please, any wisdom on surviving and healing abandonment feelings
 

Will also accept any sympathy.

Two ACAs in a long term relationship. I have a major abandonment button my husband cannot help but occasionally push. He has one I've not previously understood about, and I've unknowingly stomped it plenty. We tend to set each other off at the same time.

What I know to do is: hold on, this too shall pass, don't act out, name thoughts and feelings as they arise. My personal term is "brain glitch" like a computer glitch. So I say to myself brain glitch brain glitch as these waves of hell kind of wash over me. My abandonment brain glitch tells me some horrible stories about what is true and what is going to come to pass. I try to set all that stuff aside to consider once my brain works again-- I don't argue with it but take a neutral position.

The despondency is unendurable but I have no choice. And just when it seems like I can't take another second, I kind of feel briefly fuzzy and then it passes for a while.

And when I'm not triggered... I would never even know I have this brain glitch. It's just gone and not bothering me and I'm a competent person. Until the next time.

I can only share my own experience with it. As strange as it may sound I lived separated from others; school, college and work I wanted nothing to do with others. Then finding myself in a relationship, instead of wanting the other person to be a part of my life, I took her hostage. I had to have her and I did all I could to control the relationship (manipulation, passive aggressive, etc.).

Once I got brutally honest with myself and worked the steps then things came to light. One of the first things I had to learn was the difference between love and lust. Love is what can I give and lust is what can I get. While building my relationship with HP and becoming more honest about my character defects and shortcomings, I then began to understand wanting someone to be a part of my life and needing them.

With God, as I understand him/her, in my life I need no one. I am okay today being single. Yes, I have had brief moments that I miss having someone to share with and snuggle time but I know that if I continue to build my relationship with HP and do what is right, it will be worth it in the end. Everyday I am learning more about myself and I am content.

I know I have that in me as well but it hasn't acted out in a long time. It does get better with age. It takes a lot rewiring like you are doing. I have to do that with my trigger for abuse, and loud sudden noises. Haven't been abused since I was 18 but my heart still pounds while I am talking myself down. You are on the right track. Maybe be more mindful of it while it is not happening and make a plan to do some distraction when it does occur next.

I was surprised there weren't more comments to this post, given the lives and histories of adult children, and then I thought about how many years of recovery work it took me to get here and be ready to look at these issues directly. Thank you Chris and Kialua.

Maybe abandonment is sort of the air we (adult children) breath or the water we swim in-- it is the most normal constant everyday feature of our lives. I did recovery work for years knowing I sometimes felt "bad" and when I felt bad it was really hard to handle it in a healthy way... but not knowing what that bad feeling was (?) or where it really came from. I thought everyone felt that way, I didn't even think to ask the question, what IS this.

Reedling, I think all of us, no matter how far along in recovery, will always have those brain glitches. You're doing very well with your own recovery in that you can identify that it IS a brain glitch, that it is not 'reality' (whatever 'reality' is) and that it shall pass.

You're doing very well in naming feelings, rather than having a knee-jerk response too. Do you share your feelings with your husband when it happens? Have you shared with him that you're not responding to him, but to old tapes running through your head - old fears, old instincts for survival?

My husband found it very helpful when I would say "I'm sorry I snapped at you, it wasn't you, it was an old movie running through my head that I was responding to." Often I follow that with an explanation of what the trigger was that made me stomp on him, and how it served me well when I needed it, and how, as a survival instinct, I struggle with overcoming some of those protective mechanisms. I apologize for my current behavior, explain where it came from, but I also tell him that I can't promise it won't happen again - only that I'll do my best to be mindful and try not to take it out on him. My apologies are always genuine as I do feel genuinely badly about my behavior.

By telling him not only what I'm feeling, but WHY I'm feeling that way, not only does it help him to understand me better, but it also reinforces in my own psyche that not all situations are threats. I've found it helpful in keeping me mindful.

Since I can now feel the difference between lashing out from the past versus something 'real' happening in the right now, I can usually apologize within seconds of having slipped.

