ABANDONMENT

 I know what abandonment looks like and feels like because I am one of the estimated 98% of people in the world who have experienced being abandoned. 

Over the years, I have learned that abandonment is far deeper than being physically left. Many believe that having two parents in the home precluded abandonment. However, that is not true. We can be raised by parents who are present for everything and still have abandonment issues. 

Children suffer abandonment and develop abandonment issues when they are not seen or heard for who they are, not respected or honored, called names, made to feel stupid or insufficient, shamed for one reason or another, not loved for who they are, have their thoughts and ideas trivialized, treated like they are in the way, and/or told they are a pain in the ass and they are driving the caretaker crazy. Anything that makes a child feel they are not enough or something is wrong with them, creates the pain of abandonment. 

Due to being physically abandoned by my daddy, and being raised by adults who were loving, but emotionally unavailable, I grew up with huge abandonment issues. My family loved me and they meant well, but in their inability to see me for who I was, they failed to understand my pain and loneliness. Most parents have an idea of who and what their child is supposed to be, and when the child cannot conform to that ideal, the child is usually made wrong. In the process of making the child wrong for being their own unique self, the pain of not being accepted usually transforms into the internal belief that something must be wrong with the child. This is what happened to me. I developed the internal belief that I was flawed, something had to be wrong with me since I could not be more like my brother, since my daddy left me and since I could not seem to measure up to what I was "supposed" to be. 

Doing what only a child could do, thinking my mother, grandmother and grandfather had to be right since they were the adults and the parents, I developed the belief that something was wrong with me. I spent umpteen years living out that story. After many therapy sessions and years of working on healing my inner child, I came to a place where I was able to step out of the story.

Unfortunately, our story about who we are informs our life. It is like we are being led around with a ring in our nose and we can't pull away from it for fear of having our nose ripped open. That is how huge an impact our story about self has on our life.

As I began to peel the layers away and become acquainted with my abandonment issues, my life began to change in both small and large ways.  My story about who I was began to change as I realized I was not flawed and I was not lazy, nor was I a pain in the ass. Instead, I became aware of how loving and kind I was. I learned that who I am is who I am supposed to be. I gradually saw my good traits and I began to accept myself exactly as I was and where I was. As these changes were happening on the inside, I was changing on the outside. Where I used to be afraid to say "no" or to be confrontational, I found it became easier to say "no" and to stand up for myself. I no longer felt the need to deny being who I am in order to be accepted or pleasing to others. 

A big part of having abandonment issues is the issue of self-abandonment. The abandonment of self is an insidious disease that eats away at the core of life. It hides itself well until we are ready to see it for what it is. 

Self-abandonment manifests itself in personal attacks on self, in what I call mind games, such as: an overactive mind with no shutoff valve, constant worry, driving self crazy trying to figure things out, listening to the criticizing parent in our head, self-doubt, calling self names like stupid, failure etc. not forgiving self for mistakes and driving self to do everything better, to be better, to be perfect.

We also practice self-abandonment through inattention to our body and its needs, such as: eating a lot of unhealthy food, not resting when tired, carrying unnecessary stress and shallow breathing.

Self-abandonment manifests in our need to focus more on the outer instead of the inner, such as: trying to look better on the outside thinking that is how to get approval, constantly buying more stuff, being five sensory instead of multi-sensory.

When we are ready to face our abandonment issues and see ourselves for who we truly are we begin the process of  remembering how magnificent we were, how we believed we could do anything, we could sing off key at the top of our voice and we could dance without rhythm in front of a crowd. It feels so good to remember how beautiful we were and how present to life we were before we were shamed for not being enough or for not being who "they" thought we should be. 

Coming home is the journey to that which was left behind when the abandonment issues began. It is a reclaiming of our authentic self, that one we came here to be. All it takes to make the journey is a willing, courageous heart and the desire to reconnect to our magnificent self.