Fear of abandonment is something a lot of us struggle with. We fear that someone close to us will leave and we will never experience those feelings again. Or we fear we won’t have our needs met outside of them. So this will cause us to become overly needy in our relationships or completely avoid them so we don’t have to experience the pain.
If you are someone with fear of abaondonment you may be :
There are a lot of reasons why someone may fear abandonment but a major one is from anxious or avoidant attachment style. You can find more information here on attachment styles. But basically as a child, your needs were inconsistently met so now as an adult you become overly needy or avoid people to deal with the fear of abandonment.
Another reason is that you were abandoned early on. Maybe a caregiver left or even your emotional or physical needs were not met. You may have been emotionally neglected where your physical needs were met but you did not have someone to confide in or nurture you.
As a child you may also have not been able to connect with other kids. This causes you to fear abondonment because we have a need to connect. If we are not a part of the pact then we fear for our life.
If you experience fear of abandonment as an adult this is because you had a relationship that failed and you did not process and get through. So now you have a fear of experiencing this deep pain again.
Usually, you become clingy and needy to a specific person. They meet your needs in some sort of way, they may validate, make you feel nurtured and comfortable in some way. They fill that hole where you did not have a parent, it is a way for you to deal with your loss. Since your parent didn’t meet your needs, you expect that specific person to take care of it. You now feel like you need this person to fill that hole.
The main thing you want to do is you want to transfer from feeling like you need to rely on others for your needs to become self-reliant and also to feel empowered. The first thing is to get to the root cause. When you can understand, you can see what you need to work with. The next thing is you need to understand it is not your fault why these people left. It was an issue on their end.
So you need to stop beating yourself up and you need to be more kind to yourself. Accept you have this fear. Have self-compassion which means accept that you have flaws, you make mistakes but it does not reflect your self-worth or what you deserve. When you have self-compassion you are able to give yourself self-love and have healthier relationships.
It is important you use reparenting and nurturing language. You need to rely on yourself to soothe yourself through your fears, your negative emotions, and uncomfortable times. So tell yourself the things you wish you heard as a child or you needed to hear more. You can learn more about reparenting language here. You need to stop expecting others to give you your needs. It is time to give yourself your needs. You are not that helpless child anymore. It is time to take responsibility for your own stuff. Work on your insecurities and reaffirm self-loving things. It is important you feel it not just say it.
When we feel like we are going to be abandoned it can cause us to act in desperate negative ways. We could become resentful when we don’t feel we have gotten what we wanted. Or we could give the silent treatment or say hurtful things. And we have to understand those things have consequences, it causes what we are scared of to happen!
So you need to recognize when getting urge and pause yourself from doing it. Ask yourself what is going on right now. Maybe you’re feeling insecure right now. Nurture yourself through that insecurity and then identify if it is actually happening or is it something you tell yourself. What evidence do you have to support what you’re telling yourself? Challenge your fears.
When we fear abandonment we usually have really high expectations for ourselves because we think no one will accept us the way we are which then causes us to have high expectations of others. You need to hold yourself accountable and you can not expect this person to meet your expectations. They can not meet all your needs. You need to remember that you got you! Change it from needing that person to wanting them. They’re human too just like you. Lower your expectations of yourself and them too.
To hear these things more in depth, please check the video above!
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