With two of you, it may be more difficult, or it may be easier. I would encourage you to ask yourself "what old tape/movie am I reliving in my head that made me respond this way?" Then ask yourself if the response you had was in proportion to what was really going on around you. With those two answers, the next step is to verbalize it. Not just think, but say it out loud. Lay yourself open to scrutiny - not by your husband, but by yourself. It will help him to hear you work through it (perhaps in more ways than one, since he's also an ACOA) and it will help you to identify what old tapes there are.

Wishing you peace.

Gin

Ginger, you summed it up perfectly. The old tapes do play even though they are really old for me and I know they are tapes. My body physically repsonds even when I know it's a tape, my mind say 'yes but, maybe this time it will really happen and then what, you didn't escape, you just sat there and let it happen." But it never does happen.

Reedling I think maybe the reason so few responded is because you posed sort of the holy grail for us ACoA's, how to be normal when our trigger pops up. Those who have progressed that far in their healing are probably not on the site now and some of the others are still struggling with the tapes in control for now. In just a few years I have seen people come and go here pretty quickly.

I took a rather long hiatus to deal with my dad's imprisonment, my mom's move to a retirement community and currently they're going through a divorce, which I'm orchestrating for both of them (Power of Attorney for each of them). I'm divorcing myself!

I imagine that I'll be back, I have several posts in my head that I want to write... as soon as I have time!

I had a dog I really loved, he was great company and he helped with everyday feelings related to abandonment. Dogs are naturally in the present moment. We had ten + years together.

I really felt I had failed him in that I couldn't get him a quicker dx and better treatment for his cancer and was very tormented about it, but I think that was a typical reversal... a mental trick I do when there is an abandonment trigger... find a way to blame myself and make it about me, so that I can pretend to have some kind of control, feels more self hating but less grief and bitter loss.

This trick fits in with alcoholic/dysfunctional family values: if I am suffering it is probably my fault. If my parents didn't pay attention to me, it's not because they were stressed to the max, reacting to their own lives and problems with no room for children to have problems too! It is because I didn't deserve attention.

Huh.

I still struggle with identifying when the old tapes are playing and when there is something my gut is trying to tell me about a situation. I've been fighting depression for years now. Really just aware of the battle for the past year.

I often worry that people use me. Tell me one thing to keep me passive or in 'their' corner. But are not sincere about it. They are just putting on a front to string me a long, and smirking behind my back about how good a job they are doing at manipulating me.

Unfortunately, sometimes people actually do this. I want to let go of that fear. If people disappoint, it's a reflection on them, not me.

But I still struggle with the feelings. A big part of that is the fear of abandonment. If I don't please them, they will find that I am no longer useful and they will leave.

It's getting better in that I am aware of these feelings. I understand their source and I can choose not to react as I would have in the past (Getting angry as a way to express my fear). I talk through specific situations in therapy and in my ACA group. Those have become safe places I can express the fear without creating havoc in my relationships.

I hope to get to a point that I can dismiss the feelings when they come, but I'm not there yet.

All of what you shared is so deeply familiar. Thank you for putting it into words.

Everything in this post has helped me. I just went through a major life transition...moving to a foreign country, starting over work wise and financially, disappointment at a bankruptcy and foreclosure hitting, empty nesting, two daughters who have taken us through the wringer...one an ex crystal meth addict...now functional but hateful...and another an active adult. I recognize myself in the lashing out...and I have been lashing out. I was doing so much better for so many years. I now apologize, but want to throw myself away when I recognize how I acted out. I am glad I am working hard to rewire, but it is really hard and I am really now just trying to be quiet and stable and not to react when hurt or the abandonment feelings hit.

Since I originally made this post I've become aware of how much I anticipate neglect/abandonment, and start reacting (with anger turned inward) before it ever happens.

Change is scary because I associate it with shifting priorities... that I'm supposed to disappear until I am wanted again, sort of living on hold.

I keep my friends few and very distant in order to avoid being triggered in this way... so it won't hurt when they get busy with their lives and don't make time. It would make more sense to have a lot of friends if not very close ones... but I am too much of an introvert to pull that one off.

I'm not happy with the status quo, I would like more friendship in my life, so that means dealing with this abandonment/neglect reaction pattern.

yes...that too, reedling...

This is a tail-ender post... but my own ESH, for what its worth...

I came into this world as a package- arms, legs, nose eyes etc etc... and i came with a history... I entered a family, and a community, for better or for worse...

