we separated and met couple years later and now, couple more years later, I read his tweets, and there is so much anger, hatred, abuse, and bile in his comments, I see that not only he has not changed, he has changed for the worse. Would I want to talk to someone like him, wanting a closure (if I needed one from him)? No possible way. This is a bitter person who is getting only more complicated and aggressive as he is getting older.
There is no point in seeking closure. We have to make the deal within ourselves. We just can’t figure out other people. They were the stages, phases, stations in our lives. Workstation, like my daughter would say about projects they do in school. Workstation completed, on to the next one. No point of coming back and mending the wounds. That’s our internal work to do. I agree with you, Peanut. You have grown so much in the last 2-3 years (since I have known you through the posts). I know you will come out even stronger and more content out of this painful experience.
I heard a therapist say that “forgiveness does not mean you don’t seek restitution”. I forgive you for breaking my window but I need you to replace it. So forgiveness can also require action on the part of the one being forgiven. But with most people who cross boundaries on the regular, they take forgiveness as a get out of jail card that means they can cross your boundaries repeatedly with no repercussions expected.
I forgive my mother for being a narcissist. I can see the ways that she picked at me, partly out of jealousy, partly out of a need to keep me small. I forgive her because somewhere she was taught to “play it small”, and she has never been happy with her small role, but she did not know how to fight for herself, so she her coping mechanism was to pick on the smaller or the weaker or the one who was most easily compliant to her whims…which was me. I have an older sister, but my older sister is not an easy target. She’s obstinate and non-communicative, and does things her own way, and shares nothing about her life…and she has created her own world, away from Mom. She doesn’t “do” Mother’s Day. She has a son and a boyfriend who has been with her for 30+ years. Now, before you guys think everything is all idyllic in sister-land, I gotta say, just because people are in a long-term relationship does not mean life is a fairy tale. I really wish women would stop thinking that a relationship is a ticket to happily-ever-after. My sisters’ relationship is a strange dynamic, but it seems to work for her. And I do envy her having her own insular unit – something that is just hers.
But..about forgiving my mother. I do forgive her for a narcissistic ways. There are reasons why she was shaped that way. But what I have learned from BR is that I don’t have to continue my codependent role. I forgive you Mom, but I do not expect you to change. I have to change. So..I don’t tell her all my business anymore. I don’t give her fuel to tear me down or rain on my parade. I don’t look for support there. I can still enjoy things with her, watch a movie or TV show..but I don’t look for any kind of cheerleading “you can do it” from her. I am stronger because of this. Her effusive praise of other people’s success in areas where she knew I was trying to be successful doesn’t chip away at my self-esteem anymore, because I accept that you don’t want to acknowledge me, Mom. That is not my problem.
Same with my EUM single guy friend. He’s PA to the bone, and recently he has been wanting contact with me because he wants a sympathetic friend, which I have always been. But sympathy and caring is a one-way street with us – he needs to dump and charge up, and I am not interested. Anymore. I used to allow it, because sometimes we can convince ourselves that we “have” a friend when we are “being” a friend. But I am wiser now. So I forgive him his PA ways, but I don’t take the “let’s make contact” bait.
I am lonely, but I have always been lonely with the crop of relationships I formerly cultivated.
I am at square one now.
Instead of a minus! 🙂
I think you are very inspiring and brave Elgie. I was like – ‘what! she forgives her!!!???’ when reading your post – I know its the way forward, its been growing on my mind for a while and I can agree with your analysis – I do have some sympathy for mine also but I’m not fully on the way to forgiveness yet – still very angry at everything I’ve lost which seems to be easing the more I sort out the real problems in my life and find new solutions to them. So here’s hoping I can get through to full forgiveness also.
Thankyou Sofia, Suki and Diane, for your kind words and guidance. All this resonates with me. I do feel I need to convey how he hurt me, and that I see through his BS. But at the same time after reading your posts I dont think I can or want to handle any kind of emotional comeback. So for time being I will sit on it and if and when I feel stronger that I can maturely handle any kind of response only then I will send email. You guys are precious!
Wiser, and the best part, once you can handle it, you won’t even have the need to tell him all about him! 🙂 The beauty of NC and time.
Um, I am the Wiser who has been posting here for the past few years. Just don’t want our stories and posts to get mixed up.
Sofia,
They have all changed for the worse. Family members, exes, and even friends. I just keep moving, keep lifting myself up and forward. No Contact proves to be the best answer every time.
Peanut, the NC is the best tool and medicine. I too try to stay away as much as possible from some of my relatives (those who bullied me in my childhood and partially contributed to my low self-esteem, which I understand only now) and people from the past who feed my abandonment and “not good enough” triggers. Sometimes, with some people in our lives, it’s just best to walk away in silence to lick your wounds and never look back, prove, or make it right.
