Shirley J. Davis (Morgan) · September 2021 · Mentions abuse and self-harm

One of the most egregious behaviors a parent or other caregiver can do to a child is to abandon them, allowing them to suffer alone. The damage done to the child, once grown, is significant and should not be ignored.

In this article, we shall examine together what childhood abandonment is, how it affects adults, and ways to lessen the power it has over our lives.

What Is Abandonment?

All children are entirely dependent upon parents or caregivers for their safety. When these caretakers fail to offer support and meet the child’s needs, emotionally and physically, they are said to have abandoned their child.

When parents abandon their children, their kids grow up feeling unsafe in the world and feeling people cannot be trusted. These unsafe feelings lead the child to feel they do not deserve positive attention or adequate care.

For many children, abandonment is physical and may include:

• Lack of supervision
• Physical or sexual abuse
• Narcissistic abuse
• Inadequate nutrition
• Inadequate clothes, heat, shelter, or housing

For other children, abandonment takes the form of emotional neglect and abuse, when parents do not give their children the emotional conditions and environment necessary for healthy development.

The child is left feeling inadequate, rejected, and damaged, needing to hide who they are on the inside from others. Abandoned children are left believing it is not okay to make mistakes, that it is not okay to show their genuine emotions, that they should not have needs, and that it is not okay to be successful.

Fear of Abandonment in Adulthood

Because they were neglected and abused as children, many adults grow up having internalized all the messages they received from their parents when they were young. Also, because they craved attention from their abusive parents, many adults grow up fearing losing the love of those they have in their lives.

Fear of abandonment is not a mental illness by itself but rather a form of anxiety that can negatively affect those who experience it. Adults with abandonment issues often experience problems in their relationships because they fear the other person will leave them.

It is vital to recognize the signs of abandonment issues so they can be tackled head-on. They include:

• Fearing giving too much in a relationship
• Pushing people away to avoid rejection
• Being a people pleaser
• Codependency
• Feeling insecure in intimate relationships and friendships
• Needing repeated reassurance that they are loved
• Feeling the need to control others
• Jumping from one relationship to another
• Sabotaging their relationships

Other symptoms that may challenge a survivor of abandonment include:

• Constant worry
• Panic or anxiety
• Fear of being alone
• Isolation
• Frequent physical illnesses
• Low self-esteem
• Addiction
• Disordered eating
• Self-harm

Knowing the signs and symptoms can help you fight abandonment issues.

The Long-Term Effects of Abandonment and Neglect

People who have experienced abandonment may be more likely to have long-term mental health disorders, often based on the fear that the abandonment will happen again in their adult relationships. Mood swings and anger issues later in life can often be traced to abandonment in infancy, due to the lack of emotional and other support from parents.

Some of the mental health conditions thought to be heavily influenced by abandonment include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Codependency
• Attachment anxiety
• Borderline personality disorder

For someone who lacks self-esteem due to childhood abandonment, the fear of being abandoned again becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as clinginess and other behaviors tend to push away potential life partners and friends.

Other long-term consequences affect future generations. A study published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging found that the newborns of mothers who experienced childhood adversity show differences in connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal regions of the brain shortly after birth.

Treatments for Childhood Abandonment in Adults

The treatment of abandonment issues focuses mainly on establishing healthy emotional boundaries and building a range of new responses when old thought patterns of fear begin to emerge or reemerge.

Two primary treatments work closely together to treat abandonment and neglect issues:

Psychotherapy. While psychotherapy is not for everyone, a mental health professional can help those who were victims of childhood abandonment and neglect learn to overcome their fears of being abandoned again. Therapists work with their clients to understand where the fear originates and how it affects their relationships.

Self-care. Self-care includes making sure the survivor meets their emotional needs in healthy ways, by forming friendships and relationships and allowing themselves to trust.

If You Love Someone with Abandonment Issues

There are ways you can support them while they heal.

Validate their fears. Acknowledge their feelings of abandonment without judgment. This is vital to maintaining open communication. Validating a loved one’s fears doesn’t mean agreeing with them, but supporting their feelings to build trust and compassion.

You can do this by following the six-level approach described in Psychology Today:

1. Be present and actively listen to their concerns.
2. Reflect and summarize your loved one’s feelings out loud, without judgment.
3. “Read their mind”: by listening to what they say, help them identify their emotions.
4. Understand their history, so you can openly say you understand when circumstances trigger their past abandonment.
5. “Normalize” their fears by acknowledging that others with their history have fears of abandonment and that their feelings are understandable.
6. Use radical genuineness to deeply validate your loved one, treating their fears with the same seriousness as your own.

The treatment of abandonment anxiety can be very successful, but it requires commitment and self-care. Many people with abandonment issues do not see how destructive their behaviors have been to their relationships until it is pointed out to them and they begin to heal.

Treatment can teach new ways of thinking and coping that end the overarching and debilitating power of childhood abandonment.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” — Elbert Hubbard

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu

References

• Hendrix, C. L., Dilks, D. D., McKenna, B. G., Dunlop, A. L., Corwin, E. J., & Brennan, P. A. (2020). Maternal childhood adversity associates with frontoamygdala connectivity in neonates. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
• Megase, K. (2016, March 3). How fear of abandonment affects relationships. Counselling Directory.
• Schoenfelder, E. N., Sandler, I. N., Wolchik, S., & MacKinnon, D. (2011). Quality of social relationships and the development of depression in parentally-bereaved youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(1), 85–96.
• Wade, B. (1995). Fear of abandonment. Essence, 25.
• 20 signs someone has abandonment issues. (2017, September 8). A Conscious Rethink.
• Abandonment & attachment-related trauma treatment. (n.d.). The Refuge — A Healing Place.

© Shirley J. Davis. Shared on Ivory Garden with the author’s permission.