...there were tough lessons ahead for me- but I decided I wanted to tackle them- enough is enough!

At this end of the journey I have taken this word down again- "enough". I think it is an antidote to my deep need for perfection. When and how do I have enough?

My So [wife] fought and bickered constantly. Both from dysfunctional families. The kids were grossly affected- but it was not as bad as my own family experience.

Everyone wants their emotional needs met- and their physical needs. Money, possessions... maybe tokens of love, or maybe tokens of power or prestige?

I have learned to meet my need for identity and belonging. As I woke this morning and pulled on clothes I examined my heart... there is still a bit of brown-ness, dullness there- but it doesn't overwhelm me...

...this ache could make me feel lonely- and feed my deep expectation of abandonment; then it could turn and make me feel angry at my world.

It could make me want to hurt myself, at least to deeply doubt myself...

...but instead I am sitting on my laptop, I am inspired with the postings above. I am actually doing this as I eat my toast [with jam!]...

juggling things around so the keys don't get sticky...

...I love the company here- I relish the sharing.

:thanks

David.

DavidG...your post was perfect (heheheheh!)

It has taken me a long time to formulate the words to respond
 

Reedling, I included this quote of yours because I pondered it for days... I came to SR for my addiction to pain pills, but as soon as my head cleared, I find the posts "over here" with the ACOA's, tend to illuminate the "root cause" of my addiction issues, my need to numb out, or to distract myself, and just recently I almost fell over at the strength of a sudden flash of insight.... I create chaos when I am scared that I am going to be abandoned or when too many changes are happening in my life. I tend to make things worse by creating chaos and when emotional issues arise, good and happy emotions, as well the negative ones, I can create chaos because I had not learned "what does a person do when experiencing emotions?" I am realizing that I have become adept at stirring up chaos sneakily and subtly, and with great harm to usually no one but myself. Anything seems to be better than to feel abandoned. I also would rather deal with the fallout of the chaos I create, then experience the intense fear of abandonment... see for me, the anxiety of waiting for abandonment to happen is more terrifying than the actual abandonment. Waiting for that other shoe to drop.... seems like most of my life, I am in a state of fearfully waiting, with anticipatory anxiety as my baseline emotion. And, as an ACOA who had a raging, gambling, alcoholic father, who himself was orphaned when he lost both his mother and father within two years of turning 7 years old, presumably from complications due to alcoholism, abandonment issues feel like they are part of my genetic coding.... yes indeed, it is in the air I breathe, the water I swim in....
To give just one example, my youngest son just graduated from college and will be getting married in late summer.... my pill addiction came on at around the beginning of his junior year... I was very adept at hiding it, high functioning, working, keeping the bills paid, exhausted often, but too busy or high or numbed out to feel the anxiety, the fear, of knowing that there will be no one to focus my caring on, no one to distract me from myself and all the resultant feelings that go along with knowing I will be living alone with little to distract me and the fear of the unknown, as this will be one of the few times I will be living alone in over 35 years. In March, though, something shifted, and I abruptly quit my pills, I was done being "out of it" and pretending all was peachy keen. Some deep need to survive emerged, and I could not continue to self sabotage any longer. I wanted to be present - to feel all the feelings a "normal" (haha) mother would feel as her youngest successfully leaves the nest.
I am so tired of being afraid of my feelings... I want to feel joy, and pride, as well as loneliness and the fear of not having to care for someone as a way to distract me from the pain and grief I have accumulated over all these years. I want to be fully alive, and I have taken the first steps in doing just that. How hard it is to articulate this to accurately reflect my process, and yet how necessary.

Thank you for this amazing post. You describe so well what it is like to be living with the fear of abandonment.

About finding your way here after addressing pain pills... I have primarily abused food to shut down that fear, and since focusing on ACoA as my primary program, I have had great relief from long standing food problems. I'm still powerless over food per OA, but food trouble is now a symptom for me of ACoA issues and not an addictive/compulsive behavior with a life of its own. I needed to do the OA work but eventually needed to spend my time working on ACOA issues to recover... I didn't expect my food issues to get so much better so quickly once I did, so that was a really big payoff for doing the ACoA work.