Yep I second that – Sofie/ Peanut. It was like a domino effect for me through my life.
Today I was ambushed in my garden and felt the same old guilty feelings for asserting myself and using firm boundaries immediately (at least I did this time and can recognise it) it didn’t stop this person from trying twice to ‘get me’ ie break my boundaries and trying to get me to do tasks for them, taking advantage of my nice pleasing, nature (which they have done in the past) – when they haven’t respected any of my boundaries or needs.
I surprised myself and just walked away after asserting a clear and strong sentence that effectively said i’m not playing but I left as always, feeling mean and unprepared/ reacting defensively – and beating myself up about it.
I now recognise these decidedly bad feelings about myself – damned if I do and damned if I don’t feelings – and know that this isn’t a caring feeling – its a very destructive feeling that I always get with them or other toxic people around when I set the essential boundaries they don’t want AND enforce them AND when they are actually trying to take advantage of me BUT I NEVER GET THIS FEELING WITH PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR THINGS FROM ME ,WHEN I KNOW THEY AREN’T TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME AND I CAN TRUST THEM ( or have been able to in the past and had clear positive signs from them to date).
I always want to be liked – even though I now know this just isn’t possible with all people – the immediate wanting still hasn’t gone away but it is lessoned by spending more time putting energy into finding people who do make me feel good as I am and doing things that do make me feel good as I am. And I can’t do that while I am reeling from another attack or wound. So I go non contact with them – like with romantic relationships.
By recognising the bad feeling towards myself straight away and not allowing myself to agree to things with these particular people in the moment – saying I’ll think about it when I’m being particularly badgered into things and questioning them back when they question me in a manner to put pressure on me and then walking away at the earliest point = works in the moment FOR ME at the minute. And that is what is important to redress the situation where I had little control before.
Keep licking the wounds and moving on – they heal in time and the further away from them you get – the less chance of getting new ones and the stronger you get like Lions.
“I now recognise these decidedly bad feelings about myself – damned if I do and damned if I don’t feelings – and know that this isn’t a caring feeling – its a very destructive feeling that I always get with them or other toxic people around when I set the essential boundaries they don’t want AND enforce them AND when they are actually trying to take advantage of me BUT I NEVER GET THIS FEELING WITH PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR THINGS FROM ME ,WHEN I KNOW THEY AREN’T TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME AND I CAN TRUST THEM ( or have been able to in the past and had clear positive signs from them to date).”
So true, Oona. I relate to every word!
apologies wiser, will be using wiser2 going forward.
Thanks Wiser2. Actually, your last post reflects many of the same issues and thoughts I’ve had about contacting my ex and how strong the urge has been to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Wise minds think alike!
Sofia,
I cannot agree with you more. It is always worth it to peacefully walk away when and where we know we need to.
I am also loving these updates. Thank you Nat for the greatness & wondrous mindfulness.
Interesting that alot of us are mentioning, with this post, being abandoned by fathers and some of us – both parents. Either emotionally or physically.
Is this where we learn we are no good and repeat this in our future relationships?
@Oona, good question – but I have friends who have had seriously awful relationships who have wonderful supportive parents. I think there are many, many more messages that women get from society about what types of relationships they ‘deserve’ than what comes from their parents. Look at that silly book ’50 Shades of Grey’ – I haven’t read it but it seems to imply that a man who is emotional unavailable (but sexually voracious) can be won over with some patience and love. That’s the kind of message that can override a good relationship with parents.
I do not forgive my father for destroying my childhood and not having a care in the world about it. I do not forgive the man who incested me as a child and ripped my world apart. I am completely at peace with that. I will not harm them. I only wish to not think of them.
Some things are unforgivable.
@Diane,
Dont even get me started on “50 shades of Grey”, a subtle way of making emotional and sexual exploitation of women an acceptable form of intimacy on the path of “happily ever after”. Not sure most of the women get it. Its a maturer form of M&B novels we read of EUM heroes while growing up, where unavailability is equated to intrigueness and considered an essential quality of an hero. Yuck!
Well said Wiser2! The likes of Jane Eyre, with her dark, unavailable Mr Rochester and the novel Rebecca,(Daphne Du Maurier) and The French Leiftenants Woman were perpetuated as wonderful, exciting reading by my Mum when I was young (it has often struck me that she may be living her life as a Wuthering heights character!) But seriously these notions of loving the unobtainable,(EUM) brooding dudes, because in the end you can win them over and actually all along they were madly in love with you and just playing a dark, exciting game, has A lot to answer for, regarding us women’s mental health!!???
@Growing Wings, LOL. I love Jane Eyre, but yeah, very bad example of a ‘healthy’ relationship or a man one should try to love! I mean, look what happened to his first wife…
@elgie; who said something about smallness. I won’t say I feel small. but I feel like I am making myself smaller. Living small. Not taking much action. One reason is I just went through a big months long push and changes at work and I’m tapped out. But how can we motivate ourselves to live bigger?
