I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now. I discussed in detail in groups in rehab and with the therapists in rehab. I know it’s a common thing in addicts, the fear of abandonment. Our lives are such chaos when we are using, that we look for anything that can become a constant in our lives. This carries over into our recovery as well. I have these residual feelings of wanting to belong, wanting to feel needed, and wanting to be valued by some outside source. I feel these things all the time.
My fears of abandonment started before I even realized what they were. As a kid, I was tossed back and forth between family members. At any given time, I would be sent off to another relatives care. My earliest memory of abandonment was when my mother was sick and couldn’t take care of me for a while when I was a kid. The reasons were valid reason for this, and it wasn’t done out of neglect, but there were feelings of abandonment none the less. I was sent to my grandparents and father who then decided to send me back to my mother and just keep my brother. They were very partial to him.
It was steady for a while with my mom. She just had me to care for and life was ok for the most part. A while later my brother was sent back to us when I was in middle school. This time, I wasn’t sent off to another parent and me and my brother both lived with my mom, but my brother required some extra attention at this age. He dealt with a lot back when things weren’t easily diagnosed. This is also why I had so many issues, I didn’t present symptoms as noticeable at that age, so he got the attention. I felt left out and pushed aside at this point. A feeling I would feel several times about my brother growing up. I felt abandoned at this point even though there was a parental figure present in my life.
In between most school years we spent summers in Texas with my grandparents and father. This gave my mom a break from us and gave us a chance to see that side of the family. This still felt like I was being pawned off most times because I felt no good feelings towards that side of the family. They were mostly absent in my life. When I was sent back and forth between my mom and them, I still felt that abandonment. Even though I didn’t feel enough from them, I still felt like I was just being tossed back and forth repeatedly to people who couldn’t or didn’t want to take care of me.
Fast forward a little when I was in middle school, I was a terrible kid. I know every kid is difficult at this point, but I was getting in legal trouble, I was a monster towards my brother, and it got so bad that we got my mom evicted from our apartment because of the things we did. Because of this, we were sent to live with my dad for an unknown amount of time. My mom was done and needed a break from us. Another point where I felt abandoned, even though I knew I played a role in that decision because of my actions. This was the first time I had lived with my dad at an age where I knew what was going on and I had no idea what to expect.
Throughout the entire time I lived with my dad he was constantly drunk. I honestly can’t remember a time where he wasn’t drunk after work. I can’t remember a time where he didn’t come home after 2 am when the bar closed shit faced. I still remember the time he came home so drunk he thought a corner in my room was the bathroom and he pissed all over my backpack and schoolbooks. He was never present, so I had that weird feeling of being abandoned while still living with someone who was supposed to take care of me. I never felt like I belonged or wanted or needed.
This was made worse when my grandparents chose my brother over me to go to private school and left me there with my dad in that environment that they fully knew was toxic and not fit for any child to be in. I felt abandoned by my grandparents and my brother at that point. I was left behind again. I had to fend for myself mostly the entire 2 years I lived in that hell of a house with him. There were many nights I didn’t eat. At one point I even called the cops because he hadn’t come home, and I hadn’t eaten in nearly 48 hours. Not even at school, which is a whole ‘nother post.
On another occasion I called my grandmother because I felt I had no one else to call about the food situation. One of the few times I felt cared for by her was when she brought me food while my father was at the bar yet again. It was also the last time I would see her. She passed a few days later. I felt the feeling again. This was the constant in my childhood. Feeling like I never belonged and always feeling left behind.
It’s no wonder this followed me into adulthood. I craved something constant in my life. This led me to alcohol and drug use. I could “control” what I put in my body. I picked up the straw or the bottle or the pills. I was able to create some sense of “normalcy.” Addiction became my norm. I know now that I couldn’t really control it, or I wouldn’t be here right now with 67 days of clean time, but to me at the time it made sense. I was conditioned to use from a very early age. The first drink I had was at 5 by accident and by 11 at the hands of my father. I watched him drink all my life. In some twisted way, I saw that as something a constant. So, I did it as an adult. I emulated him.
I started looking for this consistency in relationships. I took good things and ruined them with my overthinking and comparison to my childhood. I would push too far and say or do things I thought the other people wanted to hear just to make sure I could hang on to that bit of affection and attention they were giving me. Good intentioned people who truly cared about me were pushed away because I saw those things and wanted them more and wanted to try and make it stick. I was becoming obsessed and in turn smothered them. I’ve lost several relationships because of this. And the part that sucks is some of those relationships could have been great if I hadn’t fucked up and let that inner insecure child come out.
I wanted to avoid feeling abandoned in adulthood so I acted the very opposite way that would make people want to stick around. It didn’t make sense. That’s how crazy my mind was. It had become the only way I knew to live. I tried to force situations and move too fast. Based on pure fear of being left behind again. Not every relationship failed because of this, there were plenty where other people were the reason that ended them. I know I’m the one who caused most of the abandonment feelings this time. Sometimes those were the more painful ones. It was a fucked-up twist of events. Sometimes I wonder where I would be in life or with certain people if I had just slowed down and let people love me in the ways they knew how.
But I can’t sit and stew in the past. What I can do is try to be more aware of how others feel when I say or do things in a relationship. I can treat myself with more care by trying to control things in my own life. I can’t change the past. My actions have caused certain events to happen and certain relationships to be strained. What I can do is hope for the best. Stay true to me. Be good for me so others can be good in return. As much as I wish things could have been different with my drug use, my family, my relationships. I just need to move forward and do what I can with what I have in this moment right here. And that’s me and my recovery. Everything else will happen as it’s supposed to and how the universe wants it to happen.
My addiction and mental diagnosis contribute heavily to these things. I have that distortion of reality because of all I had been through as a child and repeated interactions as an adult. And I still feel them today, even in my current marriage. I have major trust issues surrounding a lot of things, but it also turns those feelings into fears of abandonment. There are some things I’ve learned to us to cope with these feelings. Not all are for every single situation and some just don’t work depending on what it is, but overall, they have helped me throughout the years.
TIP ONE: I recognize my feelings and allow myself to feel them. My emotion can serve as a warning for things to come. It’s like a trigger warning for slipping back into old ways. I remind myself that may feelings are valid and worthy of being felt. If I bottled everything in, like I have done so many times in the past, I will never learn and grow. Meditation has helped me tremendously with feelings of abandonment because I can sit with my feelings and contextualize where they are coming from. Asking myself why these feelings are coming up now in this situation and how can I accept them or send them away. These practices help me become more confident in my ability to know myself and why I feel the way I do.
TIP TWO: Learning how to communicate my feelings, wants, and desires with the person I am feeling abandonment by is just as important as feeling my feelings. Without communication, I can’t grow, because it is another form of bottling things up. It can cause friction with the other person because they don’t know what’s going on with me. Identifying my feelings and being open about them to the other person can create a stronger bond and also help limit actually abonnement because they start to understand you and why you respond the way you do.
TIP THREE: Lastly, staying clean and on my medication. For me, being under the influence can lead to stronger feelings of abonnement because my feelings are amplified or suppressed, depending on what I’m on. And not taking my mental health meds stops my moods from being regulated as well. I may misidentify my emotions and act irrationally, causing whoever it is to want to leave, therefore validating my fears. When I stay clean and on my meds, I can discern those feelings earlier and practice all my coping mechanisms without being clouded and creating further issues.
I hope you can find hope, application, and success within these tips. I know they won’t all apply every single time, but you can at least give them a shot and see which ones work best for you. I put these into practice regularly. It’s an everyday thing that always needs to be practiced or it won’t stick.