Here’s a list of what abandonment is from Susan Anderson’s book “The Journey from Abandonment to Healing” Pages 5 and 6. Susan Anderson has a blog with tons of information on the serious subject of “Abandonment”.
What is abandonment?
A feeling
A feeling of isolation within a relationship
An intense feeling of devastation when a relationship ends.
A primal fear – the raw element that makes going through heartbreak, divorce, separation or bereavement cut so deep
An aloneness not by choice
An experience from childhood
A baby left on a doorstep
A divorce
A woman left by her husband of twenty years for another woman
A man being left by his fiancée for some “more successful”
A mother leaving her children
A father leaving his children
A friend feeling deserted by a friend
A child whose pet dies
A little girl grieving over the death of her mother
A little boy wanting his mommy to come pick him up from nursery school
A child who feels replaced by the birth of another sibling
A child feeling restless because of his parents emotional unavailability
A boy realizing that he is gay and anticipating the reaction of his parents
A teenager feeling that her heart is actually broken
A teenage boy afraid to approach the girl he loves
A woman who has raised now grown children feeling empty as if she has been deserted
A child stricken with a serious illness watching his friends play while he must use a wheelchair or remain in bed
A woman who has lost her job and with it her professional identity, financial security and status
A man who has been put out to pasture by his company as if he is obsolete
A dying woman who fears being abandoned by loved one as much as or more that she fears pain and death
Abandonment is all of this and more. It’s wound is at the heart of human experience.
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You could add to the list but I think you get the message, the important thing here is to name what the feeling is.
Abandonment is so very painful, it is a feeling we have all experienced at one time or another. There is a PTSD component to abandonment which leaves it victims with shame, low self-esteem, and fear just to name a few of abandonment influences.
There is hope for survival and recovery, it will not be easy, you will have to do the important work of reaching deep within yourself and uncover the pain that is just below the surface of your awareness. Most of the time this work is not done alone. Counseling, or writing or exercising, read books on the subject, mindfulness and finding some way of getting to the trauma that abandonment left behind.
You have to help yourself just enough to lift you. You are worth the effort. Don’t give up.
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