The abandonment wound.  The wound that I keep stitching up with therapy, meditation, books, understanding, and grace only to have it ripped open repeatedly by my own mind.   There are so many ways someone can get this core wound, but they are typically brought on by neglect as a child, lack of empathy or inconsistency from a parent, and of course abandonment. I lucked out with the whole collection, a mother that was not emotionally available, a biological father that didn’t “want” me, and an adoptive father that was an abusive alcoholic.  I was never safe in my childhood (unless I was with my maternal grandparents) and that has affected me in some stellar ways.  Add in a multitude of deaths that rocked me to my core in some very identity building times in my life, and you’ve got a very scared little girl that doesn’t understand why she isn’t worthy of love or showing up for.   

I have worked so fucking hard at healing this wound. So. Fucking. Hard. (yet, it persists)  

Healing this wound started by not allowing people in my life that reinforced my belief in the wound.  That I was unlovable, undeserving, and that I deserved abuse and cruelty.  Once I began untangling from that web and disconnecting my thought process from allowing my brain to reinforce these lies, life got very… different. I would love to say that I began attracting all the good and holy in the world, but honestly it only led me down the healing path more until I could finally name and see where it all began and why I was in the pattern I was in.  Learning these things will completely break your false foundation by the way.  You will absolutely have to rebuild your identity to fit a healthier, healed version of yourself.   Painful and gut-wrenching at times, but necessary and worth it. 

I did this rebuilding in solitude.  For years, choosing my healing and peace over leaving my home.  I see now how this was essential to my growth, but also a disservice to myself.   Isolation meant I was not being triggered, and if I was, it was easy to disengage and withdraw back into myself.  Please do not misunderstand, the healing I have done in the last eight years is miracle level and worthy of astonishment, but also not practicing my healed and healthy coping has not allowed me to see where there are cracks in my new foundation, places that still need repaired and worked on.  

And as I have recently discovered, in a big way, this foundation still holds the abandonment wound as if it were holding the whole fucking place together.  Like a small crack you don’t see at first, you don’t realize what exactly you are feeling or why.  Feelings start feeling a little bigger, a little less controlled.  Add some vulnerability in there and you have a recipe for house leveling style pain.  Logically you may be able to see how “silly” you are being, but once that abandonment wound is fully engaged, you feel dysregulated to the point where you become that child that didn’t have a voice, screaming, crying, begging to be seen.  Often in adulthood this becomes the “I will leave you before you leave me”, or the “I will fucking show you crazy”.  Both sides of this coin ask to be acknowledged for what slight happened that may not even seem triggering to someone without this wound.   

People with the abandonment wound are highly sensitive to the silent treatment (whether real or perceived), not talking through issues, feeling unseen when hurt, someone pulling away without communication, conflict, and feeling as if they cannot meet a need (also real or perceived).  Someone with this wound may react by isolating, being untrusting of others to an extreme, having difficulty forming safe close relationships, and having intense reactions to rejections.  Even minor rejections, or perceived rejections, can trigger intense emotional reactions from people who fear abandonment, often seeming like an overreaction.  

And like any true mental health fuckery there is a cycle to this.  

The Six Stages of the Abandonment Cycle: 

1. Calm/Balance/Regulation 

2. Trigger/Fear 

3. Nervous System Dysregulation 

4. Protest Behaviors 

5. Reconnection 

6. Regenerate 

I can usually talk myself down after I have been triggered these days (usually, lol).  I do this by trying to look at something from someone else’s point of view, look at what they may have happening in their life, or just plain give myself a time limit before I decide to react to whatever I feel triggered by before reacting (spin out into dysregulation and protest behaviors).   Being able to do this has saved a lot of friendships, and embarrassment.  Am I good at this? My brain says no; it says that my mind still spins and jumps to worse case scenarios, but it also counteracts those with the truth, that people are busy, and that we do not know what they are thinking without asking them.  If you do not feel safe enough to ask them then you need to question if that is your fear of abandonment talking, or if they are an unsafe person.  

And I think the biggest take away from this, and especially for people with the abandonment wound, is that it isn’t our fault.  We did not instill this within ourselves.  We struggle so long, and with so much desperation for our self-worth and then feel shame and guilt for things that were done TO us and that just isn’t fair to who you are or who you are trying to become.  Stop carrying shame that isn’t yours, guilt that belongs to the people that failed YOU.  Heal so that you can experience yourself fully engaged in your life, in every aspect, and with joy.   

Remember, healing isn’t linear, and all you need to do is keep loving yourself enough to keep at it. 

All love. All ways. Always. 

Craughing Girl.