Folks, I’ve been NC for three months and wow, it feels good. I don’t miss the turmoil or the drama or the mismatched energies. The people I have in my life are there because I want them there and if I had kept him around, he would have occupied a spot that would have been better filled by someone else.
I’ve been starting new friendships and it’s been a pleasure. In one case, my new friend recently reconciled a friendship with my ex-EUM. We’re part of a small community of local performers and I know there are people who work with him in some capacity. This is fine.
What I noticed was… when she said they reconciled, she was trying to convince me that he’s “a good guy.” I have never mentioned him to her but she clearly knows he and I were once connected and now we are not. It was subtle but she was trying to sell me on this. I think, as part of their reconciliation, he’s trying to get her to “put in a good word” so he and I can be on good terms too, I suppose. At first, I felt sort of happy: he wants to put the past behind us. Maybe there’s a chance we could be friends like we were … oh shit: this is the Reset Button.
Now, I’m mad. He REALLY wants to talk to me, he knows how to do that. Grow up and do it your damned self! He wants me to see him as a “good guy?” It won’t be because my friend thinks so or she sells me on it! I’m friends with someone because they do what they say they’re going to do. They own their own shit. Stop using women as your therapists, ego strokers, and go-betweens. Respect women’s space and friendships. Don’t play Telephone like a coward. Friends don’t ask friends to test the waters for them or do a sales pitch on how much they’ve changed or whatever. That’s unfair to her and uses her friendship to do something that is HIS responsibility. He will not use ANY woman, any *person* this way to get to me. Period!
Next time I see her, if she starts in on this “he’s a good guy” stuff, I’m calling it out and it stops. This will not work on me!
Rachel,
My biological mother died when I was 12 (suicided; she was 34). Initially, I had lived with my mom as a baby, then my grandmother for a bit, then a pedophile, then eventually my biological father for a dozen or so years before being forced to leave at 17.
I live in the same town as my father and sometimes see him. A week ago I decided to reach out to him. He seemed nice enough, until he started talking more. He’s completely delusional. Basically, he maintains he was a pretty good person just not there “sometimes,” (he was cruel and violent and completely denied my brother was his son for 17 years). Now, my father (I cringe writing that–it’s a title he never deserved), travels the world buying lavish things while living a life of complete luxury. Me? I try desperately to survive with crazy expensive healthcare as an artist, musician, and academic.
Often times though when I think of my father, I am so grateful I did not turn out like him (I am so much like my mother in the best ways). I’m grateful that I have compassion and empathy and that I spend my free time devoted to my elderly dog and grandparents. I have friends who I value deeply for non-superficial reasons and I work hard at those friendships. I am far from perfect — I’d never want to be, but I am a good strong person and that is the ultimate prize.
Also my father blatantly denies his violence toward me. And every time he does this I feel kicked in the gut. It’s devastating. So I had to move on. I can’t see him. But I am okay because I have me.
I hope this helps, take care xx
Gratitude: I’m grateful for this site and incredible insight provided by the author of this post. This and many of your topics are not only relevant, but your approach and manner in which you share your experiences and insight are by far some of the best I’ve come across. My journey is one of self improvement and always will be a lifelong priority as I work at transformation and “being” my authentic self and best human being possible. This site is my bible.
Blessings
Jonathan
Hi Natalie! It’s been a while.
I took your Self Esteem class and Pattern Breaker class about a year and a half ago. It was awesome!
Shortly after, I entered a relationship. It was wonderful at first. The best relationship I’d ever been in.
He moved here from out of the area. He sold his business and moved here thinking he’d get a job quickly. After about a year, he has not found a job that fits him and is working waiting tables, which he hates.
He has been miserable and full of anxiety, kind of going through some kind of mid life crisis. It has been awful for both of us.
He started withdrawing emotionally and physically. This went on for months. I keep hoping things would turn around and he’d find a job, but still no. Finally he broke it off with me saying he has nothing to give me.
I’m thinking I’d like to take another one of your classes. I’m wondering if you can recommend which one.
The thing I want to investigate inside myself is why did I stay.
I was holding on, hoping the man who treated me better than I’d even been treated would come back. But was that man just “his best self?” The one they show you to attract you? When things started going downhill and got bad, why couldn’t I leave? Why did he have to do the leaving? When I look inside myself, I don’t think I could have left. I couldn’t do that to him. And part of me still hopes he gets it together and comes back!!!! Yikes! I know better in my head after reading you but I still feel inside there’s a part of me that makes excuses for him and holds on to those first eight months. Ignoring the last three crappy months.
So there you go! Which class do you recommend? I’m back! 😀
And can I get back into the Facebook group? Thank you!